Chloe is dying.Surely, her lungs must be bruised by now from all the laughing.
She swipes at the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and wheezes. “Oh my god. How is a book with such a cute cover so filthy?”
“I didn’t know!” I’m laughing right alongside her.
“‘Come on, little duck. Be my good girl.’” Chloe squeals, kicking her legs in the air. “I love himso much! Why are fictional men so much hotter than men in real life? This is my new favorite book. If all books were like this, I’d be a voracious reader.”
“You told me you haven’t read a book since you were twelve.”
“Exactly.” She waves the romcom in the air. “You need to write a book like this. And dedicate it to me.”
“I amnotwriting a book like that. My mom will read it!”
Chloe whacks my knee with the book. “And she’d love it! You have to write a smutty story. I dare you to.”
Well, shit. Neither of us has backed down from a dare yet.
She jumps up when there’s a knock on the door, revealing Wes on the other side. My stomach immediately twists with nervous anticipation.
Chloe heaves a heavy sigh. “What are you doing here?”
He rolls his eyes. “Bringing you the snacks you were bitching about.”
Wes holds out a plastic bag, and Chloe snatches it from his hand. “I don’t bitch.”
She spills the contents onto her bed. Mostly protein bars and sugar-free beef jerky to help her stay fit and lean. She holds up chocolate peanut butter cups with a furrowed brow. “I didn’t ask for these.”
Wes’s startling blue eyes land on me. “They’re Violet’s favorites.”
How does Wes know that chocolate peanut butter cups are my favorite candy? I don’t remember telling him that.
However he found out, he went out of his way to get them for me.
I grin, opening up a peanut butter cup and popping it in my mouth. “Thanks.”
Chloe’s eyes flick back and forth between us. She flashes me a knowing little smirk before flouncing out of the room. “I need to pee!”
Leaving me entirely alone with Wes.
“Thanks for the chocolate. I forgot I told you they’re my favorite.”
He sits on my bed like he belongs there. “You didn’t.”
I swallow down the nerves mixed with delight. “Then how did you know? Have you been following me around?” I tease, even though part of me is certain it’s true.
“I’m a busy man, Violet. I don’t have time to follow pretty girls around campus, no matter how much I wish I did.” His lopsided smile tells me he’s lying through his teeth. “But I’ve noticed some things about you.”
“What else have you noticed?” I dare to ask, not sure I want to know the answer.
He leans back, arms folded casually to show off his enormous, corded biceps. “You’re the kind of girl who doesn’t have any confidence in what she says or thinks, even if she’s smarter than everyone else in the room. You’re prettier than you realize. You think you’re lucky just to have a man glance your way, when really a man would be lucky to fall to his knees before you. You think you’re the type of girl who should only want the things that are sweet and nice, even if that’s not what you really want deep down. You’re an iceberg girl—most people only get to see the five percent that’s on the surface, what you choose to show them. But there’s a lot more to you hiding underneath.”
His words utterly silence me. I have no idea what to say to that. No idea how someone who hasn’t known me for long at all could already understand me so well. I am fully clothed, but I might as well be nude in front of him.
“That’s...shockingly accurate,” I admit.
“I bet what’s underneath is pretty interesting too.” His ice-blue eyes rake down my body, taking in my flushed neck and chest, hovering over the mounds of my breasts under my sweater, trailing down to the slopes of my hips and my legging-clad thighs.
I swallow around the lump in my throat. Wes doesn’t want a relationship. Not with anyone, and certainly not with me. But if it wasn’t crystal clear before, it is now—he’s interested in me, even if that interest extends only to my body.