One Was Lost(47)

“Hot as hell.”

Warmth curls up through my chest as he smirks. I look down because he’d know. I wore every last one I own around him.

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “You were saying. Dresses?”

I clear my throat and my mind. “Dresses. The doll was wearing a skirt and a different color shirt, right? That’s not me. I wear dresses. And even if I did own blue underwear, I wouldn’t be flashing skivvies in math class, for God’s sake.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying…what if it’s not me? The doll. What if it’s someone else?”

He lets out a slow breath, looking unconvinced. “I don’t know, Sera. You’ve got Darling on your freaking arm.”

My shoulders slump. “I know.”

“I know for girls it’s all different, but guys don’t know the difference between a dress or a skirt. At the very least, they don’t care. They’re just going to notice…”

It’s his turn to flush, and it turns my stomach fizzy. All those butterflies and fluttery feelings, all the obsessive thinking and lip-glossing my mother thought I should live for. Lucas brings that out in me.

I bite my lip hard enough to sting. Lucas is watching me with interest I wish I didn’t want. When he looks away, swearing, I flinch.

“I hate this,” he says.

“Hate what?”

“I can’t even say that you look good in a dress without feeling like I’m being an asshole.”

Words flood my mouth, but I bite them back. Study my feet instead. My heart is beating so hard because he’s in knots, and I know it’s over me. Some part of me is eating this up. God, that’s so sick.

Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe that selfish streak that let my mother ruin us is in me too. I can cut my hair, change my life. But how do I cut that part out?

I must be quiet too long because Lucas laughs a little desperately. “Look, I’ve got a lot of things wrong with me, but I’m not that guy.”

“I know.”

“Do you, Sera?”

My shoulders hunch when he looks at me. I feel like the river birch behind me. My bark is peeling away, stripping bare things I should cover. He’ll see everything underneath if I let him, and I’m afraid I will let him. I’m afraid I want to.

Trust your heart.

Right. Because my heart would never lead me wrong.

“So, you said you can’t go there,” Lucas says. “Is that with all guys or…”

He’s waiting for me to fill in the blank, and the lie is ready on my lips. Just say it. Tell him it’s everyone. It’s some Lebanese thing, a cultural deal. That’ll shut him up, and I won’t even look like a jerk.

But it won’t be true.

“I haven’t run into anything quite like this before,” I say instead.

What I mean is, I haven’t run into anyone quite like him.

“But I’ve seen you go out with people,” he says. His expression turns stony. “I’m different though? Because we kissed? Or is it because of the fights? Because of Tyler?”

It probably should be the fights. Last year, I saw him in the office with Jamie Peterson, sporting swollen knuckles and busted lips. Seems like a good reason. Too bad it’s not my reason.

“Do you believe this?” he asks when I take too long to respond. He turns up his hand until I can see Dangerous scrawled onto his pale skin. “Do you believe I’m violent?”

“Is it still up for debate? How much trouble have you been in this year?”

He shakes his head and stalks forward, his expression cooling. It scares me. “Tell you what, Sera. You want me to tell you all about how dangerous I am? I’ll do that. Let’s play that game.”

I’m not sure I want to play anymore, but when I take a step back, my shoulder blades bump into a tree trunk. And he’s right there, frowning at me.

“That Tyler thing? It was one of my first soccer games in Marietta. Mom and Dad move a lot. All part of their free-spirit stoner ways. Soccer was something I could do in any town, so I did.” He drops his chin, deepening the shadows on his face. “That hit on Tyler was clean. Just a chance collision, but some hits go bad, and this one did. He broke his leg in three different places. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“His teammates came after me for months. Did you know that part too?”

I swallow hard.

“I let them go at me in the beginning,” he says. “Couple of black eyes. Bruised kidney. I’m big enough to handle a bit of roughing. Plus, I saw where they were coming from. If it had been my team captain?” He snorts, as if that doesn’t warrant explanation. Then he tips his head so he’s looking right at me. Maybe right through me. “Let’s be clear, Sera. At first, I let them have at it. They wanted someone to blame, and I looked like the right guy for the job. I figured it would blow over…”

He figured wrong. Nothing blows over in Marietta. Marietta has a million perks, but the high school scene features all the small-town drawbacks. My shoulders droop, arms gone heavy.

“Back then, the situation was fine,” he says. “I was handling it. I had the metal shop, and yeah, maybe soccer was a bad idea, but I could still play football…until I couldn’t.”