Out of My League - Sarah Sutton Page 0,14

lap it up. Like a dog.”

His smile slanted. “Did you just call me a dog, Sophie?”

“It’s Sophia,” I snapped in response.

Walsh grabbed the railing with both hands again, leaning close enough that I could see directly into his blue-green eyes. His breath tickled my skin. Too close. “I don’t know why you’re yelling at me. I’m not the one who cheated on you.”

A switch flipped in my brain, and any ounce of jovialness I’d experienced a minute ago evaporated.

But Walsh wasn’t finished. “It was only a matter of time, though, you know? Girls like you and guys like Scott don’t really mix well.”

Yeah, I was this-freaking-close to changing my mind and shoving him off the railing. This close to committing murder and not even batting an eye. I could probably get away with it, too. We were separated far enough away from the party that no one would see, and no one would believe that a girl like me would be hanging out with Mr. Perfect. Let alone push him off a cliff.

Instead of committing homicide, I raised my hands from him, backing up. “You know what? Fall to your death. Please. You’ll be doing me a favor.” With my dress fluttering in the breeze, I stomped away.

Walsh didn’t understand how it felt to be dumped. Really, how could he? Guys like him didn’t get dumped, and that made his presence and his words that much more loathsome.

“Woah, hey. Hey! Wait up,” Walsh called after me, but I didn’t turn to see if he struggled back over the railing.

With his luck, he probably looked smooth trying to slide away from his death. Or perhaps his foot slipped, and he ended up falling. Either way, I kept walking.

“Sophia, wait! Wait!”

I stalled, and that hesitation was all he needed to catch up, gently snagging my wrist. My world swayed as I whirled to face him. “Wow, you actually got my name right. Alert the media.”

“You are the media, aren’t you?” He still wore his signature grin—why did he have to have a smile like that? So pretty, so perfect. What, did he practice it in the mirror every day? “And of course I got it right. I know you, Sophia Wallace. You were in my US Civics class. You’re the junior editor of the school newspaper. Won an award for your article on straw recycling in schools.” He spoke as if he’d been rehearsing it, playing each point over and over in his head.

I was speechless. I mean, yeah, I knew he was in my US Civics class, but the fact that he remembered me? Weird. “There’s no way you knew all that.”

“Yeah, I had to ask someone what your article was about. I didn’t read it.” Walsh lifted a shoulder, unbothered. “Not really my thing.”

“What, reading or recycling?”

“I’m not an animal, Sophie. Reading, of course.”

I realized his fingers still curved gently around my wrist, the weight of his grip oddly grounding. And even though it was the most basic touch, it still shocked my skin.

Despite all that, I gave him a pointed look.

Walsh caught the hint and quickly let go. “Sorry.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, glancing over my shoulder. No one noticed us standing together, too engrossed in building the bonfire higher and higher. The glow from the flames ebbed out toward us, and our shadows mixed together on the lawn. The sea breeze came again, harsher now, and pushed my hair around my face.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I grumbled after a moment, even though it was hard to choke the words out. But I had to add, “Even though I didn’t ask you to. It was still…nice of you.” Gag.

Walsh’s frown etched into the lines of his forehead. I didn’t know him well enough to read his facial expressions, so I couldn’t read what the sharp look in his eye meant. “Scott shouldn’t have treated you like that. I maybe shouldn’t have intervened, but that wasn’t cool of him.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter,” I sighed, the words ugly and honest in the air. “He’s just one step closer to his achieving his dreams. Scott told me that he wanted to be better than you. That was his goal. To beat you at everything—popularity, baseball.”

“Why?”

“He’s been like that forever. So obsessed with beating you or looking better than you. Pretty sure that pretty girl down there is his way of getting a leg-up somehow. Don’t ask me how; I don’t know how to interpret crazy.”

A line formed between