Page 24 of Double Dared
“Greg did,” Finn told me after a moment of tense silence. “He picked you, thinking Taylor would never dare to go over. Turned out well, huh?”
“He’s fun to hang with,” I said.
Finn waited for more, watching me for any sign that I was hiding something. Sadly, I wasn’t. For all his flamboyant, larger-than-life personality and his sexy smiles and the gentle, passing touches, Taylor was excited to see a beautiful girl come to his party.
“What’s he like with you? Does he talk without stopping?” Finn asked.
I thought about it and inclined my head. Iwondered what Taylor would have been like with me if we were secretly dating and if he were keeping his true sexuality hidden from his friends. “He’s…upbeat. And he dances like he was born in a disco.”
Finn’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
I pulled on a face of total confusion. “I mean…he’s alright.”
Finn gave a slow nod, then looked straight at Jason, who was observing from the other side of the room.
Whatever passed between them in that instant was a sort of agreement that all their conspiracies had come true.
Finn stayed with me for a few more minutes, but I didn’t say anything else. I resolved to stay in my corner, sipping the cocktails Taylor had made for me, and to watch him laugh with Kate and her friend, who wasn’t leaving them alone. Good. She didn’t seem like she knew anyone here, so she would stick with Kate, and they’d never had a moment alone.
After I’d emptied my glass, I didn’t bother with mixing a cocktail. Gin was not a pleasant thing to have on its own, but it did the job just fine, and my muscles relaxed a little before Taylor waded through the throng in my direction. He was probably just here to make Kate a drink.
I really needed to shake off the feeling of betrayal. It was the most contradictory, most ridiculous thing I could have been feeling, yet it ate me from the inside.
“Enjoying yourself?” Taylor placed his empty glasson the table and took my glass from me. He sipped, then cringed, then stared at me as if I’d just spat on him. “Are you having gin alone?”
“I’m never alone,” I said.
He laughed and put the glass back in my hand. “So?”
“Yeah, it’s fun,” I said. A silence fell between us, though music was growing louder all around the room, and the chatter increased to match it. I moved my gaze over him. He wasn’t taking Kate a drink yet. “Show me your room,” I said before I could stop myself, before I could think clearly enough not to go down a path of insecure jealousy. No, not jealousy. Possessiveness. I’d laid a claim on this person, even if he was just a fake date for a few weeks. I’d laid a claim on him, and I wouldn’t share him, no matter how pretty or talented or sweet a person Kate might be.
“What?” Taylor asked.
“Show me your room. I wanna see it,” I said.
A corner of his lips ticked up, and he nodded after a moment of silence. “Alright.”
I followed Taylor up the stairs in everyone’s clear view, keeping my gaze on the back of his head, even though he walked a few steps ahead, the curving small of his back right in front of me and that sculpted ass moving left and right, glutes tensing until he reached the top landing and inclined his head down the hallway and to the second to last door. “It’s not as cozy as your place.”
He opened the door for me and flicked on thelight.
The room was charming, especially for a frat house, and it glimmered with bits of Taylor’s character, from the beanbag on the floor to the thick rug to the clutter on his desk, a rotating lamp casting an entire rainbow of colors to every corner of the room, an unmade bed with dark, floral pattern and a black bedsheet underneath, warm color walls, and a window with a little stork standing by it.
“Does this help inform your character about my character?” Taylor asked.
“It does,” I said.
“You know what they’re thinking now, right?” he asked, shutting the door with a pleased smile on his face.
My heart clenched for what felt like eons. “That we’re fucking each other’s brains out,” I said.
Taylor bit his lip, and it nearly undid me. I just had to put myself in these situations, didn’t I? “Madly, recklessly, shamelessly.”
“All sweaty and careless and without a grain of restraint,” I echoed, voice light and teasing, heart sinking low into my stomach.
“Breaking the bed,” he said.
“Absolutely flying into outer space,” I said, lifting my hand to illustrate the takeoff.
