Page 24 of Half Truths (Secret Society 1)
“Or we can meet you at the pool in your apartment building again,” the other girl suggested.
I glanced away, focusing on the streetlight, which was still not changing to give us the walking signal.
“Seriously, Fitz,” the first girl said.
The scene was making me restless. Worse, it was making me jealous and even worse, it was making me wonder if this was what Travis was up to in North Carolina. Late nights with an unattainable jock will do that, I guess. The second the light flashed for us to walk, I took off, not bothering to tell him I was going ahead without him. It wasn’t like this was a thing, or he was walking me home or anything. I heard the voices behind me grow louder but didn’t turn to see what the commotion was about. I had one goal in mind, and that was to get back to my place, shut the door, and go to bed. At the sound of fast-paced footsteps behind me, I glanced over my shoulder and caught Logan jogging toward me. By this point, I was far enough from where I’d left him, but he looked completely at ease and not out of breath at all with his slow jog.
“You call me rude, but you walked away without so much as a goodbye.”
“I was bored of the whole let’s see who can convince Logan to party with us or fuck us bit.” I stopped walking and faced him. “Where’s your harem of groupies anyway?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I don’t know. You’re over here lecturing me on being rude, but you got to the party with two girls and left with none.”
“They’ll survive.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“I got bored.”
“Bored,” I repeated. “Because I’m curious, what part were you bored of? The harem or the rambunctious friends you were hanging out with?”
“Both.” His eyes were still twinkling, still amused.
“Interesting,” I said. “I find it interesting that you left all of that boredom behind to come after me, especially after you said you don’t like me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Does what bother me? That you said it or that you meant it?”
“Both.”
“No.” I grit my teeth together. “I could care less.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Because you look a little upset to me.”
“You obviously don’t know anything about me. I always look upset.”
He threw his head back in laughter, and it caught me so off guard that all I could do was stare at his thick neck and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed with his amusement. When he was done laughing, he pointed those piercing green eyes at me and grinned.
“You’re funny.”
“Thanks, I guess. Though I’m not exactly signing up for a position as your personal comedian and you already made it very clear that you don’t like me, so I don’t know why it matters.”
“Maybe I was wrong about you.”
“You probably weren’t.” I started walking again.
“Why are you so serious all the time?” At his question, I lifted my gaze to his briefly. “Your brothers are all so—”
“Outgoing? Fun? Athletic?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess we were raised differently.”
“How’s that?”
“I don’t know you well enough to talk to you about that.”
“I guess you’re not so different after all.” He squinted at me momentarily before looking straight ahead.
“What do you mean?”
“You all act like you have more skeletons in your closet than anyone else.”
“Excuse me, but I have exactly zero skeletons in my closet. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m kind of going through a lot right now.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Besides, I don’t like talking to people I don’t know about my life.”
“Why?”
“Do you tell everyone you know about your life?”
“If they ask nicely.” He winked.
My face heated. “Stop winking at me.”
He chuckled again. I bit my lip and looked away. Why did he have to be so damn handsome?
“Why are you suddenly so interested in me anyway?”
“Suddenly?” His eyes twinkled. “I was talking to you at the bar the other night.”
“Right. Before you went and got into that fight.” I looked down at his hands. His knuckles were no longer wrapped in anything, but they still looked chaffed. “This is me.” I pointed at the front door and froze, panicking when Logan walked to the door and held it open for me. “I’m not inviting you in.”
“You’re not?”
“No. Did you walk me home because you thought I was going to sleep with you?”
“I already told you, I’m not walking you home.” He shot me a look. “Did you think I would think you were going to sleep with me? Even after declaring to yourself and the world a hundred times that I don’t like you?”
“Well, you were the one who said you didn’t like me.”
“And you were the one who repeated it the entire walk over.”
“Whatever.” I crossed my arms against the cool air of the lobby and hoped the bellman wouldn’t be alerted by our argument. The last thing I needed was my parents getting a full report on what was happening in their building. “I’m not inviting you in.”
