Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Kian
“All right, contestants, listen up. The game is balloon pass. Each couple gets a balloon placed between their bodies and, without using their hands, they have to get it from their stomachs to their heads with good ol’ teamwork.”
Scarlett stares at me, her expression blank, but I can tell she’d rather be doing anything but this. All I can think of is the fact that she actually said yes. The girl spends her time locked in a private study pod in the library. She does not want to be onstage right now.
But she is, because I asked her to.
“Have you played this before?” I ask her, hoping to hear whether she’s pissed at me for bringing her up here. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dragged someone here against their will.
She shakes her head. “We don’t do a lot of this in the library.”
“We got this, Scar.”
“There’s a sizable height difference here, Ishida,” she says, skeptical.
“We’ll make it work.”
The host continues to tell us the rules, the time limit, and how the winner gets breakfast at Lola’s. That’s when Scarlett looks at me, shaking her head in amusement.
“Seriously? All this for the diner. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“It’s the principle, Scar.”
Before she can say anything else, we’re given a small balloon filled with some liquid. The host places it right between us, forcing our bodies to hold it there. I’m close enough that I tower over Scarlett and can feel the warmth that radiates off her.
I crouch slightly, meeting her gaze. “It’ll be easy. We just have to try not to pop it.”
Scarlett nods, her brows pinched and her gaze completely focused. It’s the same look she gets when she’s studying or marking one of my mock tests. My chest tightens when she steps closer, the space between us shrinking.
The balloon is small and fragile-looking, and it presses lightly against her as she instinctively leans back a fraction, testing the weight. I mirror her, keeping my balance.
The buzzer goes off and the host yells, “Go!”
Scarlett’s eyes dart down to the balloon and back to mine.
Her hands stay firmly at her sides, just as mine do.
She exhales sharply and leans forward, trying to inch the balloon upward along our bodies.
I adjust, tilting slightly, and watching as she crouches, trying to slide it up the length of me with her chest.
The crowd is cheering us on, laughing as we all struggle to get the balloon higher. I live for this. Having fun, making people laugh—it’s been my favorite thing since I was kid.
I try not to stare, I really do, but she’s got the balloon cushioned right by her cleavage, helping it along. The balloon trembles against her chest, then my stomach, threatening to escape at any moment.
She squeaks out a short gasp before I press more firmly against her, keeping the balloon in place, grateful that it doesn’t pop.
“Careful…” I breathe, leaning closer than I probably should.
“It would help if you did some of the work,” she says, getting it up to my chest.
My face brushes her hair for a second, and I inhale, basking in the sweetness and the warmth radiating from her. My pulse spikes.
There’s a small, almost imperceptible shiver that runs through her body, and I’m not sure whether it’s from the closeness or the anticipation. Her lips part as she exhales, and I move with her, guiding the balloon along.
“Almost there,” I whisper over the chaos of the crowd.
The balloon edges closer to our heads, and I can’t stop the small, satisfied grin creeping onto my face.
When it finally rests precariously between our foreheads, I don’t know what happens, whether I short-circuit or time slows down for a moment, but we stand there, staring at each other, until the host calls on us.
She laughs, breathy and surprised, and I can feel her heart beat against mine. My hands are still at my sides, but every inch of me feels like it’s pressed against her.
“Nice work, Scar.”
“I can’t believe you got me to do this,” she says.
The host brings the attention back to us. “And these are our winners, folks.”
We pull apart immediately, letting the balloon drop, but I catch it just as Scarlett’s hand reaches out reflexively, catching mine, then pulling away like she’s been stung.
I pass the balloon to the host, who fumbles with it as he tries to hold the mic too. I take Scarlett’s hand, lifting it in the air. The crowd cheers us, and the host hands us a coupon for a date at Lola’s.
“That was sick! I got it all on video,” Cole says, waving his phone like a trophy. Cassie glances between us, lingering on Scarlett a little longer than she did when we first arrived.
“Of course you would win,” she says, shaking her head with a laugh.
Scarlett is extra quiet when we sit back at the table. Cole takes the seat closest to her, and Cassie sits with me. Somehow this feels like it’s becoming the exact thing it’s not supposed to.
I promised her this wasn’t a date. Well, actually I insisted that it wasn’t.
So the moment the last singer of the night walks offstage and the usual band that plays nights gets on, the lights turn low and the bass pumps through the floorboards. They start to move the tables by the stage away, clearing the floor for people to dance.
When Cassie presses a hand to my arm, I duck down to hear her over the music. “Did you like my song?”
“Yeah, it was beautiful, Cass. Did you write it yourself?”
She nods. “It was for a music class, but I kept working on it after and I think it’s pretty good.”
I nod, trying to focus on her, but Cole and Scarlett stand from the table and walk to the bar. I’m watching their departure when Cassie pulls my attention back.
“They’re probably just going to the bar. She’ll be fine with him.”
I hum in acknowledgment, not liking the way my stomach tightens when they both move out of my line of sight. Cassie says something, and I know I should probably be listening to be polite, but I can’t pry my gaze away from the bar. Then I spot Scarlett’s bright hair again.
She’s laughing with Cole. But her attention’s all over the place, eyes glittering under the lights.
The brown top I picked out for her clings to her like a second skin, outlining each curve on her body, until her skirt takes over, sending my gaze plunging lower until—what the fuck am I doing?
I see Cole whisper something to her, pointing to the tattoos on her arm and leaning down to hear what she has to say. I try and fail, for the second time, to pull my gaze away.
I should be over there. Should be the one standing too close, making her laugh, pulling her attention back where it belongs. Back to me.
But instead, I’m here trying to focus on Cassie, who is the reason I’m in this bar in the first place.
“You seem distracted,” she says, tilting her head, her hand brushing my arm like she’s trying to reel me back in.
Yeah. Distracted is one word for it.
“Do I?” I say, dragging my eyes back to Cassie, forcing my voice steady, but it’s already a lost cause. Because my gaze keeps finding Scarlett. How her smile tugs higher with each thing Cole says to her. How her hair falls over her shoulder, messy and perfect. How her eyes dart toward me finally.
“Yeah, you’ve been in your head this whole time.”
I feel like a dick. “Sorry, my mind’s been a bit of a jumble.” The reason being my tutor.
And then I don’t hear what she says because Scarlett’s moving and suddenly she’s on the dance floor, watching Cole bang his head to the band.
“You wanna dance?” Cassie asks.
I pull myself back. I can’t keep watching her like a guard dog.
“Sure.” Cassie and I head to the dance floor, and that’s when the band finishes their set.
The music goes back to the speakers, something slow, all smoke and heat, and I don’t like this.
Not the way Cole is looking at Scarlett, and definitely not the way he’s dancing.
They’re not even touching, and Scarlett is dancing, but it’s close to him, almost as close as we were earlier.
I feel like a bad friend bringing her here and forcing her into a situation she’d rather not be in.
So instead of letting that happen, I move through the crowd, wedging my shoulder between them and standing in front of Scarlett.
Her eyes widen, then, as if something dawns on her, she tiptoes up and I lean down to hear her. “Is this not a good look for my rep?”
It takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. And then I shake my head, hating that that’s the first thought in her head. “No, you’re fine. But it wouldn’t hurt if you were with me.”
She gives me a look. “So first you drag me here, and now you want to dance?”
There’s a teasing note to her voice that makes the hair on the nape of my neck stand up, it doesn’t help that she’s got a hand on my shoulder, trying to balance herself there so she can press her lips to my ear as she talks.
It’s entirely too much, but I don’t pull away.
I could keep talking to her, right here, like this, forever.
“You won’t give me one pity dance? I think I deserve it.”
She chuckles, and the sound zings down my spine. “If you can answer one question.”
“Scar, you can’t test me in the middle of a dance floor. You’re not my tutor here.”
What is she, then?
She presses closer. “Guess it depends on how much you want this dance.”
“Fine, hit me.”
Her eyes brighten. “What does it mean if the P value is 0.05?” The question slips off her lips, and I wonder how a statistics question makes me feel this way. I actually think I’d ace Dunn’s course if he had Scarlett ask the questions like this.
It’s a basic question, almost too basic. But when she pulls back to look at me, I see the slight smile on her face. I know she’s taking it easy on me.
A part of me wants to answer it wrong, hoping she’d be so appalled that she’d drag me to the library right now and torture me with mock tests until I understood it. But I think I’d rather dance with her here.
“Statistically significant. Reject the null hypothesis.”
There’s a bright smile on her face when I pull back.
“Okay, I’m a woman of my word. One dance for you,” she says, just as the music changes and “Promiscuous” starts to play.
The song makes Scarlett throw her head back on a laugh, and when she dances, it’s all hips and heat.
The lights catch the shimmer on her skin as she turns, letting the rhythm roll through her, her hair swaying and skimming my abdomen as she moves.
I tell myself not to stare, to just dance with her like I would anyone else, but that goes up in smoke when she turns, hips rolling, shoulders relaxed, and eyes on me. She slides her hair over her shoulder, catching the light, and it’s like the beat syncs with my pulse.
I’m not sure how long I watch her, trying to dance while I attempt not to focus on the way my heart feels like it’s going to pound clean out of my chest. But then the song changes, and instead of a few minutes, our dance felt like hours, yet somehow still too short.
That’s when Cole comes back to her side and Cassie returns to mine.
Cassie pulls me toward her, and we dance together, but my mind is still stuck on red.