Page 30 of A Wreck, You Make Me

I frown. “What?”

Another tic of his jaw. “He put his hand on you.”

It takes me a few seconds to understand what he means. I didn’t even remember that Joe put his hand on mine earlier when I was starting to get agitated. Even so, I still don’t understand what that has got to do withhimtouching me under the table. “So?”

“So he doesn’t get to,” he declares, his eyes hard. “Not in front of me. Not fuckingever.”

“What? That’s…” Another breath, in hopes of calming myself down. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, what?”

I clench my teeth. “This is revenge, isn’t it? This is for what I did the other night.”

Another flash of anger flickers through his features. “Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” I state. “Because that’s how yourtwistedmind works. Twisted and evil and… toxic. Yeah, that’s what you are. You’retoxic.” His nostrils flare with a sharp breath but I keep going. “But I’ve got news for you. First, you totally deserved that. Totally and absolutely deserved what I did at the club. In fact, you got off easy. Andsecond, if you think you can intimidate me by coming here and crashing my date, then?—”

“Tell me something,” he cuts me off. “Do you really like this fuckface or is this for my benefit?”

I draw back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Itmeans,” he says, his voice low and rough, “are you on a date with him because you wish you were on a date with me?”

I grit my teeth again. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but not everything revolves around you.”

“Not everything, no. Just all the things you do.”

“You—”

“Because if youreallylike him, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but he’s a fucking moron and you’re wasting your time.”

Irritation snaps my spine straight. “He’snota moron.”

“He’s spent the entire time talking to your chest,” he states.

He has? I never noticed. I look down at my chest for a second. I do have some cleavage showing. It’s not a crazy lot, because I don’t really have a lot to show off in that department, but it’s still more than what I get to expose at the coffee shop with Joe. So I’m not really sure how I feel about that, about Joe staring at my boobs. But then again, we’re on a date, aren’t we? So what if he’s looking at my chest a little bit?

I snap my eyes back to him. “Maybe he likes my dress.”

He tightens his jaw. “There’s nothing to like about that dress.”

My chest clenches with a sting.Of coursehe’d say that. He’s cruel that way. Cruel and vicious. A fucking viper. I was right when I called him that. He’s not a thorn. He doesn’t just wreck people. He poisons them.

But before it shows up on my face, the hurt his words have caused, I snap, “You know what, I don’t care what you think, okay? I like this dress.”

“It’s nothing compared to what’s inside the dress.”

I draw back. “Excuse me?”

He rakes his eyes over my face again all angrily. In a way that makes me think he doesn’t want to, but he also doesn’tnotwant to, either. I have no idea what it means except that it makes my chest tight and my skin tingle and prickle.

Then, as if talking to himself, he murmurs, “Your hair, it goes everywhere. It touches everything, your face, your neck, your arms, bursting with life. It’s the first thing anyone sees when they look at you. And your face, dotted with a million freckles. It’s like cream sprinkled with cinnamon. Like crispy fall. So if Joe’s more interested in looking at your fucking dress than staring at your face, and mapping out your freckles to see what constellations they’re hiding then yeah, he’s a moron on top of being a fuckface.”

I think I heard him wrong. My heart was beating so loudly through everything he said, there’s no way I heard him correctly. And if I didn’t hear him right, then it stands to reason I didn’t understand what he meant by it either. Right?

I mean, it felt like he said he… likes my big frizzy red hair and my hideous freckles. But that… That doesn’t make sense. Not only because there’s nothing to like about those things, but also because he’s him and didn’t I just call him a toxic reptile in my head? How can he then turn around and be… nice? Well, almost nice, which in his case is still a giant leap.

“I…” I pause to catch my breath, my fingers still threaded together in my lap, but mostly because I don’t know what else to do with my hands. “I’m just trying it your way.”