The Boiling Point | ✔️

27 | mind games

My body tenses as his hands make firm contact with my arms, a tingling sensation spreading through me. With this simple touch, all of it is rushing back. Those dormant emotions I've kept locked out. The intensity of him. His eyes bore into mine, enclosing me within an invisible barrier. Pinning me down.

"You really think Grant could handle that temper of yours?" he asks, his voice low and steady. "You think he could handle your body like I did? Make you come... like I did?" I draw in a shaking breath when he leans in, his mouth brushing my earlobe. "How many was it again? I lost count after the third one."

So did I.

I'm trying not to breathe too hard. I'm trying to fight the memory of that night, but it burns as bright as it had the morning after. Every last toe-curling detail. I'm on the edge of giving in, seconds from all my senses melting away.

But as he takes a hold of my waist, as his warm lips trail along my jaw, a newer memory pushes into my head. Standing opposite his dad, understanding the way Ashton is wired. Right now, a pattern is forming. He's saying what I want to hear, and I'm about to fall for it.

I watch his eyes flit over my face, his mouth inches from mine. "Why are you doing this to me?" My voice boarders on a whisper, but I don't let it weaken. "I mean, pulling the whole 'I don't want you but no one else can have you' thing? It's low."

"But I do want you," he argues under his breath.

"No you don't. You just don't want me to be with someone else."

He bunches the material of my sweater in his hand, drawing me closer. "That's not true."

"It's not? So what's the truth, then, Ashton? Tell me."

His eyebrows pinch together, faint voices weaving through the bookcases in his silence. "I can't."

A sour laugh courses over the walls of my aching throat. "There's a certain level of unique cruelty that goes into these mind games of yours. Gotta commend you for that."

"I'm not—"

"It was a good time, but we both got it out of our systems, right? So let's just move on," I recite the barbed words, feeling them cut all over again. "That's what you said. You wanted to move on, and I am, I'm moving on... so please just let me."

I twist out of his hold and walk away.

❖❖❖

In order to actually go on a date, of course I had to bend the truth for Mrs. Villa again. She's eased up on the strictness since that day on the yacht, but one mention of the word "date" and she'd be running to my parents and nailing my bedroom door shut.

So I did all my housework, cooked her a steak dinner, and asked days in advance about going on a group hangout with my very trustworthy friend Lola. She was still apprehensive, but she said yes. With limitations.

I scan over myself in the mirror before I leave, slipping a long coat over my dress and bundling up for the cold. Eighteen-years-old and needing to ask permission to go out from a woman who isn't even my mom, and getting a curfew. Ridiculous.

In a somewhat ironic turn of events, we're going to Succulent, the restaurant Lola used in her lie to Mrs. Villa for the party. Since Grant and I live on total opposite sides of the restaurant, we decided to meet there instead of him picking me up.

He's waiting for me outside the door when I arrive, dressed in slacks and a navy button-up shirt. I'd say he cleans up well, but since he's a generally smart dresser, he doesn't have to clean up much. He perks up when he sees me, giving a little wave and beckoning me into the restaurant. When I'm safely in the toasty warmth, I take off my coat and he starts to help me, freezing when I turn.