Page 79 of Strings

“Oh, he was.” I laugh.

“So you’ve never been courted?”

“I’ve had sex on a basketball court. Does that count?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

I shrug.

“Ever been wooed?”

“I snuck under a fence to see Wu-Tang Clan once.” I gaze over to him. “They really wooed me. Not what you meant?”

He shakes his head. There’s no humor in his expression. I’m trying to make a joke out of this and he’s way too serious.

“Who cares if I’ve been courted or wooed? It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is.” He’s insistent. “You deserve to be shown how special you are.”

I swallow hard. I don’t deserve any of that. He doesn’t know what I’ve done. I make one last attempt to lighten his mood. I smile as I say, “This one time I got flowers from my fake boyfriend. If that’s not woo-ful, I don’t know what is.” I touch his arm and laugh, but he doesn’t even crack a grin.

“You’re making so much more sense to me now.”

I roll my eyes. “Bash, stop! If you think you have any insight into me or the way I tick, then forget it. You don’t know anything about me.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach for the door handle. He grabs hold of my arm to stop me. He feels sorry for me. I hate that! And I don’t like that he thinks he gets me. He could never understand someone like me.

“You’re frustrated again, aren’t you?” he asks.

“Aren’t you?”

He takes my hand in his and intertwines his fingers with mine. We both stare down at them. Somehow, his touch calms and excites me all at once. How can we fit together so perfectly when we’re so different?

“We don’t belong together…” I gently pull my hand away from his. He runs his fingers through his hair. “…but for some reason this faking thing seems to be working for both of us.”

“Then we aren’t breaking up?” he asks.

“Not yet. Unless you want to?”

“No, I still really need you to be my buffer with Bella.”

“Good, because I need you to protect my ass from Mercer.” Inside my head, I snort-laugh at the irony. Sebastian is literally keeping him out of my ass.

“Then we agree. We continue our fake dating but absolutely no more kissing.”

“Agreed. We definitely should never kiss ever again.”

The intense gaze between us feels like we’re cowboys at a stand-off waiting for the other person to draw their gun. He pulls his weapon first and I’m relieved.

“However, there could be a time we have to kiss for situational purposes. Like when you kissed me outside the concert hall that day. We can’t help that.”

“Right. Like maybe Mercer is coming and you need to kiss me so he doesn’t try to talk to me.”

“Absolutely. It would be the fair thing to do.”

Why do I find myself staring at his lips? I ramble on. “Or if Bella is spouting off about how we’re faking and we need to prove we’re not.”

“We need to make this as look as real as possible.” Is he staring at my mouth too? “One could almost say the other night was simply practice. I practice playing every night before a show.”

I point to him to acknowledge the comment. “Practice makes it seem effortless.”