Excerpt
“India, I’m not using her. I mean, I am, but it’s not like that. Eloise is getting what she wants out of this relationship, as well.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You are using her.”
“I’m not.” His chair screeched as he pulled it closer so our knees touched. His dark eyes moved over my face and I sucked in my breath at the open appreciation I saw there. “I’m not using her…but we are in a relationship together. I guess it just never occurred to me that I might actually meet someone in high school. Someone I…”
That feeling in my chest, that thick, hot feeling, threatened to overwhelm me at all the things he wasn’t saying. “Finn, Eloise is going to be my family.”
He looked so forlorn it took everything within me not to reach for him.
“What is it you’re hiding?”
“I can’t tell you. Please, just trust me.”
Hurt and frustration swept through me in equal measure but I tamped it down. It wasn’t my place to demand his secrets.
My frustration was suddenly mirrored in his eyes as he looked up at me. “I wish things were different.”
But they weren’t different. And yet they were the same, history repeating itself. I cared about someone and they didn’t care enough about me back to be honest about what was really going on.
I didn’t know if I was angry at Finn or just angry that nothing ever seemed to be easy for me. Everything was always a fight.
It felt like I lived in a constant clusterfuck.
I gave a huff of laughter. “Story of my life.” I shook my head, grabbed up my bag and, unable to look at him, said, “Thank you for your help tonight.”
“You’re not leaving without me.”
His protectiveness confused and pissed me off even more. “I’m not? Funny, it looks like that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
His familiar scowl was back in place at my sarcasm. “You’re also not going home alone after what happened here. I’ll give you a ride.”
“Finn.” I slumped, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sadness flittered through his eyes before he managed a carefully blank expression. “I think I can handle driving you home.”
Still a trembling mess after everything that had happened, I gave in and followed Finn out to his car.
The tension that we’d shared before was nothing compared to how it was now. Now that Finn had in a roundabout way admitted he liked me and I’d realized that what I was feeling for him was attraction, the tension could not be mistaken for anything else but sexual.
I’d never felt anything like it before—it was the most frustrating, scary and exhilarating feeling in the world.
When we eventually pulled up outside the house, the guilt washed over me. I shouldn’t be feeling this way about Eloise’s boyfriend and he certainly shouldn’t be feeling this way about me.
I felt like we were to blame for the whole thing but I didn’t know why.
I hadn’t asked the universe to make Finn like me.
And I had definitely not intended to like him in return.
“India,” he said just as I moved to get out of his car. “I’ve never really cared what anybody thought of me before…but I really don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”
I stared into his beautiful eyes. “I can’t imagine ever thinking you’re a bad person. I meant it earlier…thank you for coming for me tonight. I’ll never forget it.”
“This feels weirdly like a goodbye,” he said with a bitter twist to his gorgeous lips.
“Maybe it is. I guess we’re both just a complication the other doesn’t need.”
Slowly, so slowly my heart had time to increase in hard, steady thumps, Finn slid his hand over the center console between us and stroked his thumb along the side of my hand. I felt that simple touch in every nerve, my body reacting to it in a way it never had to the touches and deep kisses that had come before it.
I stared at our hands for a moment, wondering how different my life could be if Finn wasn’t Eloise’s boyfriend, if we’d just met as strangers at school, felt the inexplicable bond between us and were free to do something about it.
Suddenly very aware of how long I’d been sitting outside the house in his car, I fumbled for the door handle. “See you around, Finn.”
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About Samantha Young
