“God, she is such a bitch.” Layne made a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe you slept with her.”
Gabriel almost dropped his cup. “What? Who the hell said I slept with her?”
“No one. But . . . in class . . .” She faltered. Even in the dim light, he could see Layne’s cheeks turn pink. “She said—”
“I have never slept with Taylor. Jesus, there’s a locker room joke that—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“That what?”
He took a quick sip of coffee. “You know that stupid saying in sex ed about how when you sleep with someone, you’re sleeping with everyone that person has had sex with?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s just say I have no desire to sleep with the entire team.”
Layne didn’t look entirely convinced. “Today. In class. She mentioned last year.”
This girl was too smart for her own good. He sighed. “All right, look. I was at this one party, and I was sitting on a couch, and she came over and climbed in my lap. I didn’t exactly shove her away. But I did not sleep with her, and we barely spent ten minutes together. She’s on the cheer squad. I play a lot of sports. She flirts with any guy she sees, including half the faculty.”
Layne settled back onto the tailgate, staring out at the night again.
“Come on,” he said. “She just says those things to get a reaction.”
“It works.”
“I still don’t understand how she tricked you.”
“Maybe I’m just an idiot.”
“Oh, I know that’s not true,” he said. “Tell me. Did that loser just walk over and start assaulting you?”
“No.” Her voice was very small. “He was nice. I liked him. He didn’t even assault me. I told you: It didn’t start like that.”
Gabriel snorted. “Couldn’t you tell he was drunk off his ass?”
“No!” Sudden anger swung her around. “How am I supposed to know when someone is drunk?”
“Layne—”
“He didn’t smell like beer. He wasn’t slurring his words. Or do you mean, he had to be drunk off his ass to be into someone like—”
“Hey.” His voice was sharper than he intended, but it got her to shut up. God, she was crazy if she thought someone would have to be drunk to take a second glance at her. The way she was sitting had the skirt splayed across her lap, leaving a long expanse of spandexed leg stretching into the darkness. Anger flushed her cheeks, and curls of hair fell along one shoulder. Her eyes caught the starlight, making him want to—
“What?” she demanded.
Gabriel jerked his eyes away. He wanted to tell her everything he was thinking, how she looked striking right now, beautiful in the darkness. How he wished he’d known she would be at the party. How he would have been dragging Hunter out of the car instead of the other way around.
He brought his cup to his lips. “Nothing.”
She scowled out at the parking lot. “So is this like your place?”
“My place?”
“Where you bring girls.”
“Yes. I bring girls to this run-down parking lot all the time.” He gestured with his cup. “I have a sign-up sheet nailed to that tree. Now that you mention it”—he glanced at his watch—“we should probably wrap this up.”
Her eyes were intense, challenging, fixed on his. “Do you have a five-minute limit before you start getting mean?”
“I don’t know, Layne. Do you have a five-minute limit before you start getting defensive?”
She clamped her mouth shut and turned to face the darkness.
As usual, he didn’t know if he owed her an apology—or deserved one.
He picked at the lid of his cup. “Nicky and I come out here sometimes,” he said. “I’ve never brought a girl here.”
“Never?” Her voice was some combination of skeptical and hopeful.
“What do you think, that I’m some kind of thug player who’ll screw anything in a skirt?”
She didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
“Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe you think I’d beat the shit out of Ryan Stacey just to drag you to the middle of nowhere so I could—”
“Hey.” Her eyes flashed up to his. “Now who’s defensive?”
“Touché.”
They sat in silence for a while, until the crickets were deafening, and Gabriel began to wonder if he should just offer to drive her home.
“It’s funny,” she said quietly. “You were the first person I talked to this morning, and you’ll probably be the last I talk to tonight.”
This morning. It felt like a lifetime ago. He wondered if she had any idea that Ryan Stacey had been trapping her little brother inside a locker after scrawling insults all over his chest.
I let him kiss me.
No. She couldn’t possibly know.
“Tell me your secrets,” she said.
He looked up. “My secrets?”
Layne drew her legs up to sit cross-legged on the tailgate, her hands in her lap. It put half her face in light, half in shadow, like a challenging angel trying to decide between good and evil. “You said yesterday that any time someone comes close to figuring you out, you pick a fight. You did it this morning in the woods, and you’re doing it now. If you’re not this thug player who can’t pass math, then what are you hiding?”
“What are you hiding?”
“I asked first.”
He looked out at the night again—but his heart was running a marathon in his chest. “You already know Nick was taking my tests for me.”
She cocked her head to the side and gave a little shrug. “That’s not even a secret. That’s like me saying, I have a deaf little brother.”
Gabriel shrugged. Truths were clawing at his lips, begging to escape. God, to tell someone.
No way. Like he could sit here, trapped on the tailgate, and spill everything. Gee, well, I can control fire. Oh, and those articles in the paper? They’re talking about me. And maybe I should mention that I’ve been thinking about your arms around me all day. Or how I’ve wanted to kiss you for days, but right now that would make me no better than Ryan Stacey . . .
Yeah, that would be great. He drew a choking breath and fought for words.
“How about,” she said, her voice careful, “I get a question, then you get a question.”
That made him smile. “Like truth or dare?”
She blushed and her eyes dropped. “I’ve never played that.”
“Come on, Layne, kids play that when they’re ten.”
“Not all kids.”
She could be so fierce one minute, yet so innocent the next, and it was seriously making him crazy. “All right, go. Truth.”
“I told you I don’t know how to play.”
Gabriel leaned in and whispered, “The name of the game might be a giveaway.”
Her eyes flicked up, sparking with defiance, and for a breathless moment he regretted not choosing dare.
“Truth,” she said. “Why did you start cheating in math?”
At least that slammed the brakes on his train of thought. “Because I stopped passing. In seventh grade.”
“When your parents died.” Her voice was tentative, but it wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. I’d never been an A student or anything, but after that . . . I didn’t even want to be at school, much less do any work.” He shrugged and leaned against the side of the tailgate to look at her. “I was in danger of being held back, and things were already so messed up. Nick started doing it for me, just to get us through the year.”