“You’ll have to ask Brock, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the two of you slept together. He was the one who put Fynn on you. Brock told him to watch you because he had a feeling Carter would try something.”
My cheeks grew warm. “Do I remind you of her?” I asked before I thought about what I was saying.
“Yeah, a little” Grayson admitted after a long minute of just staring at me as if he wasn’t seeing me, but his sister. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
I tilted my head. “How so?”
He averted his eyes, staring at the table. “It’s not important. What we need to do is make sure we have all our bases covered with this plan and nothing happens to you.”
We all could agree on that. Especially me.
I was the bait, after all. Now we just needed Carter to take the hook, and he was too cocky to let the opportunity slip by.
* * *
I’d just cleared the school doors when Brock fell in step beside me. “Where did you disappear to yesterday?”
“Why do you care?” I shot back, picking up my pace. My ankle was finally feeling better, but I still wouldn’t be able to ditch Brock.
“Firefly,” he called, putting a hand on my arm and turning me around. “We need to talk. This silence, it’s over.” Annoyance flashed in those sea-green eyes.
I pulled my arm away and hugged my new laptop against my chest. Touching was a no-no. It weakened my resolve. I’d agreed I should keep my distance from Brock so he wouldn’t uncover our plan, but it proved to be more difficult than I bargained for these last few days. Why did he have to be so damn attractive? It wasn’t fair. “Why? Because you said so? Maybe I like the peace and quiet.”
A lopsided grin graced lips I found myself staring at. “Don’t fool yourself. We both know you miss me.”
True. But I’d be damned if I’d admit it. “You wish, Taylor.”
“You can’t stay mad at me forever.”
“Watch me,” I said, moving past him, searching for Mads’s car. I couldn’t remember where she parked.
He stepped back into my path so all I could see was his face. “I’ll drive you home.”
The air shifted, blowing his scent toward me, and my insides turned to mush. God, I was so weak. “I’m not getting in your car. Besides, Steven’s driver is picking me up. New rules.”
“Don’t test me, Firefly,” he warned.
The parking lot was filling up, students rushing to get to their cars, their footsteps clattering past us. Engines purred to life. Someone shouted Brock’s last name and honked as they drove by, but none of them mattered. It was just him and me. “Will you stop threatening me? I’m over it. I’m over you.”
He moved so fast. I didn’t have time to even register he’d moved at all or that I had as well until I was pressed up against a car, his body trapping me. “Are you really over me?” he whispered against my ear, his breath hot at my neck.
My body betrayed me, shivering. “I’m not Kenna,” I said forcefully, shoving at his chest, but it was like shoving his Range Rover. I just couldn’t do it.
He grimaced, steely eyes searching mine. “What are you talking about?”
“I know that I look like her and that you and she had a thing,” I said, some of the tightness in my body fading.
“So you think I’m interested in you only because you remind me of Kenna?” His voice cooled. “Do I seem like the kind of guy who does that?”
I snorted.
“Okay, wait. Don’t answer that.” I tried to shove him off me, but he was relentless. “Firefly, you need to hear this. I won’t apologize for looking out for my family. Grayson, Fynn, and Micah… that’s what they are to me. Family. What happened with Kenna royally fucked Grayson up. Hell, it fucked us all up. She wasn’t like other girls. She was important.”
My head tipped down, unable to look into his eyes as he spoke about her. “I get it. You had feelings for her.”
His finger slid under my chin, forcing my gaze back to his. “Yes, but not so much in the way you believe. I wasn’t in love with her, but I did let the entire school believe I was. It gave her protection. Or at least, I thought it did. Turns out I was wrong. Not only did she get shit from the girls in this school, but also some of the guys on the football team like Carter, who thought they could bend the rules, that there wouldn’t be consequences for hurting one of us.”
Brock didn’t love her. It had been an act. Did Mads know that? No, otherwise she wouldn’t have told me. “This doesn’t change anything,” I said, steeling my chin.