Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,30
threw me off.
“You meant what you said, right?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “So, why are you apologizing if that’s the way you feel?”
Obviously, I was apologizing because I didn’t mean what I’d said last night and felt insanely guilty about it now, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that.
“I just…” I lifted my left shoulder. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
His jaw muscle ticked. “You didn’t.”
“Right, but I…” Trailing off, I tried to read his expression to see whether he meant what he said or if he was just putting up a front. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out a damn thing. “Well, I’m sorry anyway,” I said and then dropped my gaze back to my plate, my face flushing with a blend of regret and embarrassment.
He cursed under his breath, calling my attention back to him. “I’m the one that should be apologizing. I was drinking. I shouldn’t have pushed,” he said tersely and then shook his head. “It won’t happen again.”
The guilt I’d been feeling only intensified at his words. The last thing I’d wanted was him apologizing to me. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Trace. You were great the whole night. And you took my mind off of…well, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, but something about the look on his face told me he wasn’t taking it as a compliment.
Confusion knitted my brows as I examined his expression. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Nah. It’s all good.” He tapped the table with his palms and then hopped off the chair. “I’m going to get my stuff ready. There’s some juice in the fridge if you want it,” he said as he left the kitchen in a hurry.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it,” I called out after him, but he had already disappeared down the hallway by the time I finished the sentence.
Well, that went well.
It seemed that despite my efforts something had definitely changed between us since last night, and while the logical, conservative side of my brain was telling me to just be thankful that things had finally cooled down between us, the other side was way too busy feeling the loss to really appreciate the irony.
Trace and I drove our own cars into school later that morning. He was already leaning against his parked car by the time I rolled into the spot beside him. Locking my doors, I walked around the back of my car and fell into step with him as he started toward the school building. Despite the chilly vibe between us, he’d at least waited for me before going in.
That was something. Though what that something was, I still had no idea.
“Are you sure everything is okay between us?” I asked as I all but jogged to keep up with his long strides.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he said without bothering to look back at me.
“Because—” I snagged his arm and stopped him going any further. “You’re being cold and distant.”
Squaring his shoulders, he peered down at me under his dark lashes. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
My lips parted to say something back, but nothing came out.
“We’re just friends, right? Nothing more? Well, this is how I treat my friends, Jemma,” he said softly, not even trying to be offensive about it. “What more do you want from me?”
Considering he had picked me up breakfast this morning, apologized to me for something that wasn’t his fault, and waited for me to get to school, he really hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. So, he wasn’t looking at me the same way, or speaking to me the way he usually did. Big deal. I couldn’t have it both ways.
My mind knew that, it did. But my heart was an entirely different story.
“I just…I want things to go back to the way they were before.”
“Before what?”
“Before last night,” I whispered as a group of freshmen walked past us, their voices hushed and their gazes curious. “Before I said those things to you.”
“Why?” he asked, his eyes fixed on me with purpose, as though trying to siphon the truth out of me. “It was just a game, right? It didn’t matter.”
I winced as my ugly words came back to haunt me.
He dipped down to catch my gaze. “That is what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s what I said.”
“So, what’s the problem?” he asked as he took a small step forward, crowding my personal space with his vibrating frequency.
“The problem is…” I rubbed my arms and tried to focus my mind, but