The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(113)

“Are you ready?” Tom glanced at me.

My jaw clenched.

It never occurred to me that they might be an item.

That she might be dating already, right beneath my nose.

Della nodded. “Yep. Oh, almost forgot.” Darting to the coffee table, she scooped up a little pearl bag and looped it over her wrist. Speaking to me, she said, “I have my phone and some cash. I can get an Uber or something home. You won’t be able to pick me up on the motorbike in this dress.”

I didn’t trust myself to talk.

I wanted to ensure she knew the curfew and my many, many rules, but my voice refused to work. It was still a gravelly mess with things I never wanted Della to know. Things I didn’t want to know.

“Ren?” she murmured, coming closer to me. “Everything okay?”

I nodded stiffly, stumbling back. I honestly didn’t know what I’d do if she touched me. “Go. Have fun.”

Even though I wanted to lock her in her room and ban Tom from ever seeing her again, I almost pushed her out the door so I could breathe again.

“Okay…” Her eyes danced over my face, a sliver of hurt hiding in them before she smiled, and it vanished. “My offer still stands. You were invited, you know. I don’t know if you were listening a few nights ago when I told you about the party, but everyone is welcome.”

Fuck, everyone?

“You mean…this isn’t just school kids going?”

Tom grinned, self-important and making my life a lot more difficult by not punching him. “Nah, man. It’s a frat party. Local uni is putting it on. There’ll be booze and stuff, but I won’t let Della have any. I promise.”

My ears rang.

My temper slipped into an ice-cold single-mindedness.

“You’re not going.” I narrowed my eyes at Della. “No way.”

I’d never been to a party as a guest, but I’d been to enough of the dregs when collecting Cassie on those nights she’d snuck out and called me for a ride home. Della had accompanied me enough to understand why this was non-negotiable.

The amount of used condoms and spewing kids. The reek of sex and trouble.

No. Fucking. Way.

I crossed my arms as Della looked back once at her friends then swooped toward me. Her perfume of something light and floral invaded my nose, her body heat made me sick with want, and her breath against my neck as she hissed into my ear made my knees almost buckle.

I hadn’t expected her closeness or her fight, and my silence gave her the perfect battlefield to destroy me.

“Don’t mess this up for me, Ren. I’m not asking this time. I’m going to this party, and you have my word I will behave. I won’t drink, and I won’t fool around, but this is my life. These are my friends, and I want to hang out with them.”

Everything she said was for my ears only.

The two strangers lingered by the door, giving us a confused glance.

Della pulled away but not before I lashed out and grabbed her wrist.

She gasped, her eyes dropping to where I held her, her soft inhale ripping through my defences and making my fingers squeeze against my command.

I clutched her hard, unable to let go even though everything inside screamed to back the hell off. “Don’t threaten me, Della.”

Her eyes widened then hooded to that sultry stare I had no power against. “I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. Come if you want. I want you to. If only to get out of the apartment and live a little.”

“You know I don’t like crowds.”

“Well, stay then.”

“You know I can’t. Not now.”

“Because you don’t trust me.” Her tongue licked her bottom lip as once again my fingers squeezed her wrist in reprimand. The feel of her tiny bones. The rush of blood in her veins. The electricity infecting both of us that wasn’t there before.

Fierce.

Forbidden.

Off-limits.

She shivered, leaning closer.

It took everything I had, but I released her and stepped back, rubbing my fingertips from the residual burn from touching her. “Because I don’t trust them.”

Or myself.

“Fine.” She stood tall and any hint of being affected by our whispered conversation disappeared. “Come then. I’ll see you there. It’s the house four blocks away toward the campus. Follow the music and pumpkins.”

Without another word, she grabbed Tom’s hand, smiled at the girl, then dragged them out the door, closing it with a slam.





CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE





DELLA



Present Day



AH, DATING.

So much fun, right?

Wrong.

The minute I met Tom in line at a local McDonald’s of all places while I did English homework with Tina, I’d been rather smitten.

He went to a school not far from ours and regularly used our school’s facilities like the basketball court and track as part of the physical education offered.

To be honest, the first thing that attracted me to Tom was his sable hair—almost the exact same colour as Ren’s in autumn just before winter made it dark and summer made it bronze.

Instead of Ren’s dark soul-deep eyes, Tom’s were a startling green. Instead of Ren’s well-honed and work-hard muscles, Tom’s was gym perfected on a body still growing into manhood.