Page 100 of Forgotten Rules (Rules 4)

The second I peel the phone from my ear, Will takes off. He gives me absolutely nothing: not a word, not a look. He just rushes down the crappy ladder and walks away.

“Will!” I shriek like a complete idiot.

I follow his lead, almost tripping on the vines covering the ground as I chase after him.

“Will!” I call again, but he doesn’t stop, striding down the rocky path. When I finally catch up to him, we’re standing in the parking lot where I left my car. The guy is fast.

“Wait.” I snatch his arm.

“What?” he drones, sounding uninterested. Bored, even. I’m a bit taken aback by his tone but try my best not to show it.

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. Look, I have to get to training. I’m late. You should probably call Luke back. You know, so you can reschedule that date.”

With that said, he resumes walking.

“Okay, cut the crap.” I snap.

He stops cold.

“We just kissed, Will. Again. Y-You kissed me and you…” The words get caught in the back my throat. “You touched me. Please spare me the part where you pretend like nothing happened.”

“Fine.” He pivots. “It happened. What’s your point?”

He’s so detached, miles and miles away from the boy kissing me a moment prior. Is he faking it? Did I read this wrong? Does he really not care about me at all?

“My point is…” You can do it, Kass. “My point is we’re not fucking friends, Will.”

For a fragment of a second, my words seem to affect him, but he restores his default blank face too fast to tell for sure.

“What else would we be?”

For fuck’s sake.

He can’t do this anymore.

I gather all the courage in my body to say, “That kiss meant something, and you know it.”

“Fine,” he gives in.

Did he just… agree with me?

“You’re right,” he adds. “It meant something.”

I hold my breath.

“It means we had a moment and it passed.”

Ouch.

He turns to leave.

“Why did you kiss me?” I blurt. It’s a simple question. Yet, it all comes down to this.

He exhales, shaking his head as if to set his thoughts straight. “Fuck, I-I don’t know, okay? You were crying and you… you begged me to take your mind off it, so I did. It didn’t mean shit. If anything, it just means I was horny and you were there.”

My lips part.