Fading Boundaries Again

Chapter Twenty-Five

LIV

Jace hands me back my phone as quickly as I gave it to him. He didn't glance at it longer than a minute, but I knew that he saw most of what I have in there. Who knew that a girl feeling confident in her skin and capturing it could turn into the nudes leaking? That's what they were: nudes. Me wearing little to nothing, a skimpy lingerie set here and there. But ultimately, some of them were of me naked.

Jace's face is red when he hands me my phone, his eyes still on the picture on the screen. It made me blush when I saw which picture it was, one of me sun-kissed after a day at the beach. I knew my skin looked good that day, and I was feeling eerily confident that I had snapped a photo. And now, Jace was still looking at it. I take my phone out of his hand, shutting it off.

He averts his eyes to the ground, biting the inside of his cheek as he avoids eye contact. Truthfully, I was glad for it. Who knew that this game would make everything turn awkward between us? "Right," I whisper, looking back at the other team, who were definitely waiting for us to say something. I grab the beer out of Jace's hand and take a swing at it. "Right, let's move on."

"Well wait!," Thomas says, holding up a hand as Asher goes to take his turn. "Well, what were the pictures about?"

Asher slaps Thomas across the back of his head. "Well, you know what the pictures were; no need to ask."

Zeke grins, "Yeah, considering how hard Jace is blushing right now."

"Shut up," Jace murmurs, taking the drink out of my hand to take a long sip. I watch his throat, entranced by how a person can make drinking so attractive. I must be staring at him too hard because he slowly shifts his eyes to me, still taking another long sip. As soon as our eyes clash, my cheeks flame, and I cannot look into his eyes any longer. I let my gaze move on to where the boys were arguing about who would hit the ball next. I hear Jace take another swig before he drops the can down on the table.

For a while, we shift awkwardly away from each other. The other team plays, and when they miss, Graham curses at them (for whoever knows the reasons) before taking his turn. He is a monster when he makes a point, and while Thomas has to share his latest texts with a new girl he is talking to, he celebrates unsympathetically. It would rather be a funny thing, of all the boys gathering around his phone, reenacting the awkward first texts, but it's hard to speak.

It's hard to participate when all I have in my head is the fact that Jace had seen, well, me. And considering, by the way, he was ignoring me, he must still have the pictures in his mind. I want to mentally curse myself for even taking the ocites in the first place, but as the beer starts to help me calm my nerves, I start to feel differently. And suddenly, I'm feeling kind of high as I think about the power I have in making a man blush this hard. I hadn't thought about it that way, but there seems to be a pride in the fact that I had shocked Jace into being quiet.

All with one look at my chest.

Yeah, I really did have a lot of power.

When it is the other team's turn to shoot, Zeke has an off-kilter grin on his face as he takes his turn. The ball splashes in the water, the cup closest to me, and I sigh. Zeke looks up at Jace, though, as he says, "Your turn to take a dare, Jace."

Jace practically jumps over to the cup, earning a weird glance from Graham. I only watch in amusement as he picks out a piece of paper and then reads it off. "Let someone pour a bucket of cold water on you."

Zeke immediately starts to head for the kitchen, while Jace sinks in his spot. "Can I change out of my clothes first?" he asks the guys, but they only laugh at him. They make all of us head to the kitchen, where Zeke was filling up a bucket with ice now. I walk around the counter, frowning as I say, "Does he have to do this dare?"