Page 8 of Try Me

“Tell me about it.”

The second Mark’s gaze strayed in my direction, all the warmth in it evaporated faster than water in a drought-stricken desert. I stared impassively back at him, despite the heat that stirred low in my gut with wisps of memory. Fortunately it came measured out with a healthy reality check of frustration.

Mark topped off his beer and dropped the tap, running a hand over the shadow of stubble on his chin. He flicked another dismissive glance in my direction before smiling at Amanda. “Listen, if you get sick of beer, there’s other stuff inside. Punch, some mixers, and I think there’s pizza coming in a little while. I’d be happy to—”

“Don’t even think about it,” I growled, stepping forward to stand at Amanda’s shoulder like a protective grizzly bear. She didn’t need me to. She’d never have gone for him, no matter how fucking attractive he was; she knew our history.

“Think about what? I think about a lot of things.” Mark cocked his head with the casual air of someone who’d been asked if they preferred tea or coffee, but his eyes said different. They were tense at the corners, a little glassy, and hot with ire. Probably much like mine. Neither of us excelled at backing down, and that’d been true even way back when we’d been friends.

In all the time I’d been at the U, Cam had been our only shared acquaintance. The one social equivalent to a planet we both orbited around, and he happened to be one of Mark’s fraternity brothers. I hadn’t known that at first when Cam and I started hanging out, and then it didn’t seem a like a big deal; it was just a matter of staying out of each other’s way. Two things had changed that, but the heart of the matter was still that Mark blamed me for Cam’s overdose.

“Know what I’m thinking right now?” Mark’s voice dipped into a lower register, even then provocative in its own way. But the dangerous glint in his eyes had me on guard.

I stood taller and lifted a brow expectantly.

“Right now I’m thinking you should probably get the fuck out of here before another one of my friends ends up in the ER getting their stomach pumped.”

I thought I’d worked out some of my impulsive behavior. Fuck knew I’d been through plenty of therapy.

Guess it hadn’t taken.

“Chet!” Amanda warned shrilly the secondbefore I tossed my beer cup aside and knocked the smirk off his face.

2

Mark

My last coherent thought as Chet Pynchon’s fist barreled toward my face:This is gonna hur—

And there it was: livid fire streaked along my jaw and up the side of my cheek, radiating through my eye sockets. I staggered back, head spinning. I couldn’t even hate Chet for it as much as I wanted to. It was a solid punch.

But it didn’t stop me from running my mouth as I launched toward him. We both went sprawling in the grass.

“Admit you gave him that shit, asshole,” I spat, digging an elbow into his ribs. For months upon months, my anger at Chet over that night had simmered, remaining below boiling point so long as I avoided him. Alcohol, grudges, and proximity proved to be a lethal combo, though.

“Fuck you.” Chet thrust me away with a grunt, his knee connecting with my thigh. “You’re talking crazy shit right now.”

“Admit it.” That’s all I wanted, just for him to own up to it. Admit his shitty role in a saga that had ended with Cam being swept off to rehab by his parents.

I managed to pin him long enough to send a glancing blow off his chin that split his lip. Chet’s breath left his lungs in a whoosh and a soft groan that registered deep inside me, disconcertingly familiar. Then he leveraged his weight and tried to roll us, eyes blazing as he dug his fingertips into the meat of my shoulders.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, ass—” Chet went lurching backward with a shout as Sam wrapped his arms around his torso and gave me a feverishgo-aheadnod.

“Go dude, shit. What’re you waiting for?” Sam squeezed Chet tighter as he thrashed in his grip.

I cocked my fist back and tried to focus.

Chet’s gaze burned steadily into me, brimming with fury, challenge, and fight.

And then, all at once, he stopped struggling. It was that, more than anything else, that made me hesitate. His chest rose and fell rapidly against Sam’s hold, and he flicked his tongue out, tasting the bloodred blossom on his lip. I gritted my teeth against the images that little gesture called up and felt my willpower ebbing further.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Uncertainty burned through the red haze of anger. My biceps ached with the tension in my knuckles.Fucking do it, I told myself.

“Sam,Jesus,” Nate shouted from behind me.

Game over.

A fresh wave of commotion erupted as I was wrenched backward. Eric shoved Sam away from Chet, and for a second I thought he and Sam might get into it the way Sam puffed up his chest. But he backed down fast when he realized it was Eric who’d manhandled him.