Page 89 of Endless Anger
Blinking, she swivels those blue eyes toward me. For a brief moment, too brief for me to really grasp it, there isn’t an ounce of hatred hidden in the glittering sapphire.
But in the same instance, it’s back, and I feel completely hollow inside.
“What thefuck, Asher?” she snaps, pushing up on her free elbow.
I lift my palms. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one with her hand in my pants.”
Horror etches into the smooth lines of her face. “Oh my God! Why were you just letting me do that, you fuckingperv.”
“I’mthe perv?” I bark as she snatches her hand away, cradling it against her chest. “You got in my bed half-naked and then started groping me. My hands have been perfectly well-behaved.”
“I was asleep, you big dummy!”
“Well, clearly your subconscious has other ideas about what you should be doing.”
Breathing hard, she stares down at me, her ass half hanging off the edge of the bed. Her eyes sparkle in the early morning light, ocean waves I want to dive deep into and drown in.
Something in her expression morphs in the quiet that ensues. She’s thinking, the cogs in her brain turning, and finally she lets out a shallow breath.
“Did you know Foxe and Aurora hooked up?”
Shifting, I pull more of the comforter into my lap. “What, like recently? Not in my bed, I fucking hope.”
“No, not… I mean back when we were younger. She didn’t tell me when exactly, but atsomepoint before we all graduated.”
“Oh yeah, I knew that. Pretty sure all our parents knew.” I glance at her, cataloging the strange, mildly perturbed look on her face. She seems like she’s just barely straddling the line between reality and the past. “You didn’t?”
“How come no one told me?”
“Jesus, I don’t know, Luce. Are you the sex police or something? Did we all have to notify you before we engaged in lewd activities?”
She pushes onto her knees, folding her hands in her lap. The T-shirt sits teasingly on the very tops of her thighs, exposing the rest of her pale flesh to my starved gaze, but I do my best not to stare.
Not too much anyway.
“Have you…” She trails off, her teeth snagging on her bottom lip.
One of my eyebrows arches, interest swimming through my veins. “Have I what?”
“Been with anyone,” she continues, her cheeks blooming a bright pink. “Like that. Sexually or whatever.”
My heart hammers a slow, steady rhythm in my chest. Against my ribs, like it’s trying to get out. I sit up a little, propping my head on my hand with my elbow resting on the mattress.
“Are you asking because you don’t want to be the only virgin left of our friend group?” I utter, barely able to push the words out. “Or because you want to know if I went to someone else after rejecting you?”
Her eyes lift, anger etching into the corners. She clenches her jaw, her nostrils flaring. “I don’t remember propositioning you.”
“No? Your hand on my dick in the sunflower field—that wasn’t an invitation?”
She’s silent for a moment. “I was drunk.”
“Notthatdrunk.”
“That was years ago.”
“I still think about it.”
A tense beat of silence pulses between us. She swallows audibly, and I watch her throat work over the gesture. “What, when you’re out fucking girls? Is it supposed to make me feel good that you at least envision me instead?”
