Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“That was a mistake,” I say, shoving my flannel into my bag with a little too much force. Like I’m trying to shove that idea into my brain. Forcing it until I submit.
It can never happen again. Can it? Nope.
It’s morning. We’re fully clothed. And I haven’t said a word to him since Ben interrupted us last night.
From the hours of one thirty until ten minutes ago, I thought I was never going to sleep ever again.
I thought I was going to have to march into Dr. Waitley’s office and tell her she’s got two insomniacs now.
Congratulations! You’ve just discovered insomnia is contagious.
Now please submit my body for further study in solitary confinement.
But as my eyes fluttered open this morning, I realized that I did manage to get some shitty sleep among the squirming.
And squirm I did. Every time I closed my eyes, there he was.
His hands. His lips. His moans.
It shouldn’t have been that good.
Chapter nine of Mom’s book: The Illusion of Rekindling Desire & Why It Usually Fails.
I glance up at Xander, who’s studying me from his side of the bed. “Are you telling me or you?” he says, one eyebrow raised.
“Both,” I say. This makes Xander bust out in full-body laughter. I look past him toward the door. Longingly.
“Will I see you tonight?” he says, a strain in his voice as he catches me fantasizing about walking out of here and never coming back. Never seeing Xander again. Never having to deal with the aftermath of my lapse in judgment.
His eyes widen when I don’t answer immediately. Those red-rimmed eyes. I ignore how it tugs on a piece of me that I usually reserve for Em and instead focus on my empty bank account.
“I’ll be here,” I say, reassuring him with a tight nod. “But I think we might need to set some—”
“Rules?”
“Exactly.”
“No dating. No sex. No falling in love,” Xander says, reciting the rules we made the day we met eleven years ago. When we decided to become friends. That we inevitably broke, because you can’t deny chemistry. I can’t believe he remembers. “Looks like we didn’t break any rules last night.”
Technically, he’s right.
But my brain is still trying to make it make sense. How was it so fucking good? Why is my body still vibrating six hours later? And how is it possible to feel like I’m one flashback away from coming undone? I squeeze my eyes shut. Ignore it.
“Ash?”
“What we had was nothing more than chemistry,” I say, trying to find an explanation.
“Right, Miss Ashleigh,” Xander says, anchoring into the frame of reference for this conversation. I am a chemistry teacher. I will use chemistry to explain this.
“A chemical reaction,” I say, looking down at my hands.
“Is that why it felt so good?” he says, his voice thick like smoke. My eyes snap to him.
“Yes.” I breathe out. His voice pulling me in. And for the second time in my entire life, I wonder if breaking my rules might be worth it. And then I remember the reason I don’t break my rules. “Wait.”
“Can’t a chemical reaction ever be repeated?” he asks. Normally, the teacher within me would perk up that someone has expressed genuine interest. But when it comes to Xander, I have to tread carefully.
“A chemical reaction is irreversible,” I say. “Like when a log burned in a fire turns to ashes, but the ashes can’t be changed back into a log.” I omit the new evidence thanks to last night that our chemical reaction can be repeated.
“Okay,” he says, accepting his fate. “So just to clarify then, what we just did was so incredible, it changed your life irreversibly forever?” He says it like he’s delivering his closing argument to the jury.
“No,” I scoff. “It’s not my fault you’re too dense to understand.”
“You’re an excellent chemistry teacher. Don’t sell yourself short,” he says, smirking.
Fuck. And just like that, I’ve managed to walk myself into another battle of the comeback. Every time I think I’ve got him, I realize too little too late he’s got me. It seems our dynamic is that I set him up, and he knocks me down.
I literally have nothing to say to this. It’s true. The awards hanging in the dark room of Principal Holland’s office, in the empty hallways of a school that’s shut for the summer, are proof. And yes, I am smart. Regardless of how good Xander is at making me squirm.
I look at him and he’s carefully placing his folded T-shirt and boxers into his bag. Like his methods—compared to my haphazard stuffing—give him the high ground in this. Not for long.
“You’re projecting,” I say, launching my counter.
“What?”
“You’re the one whose life changed irreversibly forever,” I say, unleashing a smile right before changing to a mock shock expression. “What? You think you walked away unscathed? Please, it takes two elements to tango.”
He frowns but doesn’t speak. I revel in reducing Xander to silence, a much welcome change from his carefully crafted comebacks. “You were the wood. I was the fire. Now, you’re ash.”
“Your name is literally Ash,” he says, bumbling the delivery. Fuck, it feels good to take him down a few pegs.
“You’re grasping at straws. It’s pathetic,” I say, feeling like I’m circling a victory here. “So in that case, I want to apologize, for cataclysmically changing your life.” Now it’s my time to smirk at him.
“You didn’t,” he says, scoffing.
“So we were both equally unaffected?” I say, trying my best to remain innocent on the outside. But if he’s going to talk shit then I owe him nothing.
“Yes,” he says through gritted teeth. Like lying isn’t his day job. Please.
“Good boy,” I say, my stomach dropping at the innuendo. Oh Ash, you didn’t just say that. It’s out in the open now—if I want to win the battle of the wit, then I must commit.
I force myself to look at him, willing myself not to break. His eyes lock on mine. My stomach does a lazy forward roll. It’s official. He’s staring at me. And I’m staring at him. And what we have here, is a stare off. I count my breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
There is no way I’m losing this stare off. Especially after the “good boy” comment. I’ll never live it down. Don’t break, Ash. Don’t break.
The only difference is that his eyes have grown dark and I have no idea how to recover from this. So I break.
“Here,” I say, throwing his T-shirt and boxers across the bed, doing my best to wrap this up.
Of course, trying to throw the lightest, softest, most comfortable cotton across the bed doesn’t work.
They both flutter to the mattress, landing in the middle.
“Shit.” I get up on the bed to reach for my pathetic attempt, when I feel them being shoved into my hands.
No. I push against the resistance, trying to return them to their owner, but then they’re immediately back in my hands.
I finally look up and see Xander. Leaning on the bed. Meeting me in the middle.
“Keep them,” he says, and the clothes are back in my hands.
“I don’t want them,” I say, shoving them back into his hands. It lasts all of two seconds because they’re back in my hands.
“You might not want them. But you’re going to need them.”
“I don’t need them,” I say, making another attempt to return them. This time, though, I put my back into it as I shove the clothes in his hands and hold his wrists. I will not be walking out of this sleep study with your fucking sleepwear.
Physics, though, is not on my side. Because Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that whenever one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts equal and opposite force on the first. It appears we’re at a stalemate. Fucking Newton.
What happens next happens so quickly I’m going to need Ms. Chatterjee, the physics teacher, to explain it to me, because Xander stops pushing against me and I end up facedown on the mattress, his clothes still in my hands.
I see Xander looking down at me, pressing his lips together, holding in a laugh. His whole unfazed demeanor sends white hot anger through me.
I am so fucking sick of Xander Miller.
My rage unlocks access to the self-defense class Em and I took a couple of summers back and I reach up and get a fistful of Xander’s T-shirt, yanking him hard toward me.
This coupled with the edge of the mattress sends him off balance and falling toward me.
I grab hold of his other sleeve and use it as leverage to roll on top of him.
Holy shit. I can’t believe that worked.
I am officially on top of Xander Miller.
“Fine, I’ll take the clothes back,” Xander says, waving the white flag. It comes out low and a little harsh. I stuff the boxer shorts into one hand and the T-shirt into the other. He mercifully takes them.
And just when I think it’s over, his eyes skate down my body and rest where our hips are pressed together. Fuck. I am officially straddling Xander Miller.
“Ash,” he says, strained. “You’re going to need to get off me right now.”
I scramble off him as quick as humanly possible, ignoring the hard lines of his belt buckle. At least, I think it’s his belt buckle.
I turn to grab my bag before walking out the door, not looking back.
I hit the speed dial on Emily’s number. She picks up after one ring.
“Xander Miller is going to be the death of me,” I say at the exact moment I almost bump into Dr. Waitley.
Oh, shit.
“Morning, Ashleigh,” she says, unreadable as always. I hang up on Em while she’s in the middle of rallying me.
“Morning, Dr. Waitley,” I say, trying not to freak out.
Did she hear?
Are we fucked?
She studies me for a moment.
Oh, we’re so fucked.
But instead of calling me into her office, she offers me a curt nod. “Have a great day,” she says before continuing on her way.
Crisis averted. For now.