Page 95 of The One

“Do you have any idea what could have happened back there?” I threw my thumb over my shoulder, pointing at the scene of the almost crime. “We could have fucking died. We could have totaled the boat. Does that mean anything to you?”

Her eyes were turning feral as she chewed her nail. “It was your fault. You were the one driving.” Her arms lifted in the air, and she danced. “I was just a hot accessory.”

“You’re kidding me.” When she continued to dance, I shouted, “You’re fucking kidding me! You’ve been touching me, flirting with me nonstop. Climbing on my shoulders, begging me to dance with you. None of that is right, Penelope.”

Her arms dropped, and her body stilled. “Asshole.”

“I’m the asshole?” My eyebrows couldn’t possibly get any higher. “You’re the one who’s been acting like an idiot since we got on the boat.”

“That’s a lie.”

“A lie?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve done nothing but help you, and all you’ve done is reject me.”

I held on to the top of my hat, my head so hot that I thought the cap might melt. “You’re not making any sense right now. It’s all that coke you snorted and all that weed you smoked. It’s getting to your fucking brain?—”

“This is about her, isn’t it?” Her top lip curled. “Just say it. Admit it. She’s why you’re acting this way.”

“Who?”

“Lainey!”

I was lost.

So lost that no map could ever get me out.

“What does Lainey have to do with this?” I asked.

Her bare foot pounded on the floor of the boat. “She gets everything. Always. Whatever she wants, it’s hers. What about me, Rhett? When is it my turn? When do I get what I want?”

Was I hearing her correctly?

Or was I in a completely different conversation than the one she was having?

Because none of this was adding up.

“What does that have to do with what happened today? Because Lainey isn’t the reason you were all over me, and Lainey isn’t the reason you’re all coked out, and Lainey certainly isn’t the reason you put us in harm’s way.”

“Don’t you get it?” Her eyes dipped all the way down to my legs and gradually glared back up. “This is Lainey’s world. I’m just living in it.”

“No, I don’t get it.”

She put her hands on her head, shaking her hair so each piece loosened from the curls and stood out. “I deserve all the things too!”

“What aren’t you getting?”

Her sigh was long and drawn out. “Everything.”

“You’re going to NYU, the only school you wanted to go to—are you forgetting that? And the guys in our high school you wanted to date or hook up with, you got them too. What do you want that you don’t have?”

A burst of air came out of her nose, and she rubbed it until the end was red. “God, you’re so stupid.”

“You’re right. I must be.” I nodded toward the water. “We have another twenty minutes until we’re at the beach house. Can you control yourself long enough to not almost get us into another accident? I’d like to get there already so I can forget about this shitstorm of a day.”

She pointed at me. “Fuck you.”

Fuck me?