Page 264 of Small Town Firsts

“Tell you what?” It’s a struggle to control my voice. I want to lash out at him, to scratch him with my claws and wound him with my sharp tongue.

“How do you think you did?”

“We both already know the answer to that, don’t we?”

His grin widens, and it takes my all not to knock it from his face.

“You’re a real piece of work,” I seethe, wondering not for the first time how someone that attractive can be so awful. Shouldn’t men like him have some kind of marker to denote the evil in their blood?

You know very well they don’t,my inner voice cruelly reminds me.

He shrugs before adopting a careless pose. “I hear it takes one to know one.”

“For a grad student, you sure sound like a schoolyard bully.”

Sterling tips his head back and laughs. My eyes are drawn to his Adam’s apple, seemingly transfixed by the way it bobs as the tenor of his voice winds itself around me like a toxic fog.

He has the kind of laugh you could live in, get lost in, if only he weren’t so wicked.

“You think you’re so clever, that you can hurt me. But you can’t, Sterling. It’s not possible.”To break me any further,I add in my head.

“Guess I’ll have to try harder.”

“Your loyalty’s misplaced,” I mutter under my breath. This man here before me, he’s so different than the boy I used to know. He’s sharper, more cunning, colder.

While he wasn’t ever particularly sunny, he was still a bright spot for me, because his presence in our home always meant as a reprieve from Rob’s torture.

“What was that?”

“One day...” I sigh and shake my head. “No, you know what? Forget it. I’m not wasting my breath trying to plead my case to you. You’re nothing more than a lapdog. Newsflash, your master is a sociopath.”

I crumple my quiz and toss it down onto his desk before spinning on my heel and hoofing it toward the door. I’m over him, over his antics, and desperately in need of pizza.

Preferably multiple slices with extra cheese, black olives, and bell peppers. And a side of ranch.

He calls my name just as I reach the door. I slow my pace but keep moving. “Have a great lunch.”

Somehow, his parting words sound more like a threat.

Freaking psycho.

“Stupid, arrogant, no good jackass,”I swear under my breath as I stalk across the campus like a woman on a warpath.

I’m enraged, barely hanging on by a thread, and in serious need of carbs.God help anyone who stands between me and my pizza.

“I’ll show him.”

“Show who?” Stella asks, appearing at my side, seemingly out of thin air.

“Jesus Christ!” I whisper-shout. “Where did you come from?”

“Uh, I’ve been walking beside you for like two minutes.”

“Really?”

“Yup,” she says with a pop of the P. “I showed up right aroundno good jackass.”

“Huh.” I must have been deep in my feels to not notice my best friend at my side. Which only serves as a reminder of my lacking self-awareness.

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