Uninvited (Uninvited, #1)(27)

His head dips to kiss me again, but I press a hand to his mouth, stopping him. His eyes gleam with frustration.

“Okay. What about our plans? Or future? I can’t go to Juilliard anymore.” A heaviness sinks inside me as I acknowledge this out loud. “That’s not going to happen for me.” I slide my fingers from his lips. “How can we make this work? You’ll be at NYU in the fall. I’ll be . . . here. . . .” That’s a safe guess. I can probably go to the local community college. Get a job at Dad’s bank.

I wait, eager to hear the words that will make me feel better.

Make me believe in him . . . in us. I need something to hang on to. Something to believe in. Something that won’t go away, vanish down the drain in a whirl with everything else.

“Do we really have to talk about this now, Davy? Can’t we just enjoy being together?”

His coaxing voice, his melting gaze. All of it gets to me. This time I don’t stop his head from lowering. We kiss. His hands roam and mold to me. Our breathing grows harsh, air passing from his mouth to mine.

His fingers trail down. Lifting my shirt, he grazes the sensitive skin underneath. He seizes the snap on my jeans and pops it free with an easy flick of his hand. The zipper is loud on the air, a discordant rip over the crash of our breaths.

My hand flies to his, closing over him. It’s an instinctive move. One I’ve been executing for months now.

He stills. Looks down at me with slightly dazed eyes. “C’mon, Davy,” he pleads, kissing my jaw. I feel the tip of his tongue there and shiver. “You said we would. . . .”

I look up past his face to the blur of the fan blades above, not wanting to debate the point that I had not actually agreed to sleep with him. I had been considering it. On the verge, true. But I hadn’t agreed. Yet.

“I just . . .” My voice fades. I don’t know what to say. Before, it had felt right. A definite likelihood. I’d felt ready. But now. Now . . . everything about this feels wrong. Here. In this room. With people downstairs who think I’m sort of deviant. It’s wrong.

“I need this, Davy,” he whispers against my ear.

This. Not me.

He doesn’t need me.

“I can’t,” I announce. This time the words fall with no reluctance. No regret. I know. I can’t do this.

He lifts up to peer at me, evidently recognizing from my tone that I’m not in a place where he can sweet-talk me. He stares hard at me for a long moment, his expression varying, shifting from frustration to anger. “Why not?”

I sit up and re-snap my jeans. “This isn’t how I envisioned—”

“Have you envisioned it?” he demands. “At all? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”

I look at him, baffled at his tone, at his seeming anger. It’s not as if I haven’t told him no before. “Why are you so upset with me? I just don’t feel—”

“I’ve waited for months, Davy. And you just keep teasing me with promises. You should be grateful that I’m the kind of guy who’s patient . . . especially now.”

I angle my head, my flesh suddenly prickling. “Why especially now?”

He looks away briefly before turning back at me. His lips compress as if he’s holding something in.

“Why?” I stab him in the chest with my finger. “Why should I be especially grateful now?”

I wait, my chest swelling with the aching hope that I’m wrong. That he won’t say it. That he will say something to erase all the horrible things running through my head. I desperately need confirmation that he’s not as bad as the rest of them. That he doesn’t see me as damaged.

I wait, hungry to hear him say that he didn’t bring me here tonight expecting some kind of reward for sticking with me.

The words never come.

He crosses his arms over his chest as he faces me, his expression odd. It’s almost like he’s a stranger staring at me, his eyes dull and somehow less green. His mouth unsmiling. “You know why.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

And he’s right. I do know why. I understand.

In that instant, everything about him—about who I thought he was—dies a quick death. Grief swallows me as I blink at my boyfriend. Looking at him, I only see another disappointment. Another loss. Another piece of me gone and crushed to tiny bits.

Turning, I open the door and flee the room.

“Davy, wait!” His steps pound after me. Before I reach the top of the stairs, he grabs my arm and forces me around. “Where are you going?”

I look at him evenly. “I’m going home.”

“You’re mad at me,” he announces.

“And you’re observant.”

He drops his hand from my arm. “Why are you being like this?”

Why am I being like this?

“You know why,” I say, deliberately echoing his words.

His face hardens and he crosses his arms, reminding me of a spoiled little boy. “We just got here. I’m not ready to go home.”

I stare at him for a moment, still reconciling this Zac with the boy I thought I knew. The boy I loved.

What did I know anymore about anyone? About anything? If I’d been so wrong about him, what else am I wrong about?

White-hot panic hums through me. I’ve got to get out of here. Escape.