“He’s moving back here,” she said slowly. “With his new family.”
I winced, sucking air in through my teeth. “Ouch.”
She nodded. “I just…” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what to say to him.”
“You don’t want him moving back?” I asked.
She pursed her lips, her legs swinging to a rhythm of her own making. “I don’t know.”
I watched her in silence because I got the feeling she wasn’t done.
“I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, my mom just got remarried this year, so I’m already being forced to bond with three near-stranger stepsiblings and a new stepdad. Isn’t that enough?” She rubbed at her eyes. “Not to mention…” She trailed off with a sigh. “Nevermind. Sorry. This isn’t your problem.”
I eyed her for a while, my chest doing something it had never done before as I took in this new Max. The same, but new. Or maybe I was the one who felt different. I didn’t know. All I knew was that despite the creepy surroundings and the fact that this school was likely being trashed as the little monsters out there ran wild...I didn’t want to leave this stupid closet.
I leaned over and nudged her shoulder like she’d done to me. “I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
She gave a little snort of amusement. “Okay, fine. I guess….” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “I guess I just don’t know how I’m supposed to act now. Like, my dad and whatever woman he was dating were always in this other world. I’d visit, but there were boundaries. Rules.”
“You’re big on rules,” I teased when she trailed off.
Her lips curved up slightly, and I felt like I’d won the biggest basketball game of my life.
“Yeah, I guess I am. I like knowing where things fit. Where people belong.” She exhaled loudly. “That sounds nuts, right?”
“No, I get it. You compartmentalize.”
Her head whipped around so she could stare at me, and one of her wild curls smacked me in the face in the process.
“What? I do know words that are longer than one syllable, you know.” I was only half teasing. She loved to make fun of me for being a brainless jock, and while I knew it shouldn’t get to me...it did.
“I know.” Said so simply and yet it hit me like a blow. “I mean, I know you get good grades.”
“You do?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dude, I know everything about you.”
Fear and a weird sort of happiness collided in my chest with a loud bang. “You do?”
She arched her brows, and her look said I was a moron. “Of course I do.” She pointed to herself. “Avery’s best friend, remember?”
I winced. Crap. Of course, she knew everything about me. Everything bad.
The worst part was? Her judgment was spot on.
“Your turn,” she said.
“My turn for what?”
“Truth.”
I eyed her again because she looked weirdly intense. Her gaze cut through the darkness and seemed to be seeing everything. I had the unnerving sensation that this girl could see straight through me.
I’d always sort of felt that way around Max—she’d never once been fooled by a nice smile or a friendly word—but right now it was way more intense than ever.
She could see everything...and I already knew that she hated what she saw.
I turned to face the door. Truth, she’d said. She already knew the truth about me. “Aren’t I supposed to have a choice? I mean, it’s kind of spelled out in the name of the game.”
She ignored my joking tone. “Truth, Alex. Why didn’t you ever hook up with Avery?”
Seven
Max
My heart was beating too fast.
I would have chalked it up to too much soda with my pizza, but I’d never been very good at lying to myself.
My heart was racing for a million reasons, and every single one of them had to do with this guy sitting right next to me, so close I could feel his thigh brush against mine.
“Are you two going to kiss or not?” one of the girls asked.
“Not,” I snapped.
I heard their whines and ignored them. Clearly we were ruining their fun by not playing along, but there was no way I was going to let these demon spawn force me into kissing my worst enemy.
He was eyeing me oddly, and that little part of me that didn’t believe in lying to myself? It was squawking right now.
Okay, fine, so maybe for tonight he wasn’t my enemy. But tomorrow he would be.
“Why does it matter?” he asked. His pretty, twinkling blue eyes looked dark in this dim lighting, and his gaze bore into mine.
My mouth went inexplicably dry as I tried to focus on his words. Why did it matter?
Why did it matter?
Avery was over it. She wasn’t just over it. She was relieved that Alex had never noticed her. As she put it, how awkward would it have been if she’d met the love of her life while she was dating his brother?
So yeah. She was happy about the fact that Alex had ignored her for three years. But me…?
That old anger reared to the surface. “Why do I care?” I snapped, leaning toward him so he could see my fury. “Maybe because she’s my best friend and I spent three years watching her pine over a guy who couldn’t even give her the time of day.”
His flinch was subtle, but I caught it. And for some reason, it pissed me off even more. Something about it spoke of regret or sympathy. Pity, even.
No one pitied my best friend. Definitely not the guy who’d hurt her in the first place.
All those years’ worth of anger was back in full force now, and I was ready to kick myself for ever having forgotten. For having let myself think that he was different tonight.
He hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. He was still the same self-absorbed, conceited jerk who’d let my best friend wallow in infatuation for three years.
That’s why I steer clear of nice girls like you. This Jason guy should know better.
I swallowed a crashing wave of...something. I couldn’t name it, but I definitely didn’t like it. I didn’t want to feel it. It was beating up against the anger that always reared to the forefront whenever I saw Alex’s smiling face.
But he wasn’t smiling now as he looked away from me.
I leaned in closer, refusing to be ignored. “Avery is beautiful and smart and one of the kindest people on this planet—”
“I know.” He bit out the words like he was angry too. Or if not angry, he was battling some sort of dark emotion, and I hated how much I wanted to know what it was.
“She threw herself at you every chance she got,” I continued. “She flirted with you and followed you around like a puppy. The girl signed up to take care of a fake baby for you!”
He turned so quickly I had to jerk my head back to keep our noses from colliding. “I said, I know. What’s your point?”
“My point is...she’s pretty.”
“You said that already,” he muttered.
“Well, she is. It’s an incontrovertible fact.”
He just stared at me.
“So?” I prompted. “Why didn’t you date her or hook up with her or…” I waved a hand, wrinkling my nose in disgust. “Or whatever it is you do with those girls you hang out with.”
The expression on his face was unreadable, and not just because we were shrouded in shadows. The silence lasted long enough that I knew something was going on in that annoyingly handsome head of his.
But he looked away, his jaw clenched tight as he shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
My mouth dropped open, and I could have sworn it felt like he’d punched me in the gut. For a second there I’d been feeling...something. A connection. An honesty I rarely got with anyone outside Avery and my mom, and he...he just shut it down.
I let out a growling sound that was mildly embarrassing before shoving his shoulder to make him look at me. “I don’t believe you.”
“You’re the one who likes to point out h
ow clueless I am.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not that stupid. And when it comes to girls, I know you’re not blind.”
He arched his brows mockingly. “Is that a compliment?”
“Definitely not.”
His smirk was familiar and it made my belly twist with rage. “Why do you care?” he said. “Honestly. She and Cristian are happily together now. Everyone is happy.”
“Oh yeah, you seem real happy,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, you’re sad. You’re pathetic.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, even though I knew I should. I was crossing a line. They were too hurtful. Too mean. But years’ worth of anger refused to be ignored. It came pouring out of me like poison. “You think I buy your vacant smiles? Do you really think I believe that you’re satisfied just because everyone worships you and thinks you’re God’s gift?”
“Are you trying to insult me right now?” he asked, half turning to face me. “Because I hate to break it to you, but you’re failing big time.” But I heard the anger in his voice, I felt his tension. “What is your problem with me, Max?” He was leaning forward so he was in my face. “You’ve been nasty to me for months now, so just get it over with. Spit it out, whatever it is you want to say.”
“She’s too good for you.” I shouted it in his face, my hands shaking as I clenched them in my lap. “She always has been. Do you know how much it sucked to sit by and watch her crying over some self-absorbed jock who couldn’t see that the most amazing girl in the world was in love with him?”
“I know, okay?” His voice had risen too, and I was shocked to hear the passion there. “I know. I’ve always known that she was too good for me.”
That’s why I steer clear of nice girls like you.
His words from earlier hit me smack in the face like he’d just screamed it at me, and I drew back with a gulp of air.
My heart was hammering in my ears as the adrenaline of anger was replaced by confusion and then understanding and then…
Something shifted. A jolt again, but this time it wasn’t just my perspective. It was...everything.
Physically it felt like the earth jerked out from underneath me, even though I was still sitting in the same position. Mentally it felt like everything I’d thought I’d known had been wiped away, twisted on its head.
Meanwhile my heart...my heart was twisting with guilt and regret as my everything shifted with a sickening lurch.
“You stayed away from her on purpose,” I said. My voice was so quiet compared to a second ago. The difference was deafening. “You stayed away from her because you thought….”
“Because I knew she was too good for me,” he said. He threw his hands out wide. “There. Happy now?”
No. No, I wasn’t happy because his words gutted me, and the look in his eyes, that flash of self-loathing, it left me aching on his behalf.
He hadn’t ignored her because he was selfish. In a way, he’d been selfless. He could have taken advantage of her feelings, but he hadn’t.
But that wasn’t what had me reeling.
I’d always hated his charming smile and his cocky attitude because it rang false. I’d thought that meant he was fake and shallow and self-absorbed.
But that wasn’t it at all. It seemed fake because it was fake. He didn’t think he was God’s gift. He thought he was unworthy.
Unworthy of anyone nice or real or who genuinely liked him.
Crap. What was happening here? I was sitting still, but my insides were churning. My emotions were rocketing wildly from one direction to the next. I shut my eyes as if that would keep them from spinning. One minute he was my enemy, the next my ally, and then he was someone I actually felt sorry for. Or at least, I understood him, and that…
That was just plain bizarre.
I didn’t want to understand Alex Luven. I wanted to hate him. Hating him was easy, but this…?
This was confusing.
He shifted off the seat, heading toward the door, his voice a low boom like he’d used with that gawky kid in the gym at the start of the night. “That’s enough, kid. Let us out.”
I heard rapid-fire whispering on the other end as our kidnappers discussed what to do.
“You still have four minutes.” A girl peeked through the grill at the bottom of the door. “Or you two could just kiss already.”
Four minutes. I frowned. Was that even right? Who was keeping time out there?
His hands clenched at his sides, and his whole body seemed to vibrate with tension. “Right. We’re getting out of here.” He spun around and stalked toward me. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, and then...he kissed me.
It happened in the blink of an eye. One second I was coming to my feet, my lips opening on a question and the next he was reaching for me, tugging me toward him and crushing his lips to mine with a searing heat that wiped my brain clean.
The world came down to his lips on mine, on the way our mouths seemed to meld together seamlessly like we’d kissed a million times before.
But nothing else about this moment felt familiar. This wasn’t at all like the awkward kiss I’d shared with my camp crush three summers ago, and it was even less like that one kiss I’d had with a football player when I’d stupidly said I’d tag along to one of the parties Avery liked to go to.
This kiss was...not that. His lips were hot and firm over mine, and that heat seemed to spread in a heartbeat from my lips to my toes, filling in everywhere in between with this warm, fuzzy, delicious heat. My head spun with it, my body shook from it, and my heart seemed to be melting from this chemical reaction, this primal response, this crazy overwhelming feeling of belonging. Of fitting together.
No, this kiss couldn’t even be compared to my other utterly forgettable kisses. This wasn’t messy or awkward or…meaningless.
It felt like it meant everything. Which was crazy because it ended just as quickly as it started. He didn’t deepen the kiss or hold me closer to prolong the moment.
He let me go.
I stumbled back a step, my eyes unfocused when I opened them, my heart threatening to catapult itself out of my chest.
He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes dark and unreadable. The only sign that he was moved at all was the way his chest was rising and falling like he’d just gotten done with a run.
Only then did I register the sound from the other side of the door. From our audience. They were cheering and laughing and…
Oh holy crap. How had I forgotten that he was kissing me for show?
No. Worse. He was kissing me to get out of a storage closet.
I landed back in reality with a thud.
He was kissing me so he could get away from me.
My heart fell to the pit of my stomach.
The door opened, and we were greeted by squealing, cheering girls like we were a boy band arriving off the plane from overseas.
“That was so hot,” one of the girls said as Alex swept past her, leaving me to follow behind.
I paused in the doorway and managed a glare at the girls around me, even though my heart was still pounding like crazy. “You all are in so much trouble.”
They didn’t seem to hear me. One of the girls latched onto my arm, her eyes wide with awe. “I can’t believe you kissed Alex Luven.”
I suddenly understood how it felt to have a fan club.
I stared at her for a second as her words registered. Okay, fine, so maybe I didn’t have a fan club. Alex did.
I pried her fingers from my arm as I tried to come to grips with the fact that I had just kissed Alex Luven.
That Alex Luven had just kissed me.
Nothing about that was right. What would Avery say?
This was a complete and utter disaster. The world as I knew it had just been flipped upside down, and my head was reeling—from my body’s very physical reaction to the feel of his lips on mine, b
ut also from everything else. What he’d said, what I’d realized, and the fact that I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about Alex Luven anymore.
I wasn’t sure I could continue hating him even if I wanted to.
More alarming...I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
The girl beside me leaned her head against my arm with a dreamy sigh as she repeated herself. “I can’t believe you kissed Alex Luven.”
I looked down at her. She couldn’t believe it?
I let out a choked laugh as I started to walk away. “Join the club.”
Eight
Alex
Mistake.
That was a mistake.
I had made such a monumental mistake.
That was all I could think over the next two hours as I threw myself back into chaperone duty like it was my job. Which it was, so I guess that was a good thing.
After reaming out the kids who’d locked us in the closet, I put an end to Truth or Dare and forced the kids to watch another movie. Scream ended, so I put on an action flick.
Max took the group of girls back to the auditorium and had been keeping them company. I had no idea what she was up to in there with them, but I didn’t hear any screaming, so I had to assume she had it under control.
I could have gone and checked on them, I supposed, but I hadn’t. And I wasn’t about to now, even though my crew were either watching the movie, sleeping, or whispering quietly amongst themselves.
Nope. I would not go in there. I found myself eyeing the door to the cafeteria as if she might burst through at any moment.
It wasn’t like I was avoiding her or anything, I was just…
I glanced back at the door again.
Okay, fine, I was avoiding her. I shifted in my seat. This movie might have been action-packed, but it was terrible. Definitely not intriguing enough to keep my interest. But then again, not even breaking up an almost-fistfight between two scrawny little twerps had been enough to keep my mind off that kiss in the storage closet. Or the girl.
The fight hadn’t escalated beyond a couple of shoves, and I had a suspicion it was due to too much sugar and not enough sleep, and I’d ended it by putting them in separate corners.
Sleepover with the Enemy (How to Catch a Crush Book 5) Page 7
