What the hell?
What did I ever do to him? The bastard doesn’t want to sit with me now? Not that I want to sit with him, but…ouch.
I turn my attention back to my group, where Hillary is handing out tasks. “Um, what’s your name again?” she asks me.
Invisible again.
“Sky Eden.”
“You can do research,” she says.
I can feel Chase moving in the room, but I force myself not to look.
Asshole.
“Room for one more?” he asks, spinning a desk around with one hand, his arm muscles flexing. He drops into the desk, sprawling out like he owns the place and grinning as usual. He seems to own the school, like he’s the king of everything and everyone he sees.
Including me.
“What’d I miss?” he asks as we all stare at him. I’m guessing the other two people in my group aren’t used to having the attention of a guy like Chase, either.
“We divided tasks,” Hillary says, sounding as businesslike as she was with the rest of us. “You can do research with Sky.”
“What? No!” Before I can think, the words have popped out. I want to slap my hand across my mouth. My face explodes with heat.
Chase’s grin falters for half a second.
“Most of the paper is research,” Hillary says. “It’s the biggest job. It’s only fair that two people work on that. I’ll organize it into a good thesis and put it in order, and Hannah’s going to type. If you can’t work together, Hannah can do research with you, and Chase can type it up.”
I slump with relief, ready to say that sounds good, but Chase speaks first. “Nah,” he says, staring at me. “We can work together.”
What? No. No, we totally can’t.
I know why he’s doing this. I had to open my mouth and say something stupid that wounded his enormous ego. Just like I got offended when he didn’t want to join my group, even though I didn’t want him in it. The difference is, I let it go. I didn’t run up and ask the teacher to put him in my group. He’s actively forcing me to work with him.
Ugh. This is why it’s better to shut up and be invisible.
“Okay, great,” Hillary says. “It’s not like you have to do the work together. Just figure out what you’re both going to look up, so you’re not duplicating information.”
I sit perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for Chase to say something. I’m not going to jump on that too fast and have him block me again. Then he’ll really know I don’t want to be around him. That what happened last summer mattered to me. That I even remember it at all.
He looks at me, that wicked grin pouring slowly across his face like honey. Shit. I’ve seen that smile, envied its recipient, but he’s never looked at me like that before. With the full power of his grin melting over my limbs, turning me to jelly, I don’t know how I’m even supposed to form a complete thought, let alone do actual work with him.
His smile gets wider, turning almost predatory. A cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. He knows he’s got me. He knows what he’s doing to me. And he’s loving it.
“I’m great at teamwork,” he says, his blue eyes locked on mine.
“I work better alone,” I grind out, clenching my teeth. I refuse to let him know how stupid and breathless I feel right now, with his eyes caressing my cheek like the warm night air at the lake. If only I could forget that stupid night, that stupid kiss, that stupid girl I was.
“But it’s a group project,” he says. Then his smile softens, and his brow furrows in concern. “You can work with me this one time, can’t you, Sky?”
Jesus Christ. His puppy dog eyes are worse than his smile. For a second, I really believe he’s earnest, that he cares what I say. And he must have paid enough attention in class to know my name. Maybe that night mattered to him, too.
My resolve melts, and I nod mutely.
“Awesome,” he says, returning to a blinding smile. “I’ll see you around, Eden.” With that, he picks up his books and is at the door by the time the bell rings, so perfectly timed that he never even breaks his stride as he opens the door and melts into the crowd of students swarming towards their next classes.
Goddamn it. What just happened?