Page 61 of Forever Defiant
I looked down at my clothes. “Huh?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“Still acting like a crazy person, I see.” I matched her glare when she looked at me. “Look, I’m not here for your shit, but—”
“I’m off my assignment, I know.” She was white-knuckling her backpack strap something fierce. “You don’t need to tell me.” She gave me another glare. “In fact, you...youdon’t need to be anywhere near me. What with me beingforwardand all.”
Shit, how did she know I said that? I stopped walking. “Why are you glaring at me, and what the fuck doesforwardmean?”
“The opposite of backward,” she snapped. Her gaze swept over me with one derisive look. “But you probably understandthatvery well.”
She started walking again — nah, fuck that, she was power walking.
“Did you just call me slow?” I demanded, hurrying to catch up with her.
“Well, I didn’t say you were fast,” she muttered, not realizing I was at her elbow.
“Okay.” I grabbed her elbow and steered her off the quad. “Enough is enough,” I muttered, ignoring her protests and attempts to break free of my grip. “Shut up, Peterson,” I snapped at her. Spotting a short path between two buildings, I guided her to it. I pushed her lightly against the wall. “Shut up and listen.”
“I’m going to scream.”
“You’re not screaming,” I said flatly. “You don’t want the attention. And neither do I.” This woman was demented. “You’re already on every social media platform chasing me like a lovestruck lunatic, so no, you won’t scream. Because we both know you don’t need any more attention brought to yourself. Not with me, anyway. Probably not at all.”
“And what’sthatsupposed to mean?” Hadley snapped, hands on her hips, defiance radiating from every pore.
“Look, let’s cut the bullshit, okay?” I took a step closer. “I know you were digging into the program. You know I know you were digging into the program, so can we just get this over with?”
“Well, I didn’t know you knew,” she huffed. Her hands dropped off her hips, her posture becoming less aggressive, her eyes searching mine, seeing if I was bullshitting her. “Get what over with?” She sounded suspicious, and I was beginning to think that was her default setting.
I looked at our surroundings. It was a path, some might say an alley, because it was a shortcut from the quad to a back pathway. It looked dark and shady, but it was on campus, between two buildings. Besides being in my apartment or her dorm room — neither of which either of us would agree to — this was the best we were going to get for privacy.
“Look, I’ve seen some of your blog from last semester—”
“How?” Her focus was razor-sharp again. “My blog got taken down.”
I gave her a look, and her eyes narrowed further. “You should know better than anyone that what’s on the internet stays on the internet.”
Hadley’s eyebrows raised briefly, and she gave a soft snort. “You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.”
“What?”
Her look changed to one of assessment, and within moments, I was longing for the suspicious glare rather than this one. This one looked like she was dissecting me in her head.
Hadley looked up and down the path, seeing it was empty, and then she looked up, and I realized she was looking for open windows. Clever, I hadn’t thought of that. When she looked back at me, her eyes held a gleam in them that made me slightly nervous.
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I just found.”
“You don’t get to negotiate,” I growled. “Not yet.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to have an opinion on what I do.”
“Funny,” I grumbled, “because I’ve got about fifty of them.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I spoke over her. “You’re not supposed to be digging.”
“So?”
“You’re still digging.”
She met my eyes. “I know.”
