The Way to Game the Walk of Shame(52)

NOT because I liked him.

The smugness on Lauren’s face grew as she came to the same conclusion I did.

To everyone’s surprise, Evan just pried her hand off ever so lightly—finger by finger—until she was no longer touching him, and he dropped her hand. He backed up a few steps until he was at my side again. With both hands raised as though he were surrendering, Evan nodded. “Yeah, I am. Just. Like. That.”





17

{Taylor}


I don’t know if Evan understood what he had just done. I barely understood. Even if he was naive—and I knew he wasn’t—there was no mistaking the pissed-off look in Lauren’s eyes before we left. It was weird to see her eyes so icy when her hair and ruby lips looked like they were on fire. You could practically feel the waves of hatred radiating off her body.

Even now I could feel her eyes piercing through my back. I didn’t know if Evan felt it, too, but he tightened his grip. And he never looked back. Not even when Aaron let out a loud “Whoop!”

We didn’t head for the parking lot. Instead, we strolled along the water’s edge, hand in hand, but not looking at each other. Not saying anything. I was glad. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. My mind was still reeling.

He chose me. Me over Lauren in all her red-bikini glory. In front of everyone. His hand was warm and steady in my hand. It was both comforting and made me tingle from head to toe. And it was getting kind of hard to catch my breath.

Finally, when the party was way behind us, he let go and sank down into the sand barely a few feet from the shore. He watched the waves crash against each other in the distance. White foam glowed against the black sea. A couple of gray-and-white seagulls pecked at the sand around us, cooing at each other every other minute or so.

“So, that was kind of crazy,” Evan commented after a while.

“Yeah, a bit.” Sitting down next to him, I tried to sound confident. “I could have handled it, though.”

“I’m sure you would have.” He waved his hand in front of my face. His index finger and thumb were half an inch apart. “I helped a little bit, though.”

“Maybe.” I batted his hand away. “Or maybe I let you play the knight in shining armor to boost your ego. Big as it already is.”

“I think we both know that my ego is already at its max,” he said with a lopsided grin that made my stomach flop.

“You said it, not me.”

With a laugh, Evan shifted to the side and dug the joint out of his pocket. “Better get rid of this now before I forget. Mom and Brandon would freak if I accidentally brought it home.” He wound his arm back and pitched it into the ocean. Dusting off his hands, he turned to look at me. “So why are you here?”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth. “What do you mean? This is my scene every Friday night. Before Lauren showed up, I was the life of the party out there.”

A wide grin came across his face. “Something makes me really doubt that, since you consider homework fun.” His hair flopped around as he shook his head. It wasn’t spiked up at all tonight, and parts of his hair were still damp. He must have been surfing before the party. “Are you sure there’s no other reason?”

Was I such a bad liar? It was like he saw right through me. “I was worried about you. You seem different. Like you’re mad at me or something. Especially after the other night with Brian—” I broke off when his jaw visibly tightened. Uh, maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring up Brian. “Do you regret this?”

He stared out at the water. “Depends what you mean by this.”

What the hell. There was no turning back now. I let out a deep breath. “The contract. Us pretending to be together. Do you regret it?”

Even though I had asked the question, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know his answer. Because I was afraid of what it would be. Just because he chose me over Lauren once didn’t mean anything. Maybe he was being nice.

He finally looked down at me, and his face softened a bit. His gray eyes searched my face like he wanted to find the right answer there. His hand brushed my hair out of my eyes, and I fought the urge to lean against his hand. “No, I don’t.”

A shiver ran down my spine at his words. “Thanks. Even if you’re lying, it’s still nice to hear you say that,” I joked to cover up my nervousness.

Evan didn’t deny or admit that he was lying. He didn’t say anything. He just flashed me a small grin and pulled away from me. He found a small blue plastic shovel someone had forgotten on the beach and dug an oval hole. Soon a small crater was between us.

Using my feet, I pushed sand into the hole he was making, ruining his efforts. “So we’re good?”

“Yeah, perfect.” With a flick of his wrist, he threw a glop of wet sand on my legs. “Oops, sorry. Slip of the hand.”

Oh, we’ll see about that. With my eyes narrowed, I dug my toes into the sand to get more ammunition before launching it at him. It landed directly on his crotch. Perfect. “Sorry, I was stretching.”

“No problem. As long as it wasn’t on purpose,” he said with a shrug before smashing a handful of wet sand on the top of my head. “’Cause that definitely was.”

I let out a shriek and jumped to my feet. My hands ran through my hair to shake the sand out as Evan rolled on the ground laughing. This was war now. Before he could react, I straddled his lap and used both hands to dig up as much sand as I could to bury him.