Page 14 of Riot Rules
Takes me a second to realize that he’s talking about the chandelier earrings I picked out before I left for the party. I touch my fingers to them protectively. “No, what the hell! They’re the planets.” Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune—the precious stones all lined up along the lengths of gold chain represent the most important heavenly bodies of our solar system. Dash squints at them.
“No Pluto, then?”
“Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.”
His lip curls up. “Debatable.”
God, shut the hell up, Carrie. What the hell are you talking about?
He doesn’t seem offended that I’ve revealed myself to be a space nerd. He offers me the vodka again, this time resting the bottom of the bottle on the top of my thigh, which is also dangerously close to coming into contact withhisleg. He turns his head forty-five degrees and looks right at me. “What does it matter toyouif I don’t care about my fellow classmates? You act like my indifference is some sort of personal insult.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to me one bit.” I pull on the bottle deeper than I intend and nearly choke on the rank alcohol. Forcing down the monster mouthful gives me a second to pull myself together, though. When I’m finished convincing my eyes not to tear up, I look to my right, returning his far-too-close stare. “I just don’t like rude people. I don’t like people who think they’re better than everyone else. And that’s how you come across, Lord Dashiell Lovett the Fourth.”
In the dark, he grins, strands of his hair falling into his face, obscuring his handsome features, and my toes curl in my shoes. Damnit, this was not supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to get close to him and then melt at the first sign of a smile. I was supposed to stay the hell away from him. Alderman would flip his shit if he could see me right now. If I’d just stayed the course and walked past him at the hospital, this insanely attractive panty-wrecker still wouldn’t have a clue that I existed. And that would have been safer. That would have been much safer thanthis.
“That’s the problem, though, isn’t it?” he says, laughing.
Oh crap. Did I say that out loud? No. No way. I’m not that stupid. “What is?” I squeak.
He sits up straight, rolling back his shoulders and clearing his throat. “Lord Dashiell August Richmond Belleview Lovett the Fourth. When you’re born with a name like that, all people do is tell you that youarebetter than everyone else. When that kind of narcissism is drilled into you from such an early age, there’s only one thing you can become, pretty little Carrie Mendoza.”
I’m a human torch. Living, breathing, aching flame.
Pretty little Carrie Mendoza…
“What?” I whisper.
Dashiell’s eyes lock onto my mouth. He’s going to look away any second now. Aaaany second now. “Anarcissist,” he murmurs. “It’s one of my many faults.”
“Then…why don’t you just change?” The words tumble out all breathy and nervous. Inside, I cringe at how pathetic I’m being, just because a hot boy is studying my lips like he’s imagining what they’d feel like mashed up against his own. Seriously, though. It’s hard to maintain a cool head when it’s Dashiell Lovett who’s doing the staring.
A cocky, calculating smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Why would I want to? What if I like myself just the way I am?”
This statement, dripping with arrogance, brings me back to my senses. Wow. What a fuckingjerk. “How can you like yourself just the way you are?”
“That’s just what narcissists do. They love themselves more than anything or anyone else. Hate to let you down you, but I fit the stereotype magnificently. I’m an underperforming, useless, disappointment.” There’s that bitterness again. There’s so much resentment in his words that I get the feeling he’s stewing on something that has nothing to do with me or my criticism of his behavior.
“You’re top of nearly every class. Easy on the self-deprecation there, buddy. Why are you trying to convince me that you’re such a dick?” I reach for the vodka, taking it out of his hand just as he was about to take a drink. He lets out a surprised bark of laughter but relinquishes his grip.
“Because you have that look in your eyes, darlin,’” he says. “That, ‘Will I get a title when I marry him? Will our children have cute little accents?’look. And I’m sitting here telling you that I’ll never marry anyone, and I’ll never have kids, because I’m physically incapable of ever loving anyone more than I love myself.”
I’ve wondered this for a long time. In my head, when I’ve fantasized about the day Dash finally notices me—a day much like today—I’ve wondered if he’ll be able to see how desperately I like him just by looking me in the eye. I’ve spent weeks practicing the perfect poker face in the mirror. It’s actually been more like months. I thought I’d nailed the whole calm, cool and collected exterior, but that belief has just been crushed in Dashiell Lovett’s palm. He sees it, andmejust fine. I hate that I’m that obvious.
“You’re a pig, you know that? What gives you the right to make assumptions about people you don’t even know. You might love yourself, but you assume that everyoneelseis in love with you, too? That’s just—urgh!” I thrust the bottle of vodka at him, using way too much force. The hard-rimmed bottom of the bottle digs into his ribs, but Dash barely moves. He snatches the bottle away, hurling it into the grass on the other side of the car, and then his hand is wrapping around my wrist, his other hand clamping around the back of my neck.
He moves quick, closing what small gap there is between us, pulling me forward to meet him so that our faces are three tiny, insignificant, inconsequential millimeters apart. His eyes are on fire, his breath hot and fanning my face as he growls, “I’ll kiss you, then. Stop me if you don’t want it. Just say the fucking word.”
A split second ago, my heart was a functioning, healthy muscle. Admittedly, it was laboring a little under the pressure of this strange encounter, but it was still doing its job. The moment Dash’s fingers make contact with the back of my neck and his rough, angry voice hits my eardrums, it throws in the towel and quits on me. Just resigns, like I don’t need it to keep beating in order to fucking live.
What…?
What thefuckam I supposed to do now?
“That’s what I thought,” Dash rumbles. And then his mouth is crushing down on mine, and his fingers are tangling in my hair, and the stars overhead are wheeling, and I can’t remember how to breathe. His lips—lips that look so full and soft when he speaks, or cracks the world wide open with a smile—are forceful and demanding. This isn’t the tender, loving kind of kiss I’ve daydreamed about in our English classes. This is a searing, ravaging, soul-eating brand of a kiss, and it’s hotter than I could ever have possibly imagined. Because this? This is myfirstkiss. Period. I have no other example to hold it up against.
Am I supposed to feel like this? Like a small part of me has been off out of balance my whole life, but it just clicked into place the second his tongue slipped into my mouth? Like all of the things that haven’t made sense up until this exact moment in my life suddenly come into focus with a crystal clarity?
What are you doing, Carrie? What did I tell you? No boys! This is dangerous territory and you’re walking in blind…
