had her reasons. Give her a chance to explain, okay?” Brandon shifted uncomfortably as he held the door open for me to go inside. “I know she acts like some ice queen, but…”
He looked like he was struggling with the words, and so I let him off the hook by patting him on the shoulder. “Yeah, man. I know.”
But that didn’t mean I’d sit by on the sidelines and let her take on all of her problems and Brandon’s by herself.
Whether she wanted it or not, I wasn’t letting her walk away. Not again.
This time, she was stuck with me.
Eight
Amber
The air conditioner in the trailer Jack and I were supposed to use for our tutoring sessions was on full-power, but it still wasn’t putting out enough air to make it cold in here, and the AC had nothing to do with my shiver as another half hour passed in deathly silence.
“Brrr,” I said with a fake chatter of my teeth. “Is it cold in here or is it just me?”
Jack kept his gaze on the open textbook before him. Spoilsport.
“So cold,” I said, making a show of rubbing my arms. “Yup, this silence of yours is cold, Jack. No wonder Lila was so miserable when she got on your bad side. You sure know how to ice a girl out.”
His head snapped up with a glare. “You don’t get to talk about Lila.”
Finally. I wasn’t a fan of his death glare, but it was better than being ignored. “I guess you two talked, huh? Whatever Lila told you, that girl is just—”
“I talked to Brandon.” His tone was short, and his eyes… well, his eyes said everything. He’d lost all respect for me.
Oh no. The brooding saint of Pinedale didn’t think I was Little Miss Perfect anymore. Boo-freakin’-hoo.
I rolled my eyes in the face of his glare. “Yeah, well, I told you that you were gonna hate me. Looks like I was right.”
He shook his head. “Why did you do it, Amber? I mean, spying? On Brandon? That’s so beneath you.”
“You don’t even know me,” I shot back. “Did either you or Brandon even think to ask me about what my life was like after I left? No.” I leaned forward, my cleavage on full display as I sneered at him. “Those first few summers after we moved away, I actually looked forward to coming back, thinking my old pals would see that something was wrong. That maybe they’d care.” I straightened. “Wrong! You all were so wrapped up in your boring, little lives that you didn’t even notice that I was miserable. And then, I stopped coming home altogether and guess what? No one cared. No one even noticed.”
He was staring at me like I’d grown a second head. I smoothed a hand over the braid that the hair lady had done up for me and tried to calm myself.
Right. He still didn’t care about my side of the story. Of course not.
His voice was low and soft and neither kind nor nasty when he asked, “What happened to you?”
I gave a snort of amusement. What happened? What hadn’t? “I changed, that’s what. And no one noticed. So when Lila’s father had his people come to me with an offer…” I shrugged. “Why not, right?”
He eyed me from head to toe like I was some foreign specimen. “And? Was it worth it?”
I gave a sharp laugh at that. “Hello? I’m a TV star now, so… yeah. It was totally worth it.”
His silence seemed to mock me. Or maybe it wasn’t his silence but my own thoughts.
I supposed it was only natural to feel a little bit of a letdown after you’ve gotten your dream. It just meant I needed to set new goals. I had to aim for higher.
But in the meantime, Jack had no right to judge what I did to get where I was. “You wouldn’t understand,” I muttered.
He leaned back in his seat and kicked his feet up. Everything about this guy spoke of cocky swagger. It was that confidence that had every girl in Pinedale wishing he’d look at them with just a fraction of that heat he’d seemed to reserve just for Lila.
Ugh. Lila. As if she deserved a guy like him.
“Try me,” Jack said now.
I should’ve just ignored him, but I never had been able to ignore a challenge.
I gestured around us. “This, Jack… this is everything I’ve ever wanted. If I had to tell a few lies and do a little snooping