Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1)(29)

Logan’s eyebrows lifted. “My brother kissed you?” He assessed me with new interest, ignoring the hostile banter.

“Yeah.” Annie waved a hand in agitation. “Don’t you get it? She thought he was you.”

I closed my eyes in a slow, pained blink, my hope fleeing that this might somehow not get back to Reece.

“What?” Now Logan looked genuinely confused. He waved a finger between the two of us. “You came here to make out with me?”

My mortification only grew. “Of course not.”

Annie nodded sagely. “Your reputation precedes you.”

After a long moment in which I wanted to curl up and die, the confusion cleared from his features. His grin returned, and his chest swelled. “Cool. I’ve got a rep.”

I dropped down from my stool, feeling like the biggest idiot. “I have to go.”

Emerson nodded sympathetically. “I’ll go with you.” With a quick good-bye to everyone—even Annie, who I would rather have slapped—we began wending our way through the bar. We had to stop occasionally for Emerson to chat with someone she knew. I shifted on my feet impatiently, scanning faces, hoping desperately that Reece wouldn’t appear. I couldn’t talk to him right now. I couldn’t play cool and unaffected.

The crowd grew tighter. A body bumped me, and I lost my grip on Em’s wrist. I felt like a buoy at sea, tossed in the current. I stretched onto my tiptoes and called for her, searching for her among the flushed faces.

Suddenly I felt her grip back on my wrist. My chest loosened. Now we can leave.

My gaze swung up. Reece stared down at me.

The hundred-pound weight was back on my chest, pressing down hard, trapping my breath. My face burned, flamed, the encounter with his brother still fresh. Embarrassingly so. “Hey, there,” I said lamely, studying him closely, trying to gauge what he knew.

His fingers burned an imprint onto my skin. I could feel the shape of each one locked around me.

His lips flattened into a grim line. “Heard you met my brother.”

My stomach bottomed out. Great. He knew. “Oh. Yeah. He was nice.”

His pale eyes glittered at me. “Is it true? You came here looking for him? You thought I was him?”

I shook my head, words evading me.

“Oh yeah. When he could stop laughing, he told me all about it. That’s why you’ve been so . . .” His gaze raked me up and down before finishing. “ . . . friendly to me?”

I shook my head. “No. Of course not—”

“You wanted to hook up with my brother because you heard the rumors about him.” It was a flat statement. Full of judgment.

I tried to play it off. I snorted like it was the most absurd suggestion ever and went for outright ignorance. “Rumors? What rumors?”

Those pale eyes of his turned to ice. “The rumors that my brother f*cks every girl who points her ass at him.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

He laughed roughly, but there was no levity in the sound. “It’s kind of funny, you know.”

I shook my head, unable to imagine anything funny about this. “How’s that?” I managed to get out.

He waved a hand. “All of these college girls . . . even a nice girl like you”—the way he emphasized nice clearly told me he didn’t think I fell into that category anymore—“throwing yourselves at a kid in high school.”

I felt my forehead crease. “What?”

“Logan’s still in high school. He’s eighteen.”

Oh. My. God. As if this moment could get any more embarrassing. If things hadn’t gotten all mixed up that first night I came here, if Logan had been working and receptive—if I hadn’t seen Reece first and fixated all my longing on him—I could have hooked up with a high school boy. Eighteen or not . . . he was still in high school!

I shook my head as if breaking free of the vestiges of a bad dream. “I didn’t throw myself at him. I just met him tonight.”

“But you came here for him. You thought I was him.” His gaze cut into me, merciless and deep.

As a rule of thumb, I didn’t run from life when it got ugly or uncomfortable. I’d faced a lot. A father dead. A mother who chose her addiction over me. This—him—shouldn’t be anything I couldn’t handle. His opinion or judgment of me wasn’t supposed to mean anything. He was just one step getting me closer to Hunter. That’s all he was supposed to be.

Even telling myself this, I couldn’t stop myself. The time had come to retreat.

The tide of people shifted. Bodies bumped us. His grip slipped off my wrist and my opportunity arrived. I ran, using my elbows as he’d once advised me. Plunging out the back door, I spotted Emerson with her phone to her ear.

“There you are,” she said when she saw me. “I was just trying to reach you.”

“Let’s go,” I growled, latching onto her arm and pulling her down the street toward the packed parking lot.

“What’s wrong? I mean besides the obvious awkwardness of finding out we confused your hottie for the other hottie.” She laughed. “C’mon. It’s kind of funny.”

I slid her a look.

She bumped me with her hip. “C’mon. Pat yourself on the back. According to Annie, Reece is the elusive one. And he kissed you.”