Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)(61)

He tried to murder you, she had said, which put her firmly in the not-on-his-side column.

If he did something wrong, Lydia would definitely tell her. She would know.

There was just no way.

“Are you okay honey?”

He leaned very close to whisper the words. So close his breath brought up goosebumps in places they didn’t usually occur, like the side of her throat and the curve of her jaw. And then there was the expression on his face—so anxious and vulnerable.

It made any anger or doubt very hard to maintain.

Harder yet when she saw Chad slink into his seat about five rows down. Then he turned just a little, and she saw the reason for his bowed head. He had a black eye the size of a small grapefruit. The lids had swollen to such an extent that seeing was completely impossible, and there were only a couple of explanations. Fewer than a couple, if you factored in Tate’s fist. She hadn’t noticed at first because it was his left, not his right, and he’d kept it out of her line of sight.

But when he reached down for his textbooks and piled them onto his desk…

There it was. A nice, livid corresponding bruise all across his bulky knuckles.

One of his knuckles was almost as black as Chad’s eye, and twice as swollen. Broken, she thought, then got a hot shock of something through her body. Annoyance, she wanted to call it, but annoyance rarely made your heart thump like this. It didn’t make your palms sweaty.

And it definitely didn’t give your voice an awestruck tone when you whispered a question.

“Did you punch him in the face for taking a picture of me?”

“I literally have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Just saying the word literally really strongly doesn’t make it sound more true.”

“I didn’t say it strongly. I said it in a totally normal way.”

“Even having it in there at all is kind of dubious.”

“Dubious in what way?”

“The lady doth protest way too much.”

He snorted at that, loud enough to almost interrupt Professor Harrison midflow. He was saying something about the grade criteria for the joint projects, and his attention flicked upward. Only briefly though, and not enough to stop their conversation.

They just had to do it more quietly, leaning close enough to feel each other’s breath on their lips and cheeks. To see each other’s eyes in color-streaked snatches.

“How do you know I’m not protesting the exact right amount?”

“Because your left hand looks like it was hit with a hammer.”

“Maybe it was. Maybe I—”

“Had a confrontation with Thor?”

He rolled his eyes, which seemed pretty convincing.

But glanced away, in a manner that wasn’t.

“My hand doesn’t look that bad.”

“I think the middle knuckle is broken.”

“Man, those are some good X-ray eyes you’ve got.”

“I don’t need X-ray eyes. It looks like it’s on backward.”

“It’s fine. It’s nothing. I did it in practice.”

“You haven’t been to practice for a week. Coach stopped me in the hall yesterday to ask if I had seen you and pretty much suggested that I had poisoned your mind.”

He had acted fairly casual until that point.

But now he whipped a look at her. He raised his voice an octave, loud enough that a pixie-haired girl in an absolutely gorgeous red jumpsuit turned around and shushed them.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“He bugged you about it?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“I’ll punch him, too.”

She knew he was being funny. He boxed the air with his one good fist, like some cartoon from the 1930s. Why I oughta, she thought, then wanted to laugh.

So it was a surprise when her voice came out so furious.

“You shouldn’t be punching anyone, ever.”

“Not even when the punching is justified?”

“Punching is never justified, you lummox.”

He wanted to laugh, over lummox. She could see it in the flash of brightness that suddenly lit in his eyes and the way his lips trembled at the corners.

But he managed to swap it for withering dismissal at the last second.

“Yeah okay, I know, I know, it’s brutal and aggressive and—”

“I don’t care about the brutal aggression. I care that your hand looks like raw beef. I care about you getting kicked out of college because you pounded some * who took a nudie picture of me.”

“He didn’t get a nudie picture of you. He got like half of your elbow.”

“Well then what did you hit him for? An elbow isn’t so bad.”

“An elbow is worse, are you kidding? How dare he invade the privacy of your right arm.”

He slapped his desk, loud enough to make the girl in the red jumpsuit turn again.

Though when she did, he did a masterful job of pretending to read one of his textbooks.

“Okay, now you’re just purposefully being ridiculous.”

“I know, but I’m enjoying myself, so just go with me on it.”

She loved the grin he snuck her after those words. It was lopsided and somewhat sheepish and so conspiratorial. As though they were partners in crime, and he’d just asked her to rob a bank with him. It’ll be fun, she imagined him saying, and then she was just grinning back.