How To Play the Player (COMPLETED)

Hotline Bling

"Heading out?" My dad responded, sounding confused. "Who are you?"

My head tilted back a fraction so I could see how Liam was going to answer. He only smiled, not wavering in the slightest as he said, "Her boyfriend. We've been going out for a while now, I thought she would have mentioned me. We better get going though. I'll have her back by midnight."

Liam opened the passenger side door and helped me in before my father could protest. I knew without looking at him that he was staring at the two of us, but he wasn't going to get a word out of me. Within minutes we were down the street and out of my neighborhood, but I couldn't stop my hands from trembling. Liam was just as tense, but he stayed silent, focusing on the dark road.

"What happened?" He eventually broke the silence. "Are you okay?"

I forced my head in the opposite direction, afraid I'd break under the intensity lighting his eyes and tell him everything. "I'm fine. What were you doing there, anyway?"

"I was coming to pick you up." He shrugged a shoulder. "Figured you weren't asleep and you being the nerd you are, you'd be done with your homework."

"Why?"

"Why what?" He responded with a confused drawing of his dark eyebrows.

"Why do you want to spend your night with me?"

Liam blinked as if he was unsure how to answer the question. Then whispered, "It beats sitting all alone.

*

"Can I ask you something?" Liam's low rasp ended the serene silence we'd been sitting in for the last half hour, eyes that greyish storm cloud color.

"If it has to do with my dad, please don't."

He shoved a Dorito into his mouth, then asked, "Why don't you sleep?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does." He wiped the dust from the chips on his jeans and made a gesture toward me, "And you freaked out in the car the other night."

I hugged my knees tighter against my chest, allowing the words to break passed without much thought. "Because the last time I shut my eyes for a second, when I opened them again my sister was laying in a pool of her own blood on the asphalt."

I felt Liam's entire body stiffen and began to question if I'd said too much. When I turned my head I found him staring at me, analyzing me, as he always seemed to be doing. "Why? Why do you look at me like that?"

"I'm trying to figure you out. And I can't."

"Good." I whispered. "You don't need to."

The last thing I needed was Liam Scott knowing all my dirty secrets.

"But I want to."

A wave of shock washed over me at the sincerity, but uncertainty in every word. I lifted my head completely and stared at him, but he was already staring straight ahead, somewhere far beyond the bright lights of the city below us.

"My family died in a car accident Sophomore year, so I know how you feel." The words were soft, but there was a catch in his throat at the end of the confession. I thought back, trying to recall hearing or reading about the Scotts, but nothing came to mind.

"Have you figured out the next play?" Liam asked, louder, as if he were trying to change the subject and pretend as if that piece of information hadn't just sat in the tension in the air between us. "Because with Jay asking you to Homecoming, I'm sure he'll be wanting to take you to Prom too."