“I told you I’ll think about it,” I tell him sternly, and he knows by the still-angry look on my face that I mean it. “Unless you want to keep pestering me … and then I’ll make up my mind a whole lot quicker. And spoiler—it’ll be a solid ‘no’.”
“I’ll have to take that. I hope I get to see you there, Bunny.” Blair leans forward and I tense up, thinking he’s going to try to kiss me on the cheek again. But then he stops, a hair’s breath away, and hops to his feet. I’m left with a tingling sensation where his lips should have met my skin and an ache between my thighs that makes me want to smack myself over the head with the book I’m studying for being such a dolt.
My hands curl around the bag of pills in my hand after he leaves. The alcohol, the parties, the sexcapades … and now this? I should flush the whole bag down the toilet right away. I’ve seen what drugs can do. I’m here because of drugs.
But when I look down at the bag in my hands, I don’t see Sadie White in her coffin. I see Dana, happy and excited as she goes over our plans for this weekend. I had a problem, now I have a solution. It’s as simple as that.
Except it isn’t. I know it. I just don’t want to admit it.
Chapter 16
I’ve never resorted to performance-enhancing pills before, and I don’t intend to now. I’m devoting every spare moment to studying for this upcoming test … but the going is painfully slow.
I find myself out on the docks by the boathouse one afternoon, a book in my lap and a notebook beside me. I’m chewing on the end of a pen as I read. It’s quiet out here, and since Dana is busy working on things for the school paper, I thought I’d study where I won’t be interrupted.
I hear footsteps and try to ignore them, but they stop behind me. Apparently no place is far enough away from the school.
With a quiet sigh, I look up just as Astor drops down beside me and eyes me with a guarded expression. I’ve known him for a couple of months now and I still can’t tell what he’s thinking when I look at him. He’s a tough read, and for a girl who had to learn how to read people at an early age, that’s saying something.
He and I haven’t spoken since he kissed me on the quad and then took off. I’m still furious with him, more so than the others. He’s a heartless, cold, manipulative, bullying jerk … and when he’s sitting this close to me, smelling the way he does, looking at me so intensely, I can’t think straight enough to remember just how mad I am at him and why. That’s the worst part of all.
“Are you coming to the Halloween party on Saturday?” he asks me, his brown eyes dropping from my eyes to my mouth.
I take in a breath and try to steady myself. I don’t want him to see that he has any kind of effect on me at all. Giving him that kind of intel would be suicide.
“What’s it to you? Trying to plan my next torture?”
“Come with me,” he says, quietly, looking as if something inside him is twisting him, forcing him to say it.
Seriously? First Blair, and now Astor? And both of them so soon after humiliating me in front of the entire school. I narrow my eyes.
“No, thanks,” I say. He’s not getting off that easy.
It’s his turn to look floored, and he’s not good at hiding it right away. I realize that he probably never hears the word no, especially from a girl.
“What if I change your mind?” Astor looks as though he’s picked up the glove smacked at him in a challenge.
“That’s not likely.” I tell him, refocusing my attention back on my book.
“Want to bet?” he asks in a husky tone as he slips his hand beneath my chin. He lifts my face and before I can even take a breath, his lips are moving over mine, and I am frozen in place as everything inside me erupts into a frenzy.
I don’t know whether to kiss him back or slap him again.
This kiss is much softer, much slower, much sweeter. It’s as if he’s savoring my mouth and the moments that we are connected. The whole world fades away and I melt into him, the choice made for me as I kiss him in return. When he finally lifts his lips from mine, we are both breathless.
I can’t believe he kissed me again.
I’m speechless. Almost.
“Come with me,” he whispers, his lips brushing against my skin as he speaks.
From somewhere deep inside me, I muster up some of my Teddy spirit, and the fighter in me remembers how horrible it was to be standing there on the main stairwell in the school in nothing but a towel, looking at racy photos tacked up on the wall and being branded a whore.
I find my voice and tell him, and I mean it. “No, Astor. I’m not going with you.”
Astor’s face darkens and I can see a powerful frustration in him. He purses his lips tightly as a scowl forms, and in one swift movement he is up off of the pier and heading back to the school.
I feel somewhat empowered, and I’m glad that I didn’t cave to his romantic ploy. I turn back to my book and start reading, but without even really thinking about it, I lift my fingertips to my lips and touch where the kiss was. It takes my breath away again just thinking about it, and a small part of me regrets turning him down.