Page 4 of Shut Up and Score
Not looking to be saved. Just want to burn.
Jasmine laughs at something she just said—I have no clue what—and reaches across the table, brushing her fingers against mine. I force a smile, pretending I think whatever she just said is cute.
“So, you’re still coming to the Delta Sigma masquerade tomorrow, right?” she asks, tipping her head, lips already smiling, already guessing the answer. “I told everyone you’d be there.”
“Yeah,” I say automatically.
Because that’s what the Golden Boy does.
Even if all he wants to do is set the whole damn lie on fire.
Jasmine’s still talking, words tumbling one after the other like beads on a necklace she’s strung together a thousand times before.
“…and Iswear, if Brynn tries to wear that backless red thing again, I’m gonna scream. It’s not even her color. Plus, it’s been posted like four times already. Pick a new look, babe.”
I nod, sip my tea. Wonder what it would take to care again.
Then I hear it.
A laugh—low and careless and rich with the kind of ease I haven’t felt in years. It cuts clean through the cafénoise and Jasmine’s monologue—sunlight through murky water.
And then ithitsme. Not just the sound of it, butwhatit is.
Laughter like scraped knees and bare feet on pine needles. Like summer storms and cannonballs off the old dock. Like friendship before it got complicated, and love before it got lost.
I know that laugh. Iknewit before I even looked. My heart lodges in my throat, attempting to escape my body, and I steel myself and turn my head in his direction.
And there he is.
Dark curls, still as wild as they were back when we were kids, as though he never bothered trying to tame them. A shadow of stubble along his jaw, the kind that makes your fingers twitch with the need to trace it. His sleeves are pushed up over forearms thick with muscle and ink, veins pronounced, tattoos crawling up his skin that weren’t there two years ago..
A simple black tee clings to his chest as if sin itself stitched it, snug over broad shoulders and the kind of chest that says he didn’t just survive the last few years, he trained through them. The hem brushes faded jeans worn in all the right places, frayed at the knees, a soft rip at his thigh teasing just enough skin to make my pulse stutter. Combat boots, scuffed and half-laced, like he got dressed in a rush but still managed to ruin lives on the way out the door.
Micah fucking Blackman.
Hot as hell. Pure temptation. Laughing as though the world doesn’t own him. A free sound I crave with my whole body. And miss with my whole soul.
My throat goes dry.
Because I remember that laugh. I remember what it sounded like under the covers of our play fort at midnight, between whispered truths and shared headphones. I remember the feeling of him pressed to my skin, breathless and close and real as we wrestled.
And now it’s back—he’sback—and every part of me reacts as if it’s been waiting for him. And I know I never moved on. The space he carved out inside me never got filled. It’s just been a gaping hole since I destroyed everything.
He hasn’t seen me yet.
And for a second, I can’t decide if I want him to. I knew this was a possibility after?—
I suck in a breath, attempting to get myself under control before his gaze slips this way.
He leans against the edge of a table across the patio, talking to some guy I don’t recognize, his mouth quirking around another lazy smile. He looks as if he couldn’t care less about anyone watching him. And I can tell he knows people are watching him.
I drag my gaze back to Jasmine, but my pulse is already gone—racing toward something I can’t name.
She’s still going.
“…but if you don’t want to stay the whole night, I can totally tell them you’ve got, like, early practice or whatever. Just make sure you come long enough to get in pictures. Oh! And don’t wear the navy suit again. You wore that to Winter Formal last year.”
I nod again, even though I’m not sure what I’m agreeing to.
