Page 70 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
He swallowed, pushed a hand through his hair. “The rules don’t make sense. This whole program doesn’t make sense! You can’t let them win—”
“I just lost my one chance at college, Reid. Whoever hates me enough to do that—whoever wanted to humiliate me in there, did. They already won.”
His expression flattened until he looked just like Coach. “When you’re on top, people are always going to try to take you down. You can’t just give up.”
My laugh was sharp and empty. “Oh, I’m sorry I don’t have thechampionshipmentality right now.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Why are you even here?” I pushed.
His eyes pierced into me, an edge of warning to his voice when he said, “Don’t do that.”
“You just saw me kissing another guy.”
He balled his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.“Do you want me to care about something that happened before we got together?”
Of course I didn’t. But Reid was competitive. And he hated Josh. Why wasn’t he yelling? Why wasn’t he walking away? That’s what everyone else did.
“You don’t care that I hooked up withJosh?” I pushed again. “Or that everyone is saying I whored myself out so I could secure my Legacy?”
Reid inhaled through his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. His calm starting to crack. “I care that they’re spreading lies about you.”
“I lied to you, too,” I said, my voice pitching higher with the urge to drive him as far away from me as possible. “Remember? I told you nothing ever happened.”
He stayed quiet a beat too long.
“You can go, Reid. It’s okay. We’ve always said this isn’t serious.”
“Clara—”
“Just because we were hooking up doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”
Reid’s entire body went still as if I’d slapped him. A chilling, humorless breath escaping him. “Wow. Okay.”
But he needed to understand that my door had closed, while his was as open and golden as ever. I didn’t want him to tether himself further to my sinking ship.
He started pacing, visibly upset.
“I just meant I wouldn’t blame you,” I clarified. “Not that you’re only a hookup to me. You have to know that.”
He stopped, his scoff hitting me in the solar plexus. But he was eerily calm. It was much worse than if he had yelled. “How would I know that? You do nothing but mess with my head.”
I reared back. “What?”
“Thesecondyou let me in, you shove me out again.”
“I do not,” I shot back.
“No? Then what just happened? It’s the same thing that happened in my truck.”
My cheeks blazed thinking of that moment in his truck when he looked at me with so much tenderness I thought I might combust.
When I didn’t say anything, he stepped closer to me, thick gravel crunching under his boots. “You want me close,”—his voice went hoarse—“but you won’t even let me tellyouhow I feel about you.”
“Because I don’t want to know!”
My pulse jackhammered through me when his dark eyes flashed with that same determined look he got before a race. He closed the last of the space between us until we were a breath apart, his voice dropping low and rough when he said, “You already do.”
