Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Cooper catches me watching Gen. Without a word, I hear him scolding me. Then he shakes his head, which may as well be a dare. He might be settled down, but I still intend to have a good time. And I know Gen. Maybe she was on some cold turkey kick before, but now that she’s back, there’s no point in either of us pretending we know how to stay away from each other. It’s chemistry.
Wandering away from the bonfire, I approach her. I’m half hard already, thinking about the last time I saw her. Legs wrapped around me. Teeth digging into my shoulder. My skin still bears the marks she left behind. Just the sight of her has me wanting to take her to bed and make up for time lost.
She feels me coming before I open my mouth, casting her gaze over her shoulder. There’s the briefest flicker of recognition—the shared spark of lust and longing—before her expression turns impassive.
“What are you drinking?” I say as what I figure is an easy way in.
“I’m not.”
It’s awkward right from the off. All the familiarity of our conversation back at her house—gone. To the point that even Heidi and Steph wince with embarrassment.
“What do you want?” I ask, ignoring her attitude. If that’d ever worked on me, we wouldn’t have kept getting back together. “I’ll run up to the house and make you something.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Gen stares off at the waves climbing up the sand.
I stifle a sigh. “Can we talk? Take a walk with me.”
She pulls her hair over her shoulder in a move I recognize right away. It’s her fuck-off flip. The I’ve-already-stopped-hearing-you hair toss. Like we’re strangers.
“Yeah, no,” she says, voice flat and all but unrecognizable. “I’m not even sticking around. Just stopped by to say hey.”
But not to me.
“So it’s like that?” I try to curb the bite in my tone and fail. “You come back here and pretend you don’t know me?”
“Okay,” Heidi interjects with a bored roll of her eyes. “Thanks for stopping by, but this is a penis-free zone tonight. Run along, Evan.”
“Fuck off, Heidi.” She’s always been a shit-stirrer.
“Yep, happy to.” At that, she and Steph drag Gen closer to the bonfire and leave me standing there like an idiot.
Cool. Whatever. I don’t need this aggravation. Genevieve wants to play games, fine. I grab a beer from the cooler and notice a group of girls stroll up to the party looking like they stumbled out of Daddy’s Bentley. They’re all dressed in the same sort of little ruffle tops and short skirts—straight off the clone assembly line. Definitely Garnet students, and my money’s on sorority sisters. Gen’s complete opposites in every way. They stand around looking lost and confused for a minute, until one of them homes in on me.
She tries her best to look chill while slipping in the sand to stride over. With too much lip gloss, she smiles at me. “Can I get a drink?”
I happily pop the cap off a beer for her and grab a few more for her friends. The best part about rich girls coming to slum it out here with the townies is they’re easily amused. Tell them a few embellished stories about near-death exploits and running from the cops, and they eat that shit up. It scratches their sticking-it-to-the-parents itch, allowing them to live dangerously from a safe, vicarious distance, and gives them something to tell their friends about. Normally, feeling like I’m an attraction at a zoo would piss me off, but tonight I’m not the one with the sour face.
As the chicks let their hands linger on my arms while they laugh at my jokes and peel up my shirt after I tell them I have tattoos, Gen is staring daggers from her spot near the fire. Hitting me with a glare that says, really, them? And I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response, because if she wants to pretend I’m dead to her, then I’m cold all over.
“I’ve got one too,” the bravest of the girls informs me. She’s cute, in a cookie-cutter clone sort of way. Nice rack, at least. “Got it on spring break last year in Mexico. Want to see?”
Before I can answer, she pulls her skirt up to flash the inside of her thigh at me. Her tat is a jellyfish, looking like it’s gliding up into her lacy panties. I don’t know how that’s supposed to be sexy. But Gen watches me look, and that’s kind of hot.
“Did it hurt?” I ask her, meeting Gen’s eyes over the girl’s shoulder.
“A little. But I like the pain.”
“Yeah, I get that.” It’s almost too easy. This chick is practically begging me to take her back to the house. “It’s pain that teaches us what pleasure is. Or how would we even know the difference?”