14. Priestley
PRIESTLEY
Will eats that ridiculous banana split while we work. I pushed mine aside after the first bite. Yes, it was delicious, but anything doused in enough sugar is going to taste good.
I should be relieved that I won the competition and Will is now taking a back seat and letting me lead, but I’m not. I’d like a little more enthusiasm from him if we are going to work together to become more coherent as a group.
The waitress brings us coffee after Will practically licks his bowl. He sits back and rubs his belly and I try not to look at the shape of his—only slightly less visible—abs through the thin fabric of his shirt.
“Are you ready to focus?” I ask.
“Yep. I’m sugar-buzzed and all yours.”
While he’s bent over the notebook, that comment he made runs through my head.
It’s some weird type of self-denial.
He looked sad for me when he said it. Like having self-restraint is a bad thing.
I don’t like the way I’ve felt since I got here.
I knew I wasn’t going to fit in with Will’s family. And I knew they would be different from my own. But everything about these past few days has sent me off balance. I do not like being this out of control.
I don’t realize how dark it is outside until the waitress starts putting chairs upside down on tables.
Will gets up to help her, leaving me sitting there with our notebooks open and not even half the work done that he’d promised me this weekend.
I glare at him while he chats and laughs with the waitress, and when he gets to our table, he cocks his head. “If you’re not gonna help, you could at least move.”
I think about asking why on earth I’d help. I’m a customer, not an employee. But I hold my tongue and move instead so he can take my chair.
“I’ll wait for you by the car,” I say, bundling up the notebooks. Will ignores me and keeps stacking chairs.
He’s no longer calm when he gets outside, zipping his jacket against the cool weather. That easy smile he wore with the waitress has snapped into something else. It almost resembles the disappointed look my father gets when anyone tells him they were less than perfect.
“What’s your problem?” he asks when he gets close enough for me to hear.
“What’s my problem?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“My problem is that I obviously came here under false pretenses—”
He lets out an incredulous laugh. “You invited yourself here, not me. I only let you come because my ma told me to.”
For some reason, that stings. Obviously I knew he didn’t want me here, it still isn’t nice hearing him say it out loud.
He winces.
“Sorry, that was—”
“No, hold on a minute. Don’t act all guilty.
I don’t care if you wanted me here or not, all I care about is the project.
And if you can’t make yourself care more, then that’s your problem.
Actually …” I force out a laugh, running a hand through my hair.
He swallows and his eyes get wider as he looks at me.
“You’ve done me a favor. Now I know I’m going to beat you.
It’s the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare.
You may have gotten off the starting block faster, but now I can see you have absolutely no stamina.
You don’t have what it takes to go the distance.
Whereas I’m used to playing the long game, you—”
I noticed him taking a step closer, but I don’t have time to ask him what he’s doing before he yanks me closer by the jacket and kisses me. It catches me off guard, as does the moan that rips through me the second I feel his mouth on mine.
His hand grips the back of my neck. He tastes painfully sweet, with the slightest bitter hint of coffee. I sink into it for a second, letting him coax my mouth open with his tongue. A wave of heat washes over me and my eyes roll the way they did the second I took a bite of that dessert.
It feels so good. Too good. No, I can’t let this happen.
I push him away. Try not to look at him while I fix myself. Smooth my hair down, fix my rumpled jacket.
“Rosie?”
My cheeks tint at the nickname. I hate that nickname, don’t I?
“Hey.” He touches my arm and I have to fight to stop myself from sinking into it. From giving up.
I have worked too hard for too long to be everything I need to be. I’m not going to fall at the final hurdle. Not when I’m so close.
“I will not let you get into my head.”
I allow myself the quickest of glances. He’s frowning.
“Your mind games won’t work on me.”
“Mind games?” he asks.
“Let’s just go back to the house. This whole weekend was a colossal waste of my time.”
WILL
I grit my teeth all the way back to the house, turning my victory playlist off so Priestley doesn’t taint it.
Why the fuck did I kiss him? I can’t explain it. This need just came over me watching him lose his shit. It’s no excuse, though. I can control myself around good-looking guys. Especially ones I don’t even like.
It’s just … seeing Priestley be vulnerable, it melted the ice a little. And I just wanted to find a way to get him to shut up.
And … something deep down told me he wanted me to kiss him.
I saw him checking me out in the library.
I’m not blind, I know when someone’s staring at my junk.
Priestley Rosenthal is queer. The fact he feels like he has to hide it only makes me want to scratch under that prickly surface even more.
Give him the option to let go. To be himself for five seconds of his life without putting on an act.
But maybe he’s more far gone than I thought.
He ignores me while I drive, flipping through the notebook in his lap so hard I think he’s gonna rip the pages. Every time I think about speaking, I bite my tongue.
I don’t know how we’re gonna endure the journey back to college if this is how a short car ride is with him.
“Priestley,” I start, knowing I have to fix this.
He pretends he can’t hear me. Dick.
I know he can, so I go on.
“Listen, sorry about that. I misread the situation.”
If I didn’t know he was listening before, he shows me by pausing trying to rip the pages out of my notebook.
“Let’s just forget about it, yeah?”
“It’s already forgotten,” he says.
Oh … good.
When we get back to the house, Ma’s made dinner. We sit down to eat. Luckily, the kids are full of energy, talking over each other and being silly, so we can blend into the background.
We have to drive back tonight for class tomorrow, so as soon as dinner’s finished, we put our plates in the kitchen and are shooed away from helping so we can go and pack our shit up.
I take a second in my bedroom to try and get that stupid kiss out of my head.
What the fuck was I thinking?
I wasn’t. I was being led by something else.
It’s true that love and hate are two sides of the same coin.
But what about lust and anger? Nobody has ever infuriated me more than Priestley fucking Rosenthal.
The guy is a walking representation of everything I hate.
He’s privileged, cocky, self-involved … I could go on forever listing the guy’s bad qualities.
But he does something to me. He excites me.
He gets my blood boiling and my heart racing.
And there are those glimmers of humanity whenever I go too far when I’m chirping him.
But the way he acted after I kissed him—that dampened the fire that burned while we were kissing.
It might have been hot, but I don’t need to work very hard to remind myself that it was wrong.
The asshole pretends to sleep all the way back to campus, so I keep the radio on low and try to forget he’s even there. But it isn’t easy. It’s like he gives off these super pheromones. Douchebag pheromones.
At one point, I think he might actually be asleep because he makes a sound that is very not Priestley. Something between a whine and a sob. Like he’s having a bad dream.
When I glance over at him, that snarky expression his face seems to be perpetually in has been smoothed out and all that’s left is the coolly beautiful exterior. He flinches, like he knows he’s being watched, and the second he opens his eyes and looks at me, the snark is back.
“We’re here,” I say, pushing my words out through gritted teeth.
He clears his throat, rubs his eyes. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in class.”
“Yeah.” Asshole. “See you in class.”