Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(48)

I pull out a chair and sit. “I’m going to have to end the trade early.”

There are a thousand things she could say. I’m bailing early, just like she thought I would. I couldn’t hack it. It wasn’t real; it was never real. I couldn’t put down my life, any more than she could let go of her own terror. We’re still the same people we were before, scarred in the same ways we were scarred before. Everything I thought I could accomplish was fake. I can’t look at her.

“I won’t be in school anymore,” I say, “so there’s no question that you’ll stay here. And the money is yours—we agreed on that up front. You were right. We can’t trade. Not really. There’s nothing I can do to get out of my life.”

But it’s more than that. Once the trade is over, we’re over. We’re nothing. And we’ve tried—hard, so hard—not to be anything. But… I glance over at her and… My body yearns to press against hers. My lungs long to breath the air she releases. And deep down, somewhere inside of me, I just want. I want everything we haven’t had.

Don’t walk away, I imagine saying.

“I still want to meet your parents,” I tell her. “And just think—three weeks from now, your mom will never tease me about you again.”

She doesn’t say anything. But even though I try to cover what I’m thinking with a smile, she knows what I’m saying. She reaches out and takes my hand.

There are a million things we could be to each other, if only we were different people. If I were a different person, I would have asked her out last September. If she were a different person, we’d have been in bed weeks ago. Instead, we’re us. Close enough to hurt, but not close enough to do more than touch for an instant and let go.

“Until then,” I say, “I don’t want out of any of this.”

She doesn’t let go of my hand. “Until then.”

But she’s already turned her head away.

TINA

It’s nine at night, and Blake has gone to work, when my watch buzzes on my wrist. I glance down, expecting a calendar reminder. Instead, a little green notification appears.

Incoming call: Adam Reynolds.

I let those words fill my vision for a moment. Not because I intend to make him wait; it’s simply that for a second I freeze. Blake’s dad is a wolf, and I feel very much like the rabbit. The last time Adam and I talked, it didn’t turn out particularly well. But right now, the CEO of Cyclone—and the man who, incidentally, still thinks I’m dating his son—is calling me.

What can I do? I hit accept.

He appears on the screen: messy pepper-gray hair and beard scruff in need of a shave. His gaze fixes on mine.

“Tina.” His voice is just a little hoarse. He clears his throat and sniffs. “Is Blake there?”

“No.”

“Good.” He frowns. “Look. Blake’s a little distant right now. Is something going on with him?”

Something is obviously going on between them, but even I can’t tell what it is, and I suspect I know about as much as anyone on the planet except these two.

I shake my head. “I’m not talking to you about Blake.”

“Yeah.” He blows out a breath. “Probably just as well that you’re loyal to him. I just…” He pauses, tapping his fingers against his cheek.

“It’s not that,” I interject. “It’s just that you’re an…” I choke back the word I’d been planning to put in that blank. Last time was bad enough. “You’re a little intense,” I finish.

For a moment, he stares at me. Then, ever so slowly, he smiles. “Don’t start holding out on me now. I’m an *.” My surprise must show, because he shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve never claimed otherwise.”

I suspect this is as close as Adam Reynolds will ever come to apologizing for his behavior in that restaurant.

“Blake thinks you’re not an *.”

“Blake,” Mr. Reynolds says with a roll of his eyes, “is a ridiculously good kid. There’s a reason I’m a little protective of him. I’m always afraid people will take advantage.”

I don’t say anything. A little protective is what he is?

Despite my silence, he sighs and waves his hand. “Good point,” he mutters in response to the thing I didn’t say. “It hasn’t happened yet, and God knows if he were as naïve as I really feared, it would have by now. Of all the women he could have had, he did choose you.”

I think this is intended as a compliment.

“Still,” his dad continues. “I worry. Is everything okay with him?”

I have the distinct impression that even though Blake has never said so, most of his problems lie with this man. Somehow. Some way.

“This is a conversation you should have with Blake.”

He puts his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.” He doesn’t move for a few moments. And then—of all things—he sniffles. Unconvincingly.

“Mr. Reynolds, are you fake crying to try to get my sympathy?”

The hand lowers. He glowers at me—obviously dry-eyed. “Fuck me,” he says. “First, call me Adam. Mr. Reynolds makes me sound like some bullshit old fart. Second, I don’t f*cking cry. I especially don’t fake cry. Emotional manipulation is for morons who don’t have the strength of will to get people on their side with reason. I have a cold.”