One Tiny Lie (Ten Tiny Breaths, #2)(13)

But Ashton just doesn’t fit in my mental image of Princeton. I don’t know if it’s his faded jeans that hang just slightly too low, or the thin gray shirt with sleeves pushed halfway up his arms, or the tattoo snaking up his inner forearm, or the frayed leather cuff around his wrist . . . I don’t know what it is.

“Irish?”

I hear him call my name. Gah! Not my name. His name for me. By that crooked smirk on those full lips, he’s caught me staring again and he’s enjoying it.

I clear my throat and abruptly force out, “Yup. All science. All but one.” An English lit class. It’s impractical, useless for my medical career, but it will satisfy Dr. Stayner’s “suggestion” to pick one course that I would otherwise skip right over in the course calendar.

“Let me guess. Pre-med?”

I nod, smiling. “Pediatrics. Oncology.” Unlike so many students who toil over what to do with their lives, I’ve known my chosen career since the day my friend Sara Dawson died of leukemia. I was nine. The decision came quite easily. I cried and asked my dad what I could have done. With a gentle smile, he reassured me that there was nothing I could have done for Sara, but that I was bright enough that I could grow up to be a doctor and save other kids. Saving kids sounded like a noble life. A goal that I’ve never questioned or wavered from since.

Now, though, as I look at Ashton’s scowl, you’d think I told him my dream was to work in a sewage plant. There’s a pause, and then he changes topic completely. “Look, about Saturday night . . . Can we just pretend it never happened?” he asks, sliding his hands into his pockets.

My mouth drops for a second as my brain replays those words. The words I’ve been playing over and over in my own head for the last three days. Can I? I’d like to. It would make it easier if I could just press a Delete button on all the images that still blaze in my head, making me suddenly blush and lose focus on . . .everything. “Sure,” I say with a smile. “Well . . . as long as we can get my sister and Reagan to pretend as well.”

One arm lifts to rub the back of his head, pulling his shirt tighter against his chest, enough that I can see the curves. The ones I had my hands all over. “Yeah, well, I figure your sister can’t cause too much trouble, being from out of town.”

“No, she can’t,” I agree. She can just randomly text me pictures of a chubby bald man holding a tattoo gun to your ass, like she did yesterday. I promptly erased it, but I’m sure that’s not the last of them.

“And Reagan won’t say a word,” I hear Ashton say. Dropping his arm to his side, he looks off in the distance, muttering more to himself, “She’s good like that.”

“Okay, great, well . . .” Maybe I can just put all this behind me and get back to being me. Livie Cleary. Future doctor. Good girl.

Ashton looks back at my face, his eyes dropping to my lips for a second, likely because I’m chewing on the bottom one so much I’m about to gnaw it off. I feel as though I should say something more. “I hardly remember it, so . . .” I let my voice drift off as I deliver that lie with a degree of coolness that surprises me. And impresses me.

His head tilts to the side and he looks off again, as if deep in thought. Then an amused grin touches his lips. “I’ve never had a girl tell me that before.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of my mouth as I look down to study his sneakers, feeling like I’ve finally scored a point. Livie: one. Mortifying conversation: a million. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

His low, throaty laugh pulls my attention back up to see twinkling eyes. He’s shaking his head as if thinking of a private joke.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just . . .” There’s a pause, as though he’s not sure whether he should say it or not. In the end, he decides to, delivering my pinnacle of humiliation with a wide grin. “You had a lot of firsts that night, Irish. You kept pointing each one out.”

I can’t keep the strangled sound from escaping, as if I’m dying. Which I might be, given my heart just stopped beating. I don’t know whether my arms slackened or I actually threw them in the air to cover my gasp, but somehow I’ve lost the death grip I had on my textbooks. They end up scattered all over the grass. Right next to the last shred of my dignity.

I practically collapse to collect my books as I rack my brain. The problem is, I don’t remember talking to Ashton a whole lot. And I certainly don’t remember pointing out all my—

That stupid vault opens up in my brain, just enough to let another explicit memory slip out. A flash of that brick wall against my back and Ashton against my front and my legs wrapped around his waist and him pressing against me. And me, whispering in his ear that I’ve never felt that before and how it’s harder than I thought it would be . . .

“Ohmigod,” I moan, clutching my stomach. I’m sure I’m going to be sick. I’m going to become an exhibitionist vomiter.

My heart is back to beating—racing, actually—as a new level beyond mortification slams into me. I sounded just like the actress in that awful video of Ben’s that Kacey made me watch over the summer. Literally. I accidently walked in on those weirdos watching it one night. Kacey took that as an opportunity to pin me down on the couch while Trent, Dan, and Ben howled with laughter at my flaming cheeks and horrified shrieks.