Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
I should be at home. I should be with my grandma.
He just wanted to play with me to prove he could.
But… a night away was rare. At least I could relax, knowing Martin wouldn’t be here. I had my earbuds and a book.
I still wasn’t giving Will another inch tonight, though. The lock-in was filled with witnesses. Let him try.
I kicked rocks all the way back down to the gymnasium, ignored the pizza, and planted my butt on the bleachers.
Opening my phone, I tapped the app and tried to continue reading The Night Eternal as the music and activity went on around me.
But after ten minutes, I’d barely absorbed a paragraph.
And when he and his friends finally came back downstairs, I forgot about the book as I waited for him to come over and try something.
Engage me. Annoy me. Tease me.
But he didn’t.
He left me alone.
I faltered for a moment, a little confused. I expected him to try to piss me off or coerce me into the scavenger hunt they were having or something.
But he just left me sitting there, the minutes stretching into an hour, and the hour stretching into two.
Just as I thought. To prove he could…
The band director called my brother and asked if I could put in more work-study hours by helping in the kitchen tonight. Then they’d keep me over since it would be too late to go home.
Martin was probably fine with it since I was “working,” but I didn’t for one second think the director came up with that lie herself.
Because I didn’t help in the kitchen at all.
I just sat there, trying to read on my phone. Will glanced over every once in a while as he spent time with his friends or slow danced with some girl to make sure I was where he’d left me.
He just liked making me sweat. That’s what this was about.
Control.
Before I knew it, the lights were dimming and Will was shoving me toward his sleeping bag smack-dab in the middle of Michael, Kai, and Damon.
I groaned. Did I really have to be here?
“Take it.” He pushed me again, and I stumbled. “I’m warm enough without it.”
Like I care about your comfort. Seriously.
He laid down on the mat next to his sleeping bag—black with red and black-checkered lining—and I stood there, scowling.
Keeping my shoes on, I climbed inside the sleeping bag, seeing Crist on my right, Torrance lying at my feet, and Kai above me. Michael pulled off his T-shirt, his long, toned torso spread out next to me like he didn’t know we were still in public no matter where we were sleeping.
I quickly turned away, heat rising to my cheeks.
I scooted up toward Kai—the safe one—but something grabbed my feet and yanked my ass back down. I glared at Will, but he just smiled to himself as the lights in the gym went off and everyone settled in, giggles piercing the air and chaperones patrolling to keep peoples’ hands off each other.
Yes, let’s lock up over a hundred hormonal teenagers in one space. What a stupid idea.
My stomach growled, and I shot a glance up at Will, seeing his eyes closed, his arm propped up under his head as a pillow, and his lips curled with a smile.
He’d heard that. Someone brought me pizza earlier as I sat on the bleachers—maybe at Will’s behest—but I told him to screw off.
Now, I regretted it. I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.
The minutes passed, the chatter started to quiet, and Bryce started to snore from the other side of the gym. Arion Ashby slipped on her sleep mask and some students put on their expensive headphones to cancel out the noise.
I was too hungry to sleep, and the granola bar in my pocket called to me.
I turned my head, looking over at Will. His hair had dried, and even though I’d never seen it looking so messy, he still pulled it off, because he was born with it. Stern brown eyebrows, a sharp nose, but soft lips and the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen behind those sweet, sleeping eyelids and long lashes.
Why couldn’t guys this cute ever be nice?
I blinked, dropping my gaze. Of course, he did give me his sleeping bag.
And probably the granola bar and Godzilla, too, even though he broke into my locker to leave it for me.
“So what were you trying to do?” I asked in a low voice.
“When?”
I looked up to see his eyes still closed. “You said you weren’t trying to scare me upstairs,” I told him. “So, what were you trying to do?”
His chest rose and fell in steady breaths, hesitating a moment. “I was trying to see if you liked it,” he whispered.
If I liked what? Him?
The chase? The danger? The risk?
Well, I didn’t.
But I couldn’t help but ask, “And? What conclusion did you come to?”