“Are you afraid of the work?” she says.
“No.”
She turns away, pulls a book off her shelf, and hands it to me. “Are you sure?”
I look at the title. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
“Have you read it?” she asks. “This is what we’re reading right now.”
I wouldn’t know a Hemingway book if he stood in front of me and read it out loud. “No.”
“Want to give it a try?”
“I’ll think about it.”
I wait for her expression to turn disappointed, but it doesn’t. She nods. “Keep it. Try it. Let me know by the end of the week?”
“Sure.” I feel a bit breathless.
Rev and I walk to our lockers, and the early buses must have started to arrive, because the hallways are slowly filling with students.
“Are you going to do it?” he says.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think you should.” He pauses. “Are you really worried they’d think you don’t belong?”
Normally, I’d deny it, but this is Rev, and I tell him everything. “Yes. Wouldn’t you be?”
He shrugs a little. “Maybe.”
I tug at the sleeve of his hoodie gently. “Maybe?”
He stops in the middle of the hallway, and for a moment, I worry I’ve pushed him too far after our conversation the other night. But he pushes the hood of his sweatshirt back. Slides the zipper down.
And then he freezes.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Jeez, Rev, at least wait till we’re alone.”
He hits me in the arm and starts walking again. The hoodie is still on, but the hood is down. The zipper stays unzipped.
“I’m wearing short sleeves,” he says after a moment.
“Okay.” I glance over. “You don’t have anything to prove, Rev.”
“I’m not ready,” he says. “Not yet.”
I shrug and try not to make this seem like a big deal. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “There’s always tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Anne Arundel County Student Mail Server INBOX - Juliet Young
No new messages
By lunchtime, he hasn’t written back.
I have no idea what that means.
In the cafeteria, I linger in the line, then casually walk past the table where he usually sits with Rev.
They’re not there.
It shouldn’t, but this feels deliberate. And not in a good way.
Rowan and Brandon welcome me to their table, but they’ve moved to the point of their courtship where everything is teasing flirtation and double entendre. Rowan is currently feeding him grapes by tossing them into his mouth, and giggling a little too hard when he misses.
I’m trying really hard to keep from sighing heavily.
A denim-clad leg swings over the bench, and weight drops beside me.
I’m somehow surprised, yet not at all, when I turn my head and find Declan straddling the bench.
He steals my breath. He looks as striking and lethal as ever, but I know his secrets. I know how much of that is a front.
“Feel like taking a walk?” he says.
“Ah . . . sure.”
And then he surprises me by taking my hand.
We’re at school, so our options are limited, but I’m under his spell and I’d walk into fire if he asked right now.
He doesn’t. He leads me out the back doors of the cafeteria and onto the quad.
The noonday sun blazes down, robbing the air of any hint of a chill. Students are scattered everywhere, but it’s more private with the open air around us.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you all morning,” he finally says.
“You didn’t email.”
He shakes his head. “I wanted to talk to you.” He looks chagrined. “And now that I’m next to you, I wish I could go back to The Dark.”
I understand exactly what he means. Butterflies ricochet around my abdomen. “Want me to pull out my phone?”
He smiles. “I’ll save that for my last resort.”
My own tongue is tied up in knots, so I smile, and we keep walking. The silence presses down.
He inhales to speak—but hesitates.
“It’s okay,” I say softly. “We don’t have to talk.”
He laughs under his breath. “I don’t know what my problem is. You know everything.”
“So do you.”
He rubs his jaw—another morning without the razor, I see—and runs a hand through his hair.
“Wait,” he says, pulling me to a stop. “I have an idea.”
He turns to face me, and before I’m ready for it, he moves close. Very close. So close that his cheek is against my cheek, and one hand is against my neck. If I take a deep breath, I’ll be pressed up against him. His breath tickles my ear, his stubble brushing my jaw.
“Is this okay?” he says softly.
“Okay? This is about three thousand times better than my idea with the phones.”
He laughs, and our chests do touch. One of his hands finds my waist. We could be dancing instead of sharing secrets. I have the sudden urge to wrap my arms around him.
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
I wet my lips. “You can tell me anything.”
“I’m sorry for the times I was mean to you. I’m trying to work on that.”
I feel light-headed, drunk on his closeness.
His thumb brushes against my neck in a soothing rhythm. “I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
“I’ve liked you since the morning you ran into me.”
I giggle and try to shove him away, but he uses the motion to pull us closer. “You have not,” I say.
“I have,” he whispers, and now his lips brush against my cheek. “I remember thinking, ‘Nice job, dickhead. Add another girl to the list of people who hate you.’”
“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you.”
“Now, that’s reassuring,” he says, but I can hear the smile in his voice. He inhales along my cheekbone, and sparks flare through my abdomen. “You should write for Hallmark.”
“All my future love letters will start with ‘To whom it may concern.’”
“Are you going to send me future love letters?”