He bites his lips, a red blush rising up from his throat to his cheeks. “Fuck.”
I gape. “What? I’m shocked you’re actually embarrassed. By the way, is it true you only do it from behind?”
He glowers at me as his hands clench, and a fissure of triumph runs through my body. I finally got to him.
“Ugh, you saw me!” His hands tug at his hair.
“Uh-huh.”
He blows out a breath. “Look, erase that from your head.”
Not likely.
“Just the thought of someone like you…seeing me like that…” He grimaces and scrubs his face. “I’m sorry you saw that.”
“Who is someone like me?”
“No one. You’re no one here.”
Huh. Is that right?
I laugh bitterly. “Today when I said you’d peaked in high school and you’re going to end up alone and crying and addicted to porn? I forgot to mention you’ll probably spend most of your time drunk-dialing skanky ex-girlfriends and hookers. You won’t ever play football in college. No one will want you. You suck. You can’t even win a state championship, and trust me, this school demands one. The rumor is I really screwed up last year’s season. Not sorry.”
I expect him to get pissed.
“Actually, you did get in my head pretty good this morning.” He sighs. “But if you tell anyone that, I’ll call you a liar.”
I do a little clap. “Ohhhh, I screwed with the great Knox Grayson. This moment is sweet! Do I get a medal? How about a mention in the yearbook? Oh, how about an honorary sash to wear? I’ll have it say Beat Knox At His Own Game.”
He opens his mouth and then closes it.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“What?” I snap.
He grimaces. “You really should stay away from me, Tulip. You shouldn’t have sat next to me. I don’t want to be your friend.”
“Huh. You offered, remember? Walk away then. Get on with it, Shark. I didn’t ask you to stop and talk to me. Shoo.”
He studies me, unmoving. A gust of wind catches his hair, moving it over his scar, and he brushes at it, never dropping those smoky eyes from my face. The silence and tension builds between us, and I…I find that it’s more than just disliking him. It’s electric, thrumming through my veins.
I shrug it off. “Besides, I’m not afraid to sit next to you. I’ve done self-defense training recently, and honestly, I can hurt you if I want to. Groin area. Throat punch. There’s even a special headlock where you pass out.”
My words bother him, and he grimaces then looks away from me. “I didn’t hurt you that night.”
I know. He wasn’t even there. He left early with Tawny.
I’ll kill him with my bare hands.
But his brother…
He reaches down and rubs his hands across the rubber. “Slow leak?”
I pause and wipe at the sweat on my brow. “You think? Or did someone do it on purpose?”
His thumb presses against a spot on the tire, his eyes studying the wheel as if it’s a puzzle. “Puncture, and not a nail. Looks like someone sliced it.”
I exhale. I already saw the cut. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. It doesn’t matter. Besides, I have a spare, and I know how to change a tire.”
“Let me do it.”
“I don’t need you to help me, okay? I can save myself. Been doing it all my life.”
“I know you can save yourself.”
“You don’t know anything about me!” I sigh, frustrated. I don’t want him here. “Why are you being nice, Knox? You don’t want to be my friend!”
His eyes meet mine, searching my face. “Do you need a reason right now—in this heat?”
A bead of sweat slides down my throat. His eyes watch it.
“Fine,” I say. “You want to take the spare down from the back? Also, do you happen to have a lug wrench in your car? I do, but mine’s all rusted and…”
Before I can finish, he’s already jogging over to a black Mercedes-Benz SUV, popping the back, and riffling through it. He holds up a sparkly new wrench and runs back over. I try really hard to not notice how gorgeous he is.
He bends down next to me. “First, let’s get the nuts off.”
I almost say That’s what she said, but then I remember who he is—not my friend—and stop.
Bending down with him, I watch as he removes the last nut, slips the tire off, and puts the spare on, the tightly roped muscles of his forearms straining as he lifts and secures it. He glances up, catching my eyes. “Why are you smiling?”
“I’m smirking in a condescending way—big difference. Just enjoying the sight of Cold and Evil doing hard work.” I grab the flat tire and attach it to the back of my Jeep. He stands, and I feel the heat of his gaze watching me.
Knox Grayson never paid me much attention in the years I went here, and the truth is, I’m a bit discombobulated by his nearness—in class today, in the office, and right now.
I turn and we’re just…staring at each other. More of that stupid tension rises.
A prickle of awareness goes down my spine, as if somehow he knows what I’m thinking.
He’s the first to break our concentration. With one step, he’s closer to me. Reaching out, he fingers a piece of hair that was in my eyes and puts it behind my ear.
First I freeze.
Then I take a step back. “Don’t do that,” I snap, frowning.
“You touched me in class. I owed you.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I can’t figure you out. I keep seeing and talking to you today.”
He shoves at his hair. “You interested in me? Get in line. Every single girl here knows what I’m about.” His eyes capture mine and he drags a finger down his scar. “They’re either repulsed by this or they’re fascinated. Which are you?”
I squint at him, waiting for that tiny bit of fear I felt from him last year to come back. It doesn’t. “Love ’em and leave ’em, right?”
He shrugs nonchalantly, and my eyes follow the movement of his broad shoulders.
“How’d you get that scar anyway?”
His face tightens, and I see a glimpse of pain before it disappears so quickly I wonder if it was ever really there.
“It’s not jagged. A nice, clean cut, almost like a knife. Did you do it?”
“No!” He flushes, glaring at me. “Just shut up about it.”
Ah, the pain of that scar still rankles.
One more thing to file away in the Knox Grayson dossier.
“Fine, it’s a secret. I have one on my inner thigh from a fork. Got it from the only foster home I stayed at. There was an older girl who didn’t want me sleeping in her room. I was ten. See?” I slightly lift up my skirt, showing him the stretched-out mark, which is about the size of my pinkie. “I slept with a rock under my pillow after that.”
He moves his gaze up slowly, landing on my face. “Did she ever try it again?”
“No, but I was ready. I would have done whatever it took to keep her away from me.”
“Fierce little thing.”
I snap my teeth at him and his lips twitch.
“Don’t laugh at me unless you want me to go into more excruciating detail about your sad, sad future.”