Tipping The Scales: Knox (Mate Craze)(8)

“Oh, I call him that? Right, because of the two of us, I’m the one who would call him that. Right.”

Rhi scooted forward. “You said right twice, genius.”

“Stop changing the subject. I’m not the one who called him that. I don’t even know his freakin’ real name or else I’d call him that… Wait, his name is Knox. Stop saying sex!” Her voice trailed off, laced with embarrassment.

Rhi covered her mouth with her hand while I twisted my mouth in every way but a smile. I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her—though I was.

After a few minutes of looking at anything but me, Kallie finally met my gaze again. “Knox, I was wondering if you could help me with something?”

I leaned forward—it couldn’t be helped—and let my dragon pour a little of his fire into my voice. “Absolutely.”

One side of Kallie’s mouth rose while she leaned forward, matching my stance, and looked at my mouth. My scales were buzzing and the dragon inside me wanted to scoop her up and fly her to the nearest private mountain top.

The girl was playing with fire—literally.

Her eyes, deep and deadly, bored into mine as she ran her bottom lip across her top teeth.

One day, that would be my job.

“Knox. It’s a really important question.”

“Anything.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she popped back against the booth, one of her eyebrows popped up, knowing what she had done to me, and stuck out her tongue.





4





Kallie





The bathroom. I hid in the bathroom the night before like a freak, and honestly, I felt like a freak. I know Rhi thought she was the one causing all of my discomfort with her taunting, but she had very little to do with it. Sure, she was annoying as heck, but that had always been a part of her charm. Best friends push buttons, it’s like a rule.

What really had me a caflustered, beet-red mess was Knox. Goodness, even his name had my heart a-flutter and my face a-burnin’. My memory had not served him justice. He was more than gorgeous, for his looks were only a fraction of what drew me to him. It was his energy. He filled the room until it felt as if he was embracing me in his arms, even though we weren’t even touching. It was all I could do not to climb in his lap and beg him to touch me.

Touch me. If being close to him had me all in a fluster, touching him was going to be the death of me, of that I was sure. The brush of his hand had my body feeling things I couldn’t process. It was heat, actual temperature heat, and heart thumping, butterflies in your stomach, which probably was true for most crushes. But it was more. Like he was a magnet and I was metal. Not touching him took all my strength.

Not that I was planning to jump him or whatever wise-arse thing Rhi would come up with, but I needed to touch him. Hold his hand, lean against him, even playing footsie would suffice. How was this man doing this to me without even trying? Maybe he was like those not-hot guys on television that everyone was still drawn to. Some je ne sais quoi or whatever the French saying was.

In any case, I was a red hot mess. A mess of a mess. A needy ball of messy McMessness.

Rhi tried to talk me out of my hiding perch in the stall, but I wasn’t having it, too afraid of what was happening, which in hindsight was crazy, but at the time felt necessary. After all, he had to have drugged me to get that kind of reaction, right? No not right, crazy, and I knew it. He was not the type to be underhanded like that. His eyes danced with trouble, but something in them told me he would never hurt me intentionally. Leave me with a broken heart? For certain sure. He probably left a trail of them everywhere he went.

Heck, I was sitting here the next morning unable to forget him, or my inability to be normal in front of him anyway.

“Are you getting up yet?” Rhi broke through my less than positive trip down memory lane.

Busted. I was pretending to be asleep as Rhi completed her far-too-long morning routine, enjoying the lack of conversation as I tried to piece together what was happening to me. This trip needed to be all about work. Important work, at that. If it panned out, I could save close to a hundred thousand in student debt, and that was a necessity if I were to achieve my goals.

“I’m up,” I grunted, throwing a pillow in the direction of her voice, terribly missing her before finding a home on the floor.

“You were hiding from me.” The pillow returned to me as a projectile I hadn’t seen coming and, unlike with my throw, her’s was spot on. Good old Rhi.

“Was not.” I was such a liar face. “Fine, I was, but not from you as much as last night.” That was as close to the truth as I could get, even with my closest friend. Anything else would have meant being honest with myself, which was something I wasn’t even close to ready for.

“I told you, he was fine with it.”

“Right. He was fine with a chick hiding from him in the bathroom until he left.” I didn’t let my eyes leave her as I spoke the words, hoping she would give something away. As if anyone could be fine with someone fleeing their presence to hide in the bathroom until they left. That was not okay with anyone, no matter what Rhi tried to say. He was most likely trying to avoid showing his stomped on self-esteem or relieved he hadn’t been too invested before discovering my layers of crazy. The town was small and chances were I would run into him again, especially with Rhi taking that stupid survivalist class, the one she tried to get me to be a part of. A twisted little part of me wanted to make that happen, consequences be darned. I desperately wanted to see he really was fine with it.