Her golden-red curls are twisted into a messy bun, and a plain white crop top hugs her tight. The low-rise jeans? Insult to injury. And then there’s the butterfly navel piercing I hadn’t noticed before, but now can’t unsee. An assortment of delicate gold chains rest against her collarbone, and those wedge sandals make her look like an early-2000s country supermodel.
I swallow hard. Three times. Maybe four. And still have to remind myself twice why I’m mad at her when she licks her lips andlooks at me like that.
“Well, don’t you look as sweet as sin, sugar,” she drawls, pushing off the wall and sauntering toward me with the lazy confidence of knowing that I’m about two sweet words from forgiving her.
“Nope,” I shoot back, taking a step back. “You stay three feet away from me at all times, Miss du Pont.”
“Miss du Pont?We being formal now?” she teases, cocking her head, hip jutting just slightly in challenge.
I grit my teeth. “We’re being civil.”
She grins. “Fine. Then let me be civil and ask—what do I have to do to get you to forgive me?” A pause, her voice softer now, more honest. “You already ‘thought’ through our first date. What about now?”
I blink. That’s a lot of bold for before 2 p.m.
“Are you always this forward?” I ask, narrowing my gaze even as my stomach twists.
“Only when it feels right.” Her eyes scan mine. She means it. She feels this intense electricity between us too.
I sigh. “I told you I’d think about it, and I thought no.”
Brooke leans closer anyway, not quite crossing the invisible line I’ve drawn, but brushing up against it. She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear—slow, allowing each of her fingertips to graze along my cheek and jaw.
“And what about now? It’s been three weeks, Jas. Don’t tell me you hold grudges. ” She hums.
“No, but I believe you’re date shouldn’t steal from you.”
“Jasmine. I swear, it wasn’t like that, okay? Let me make it up to you. Saturday night,” She smiles in that way that makes my knees week, but before I can answer, a shadow falls over us.
“She’ll be there,” Landon says coolly, stepping up beside me with both hands pushed into his front pockets, and a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, he speaks,” I mock, crossing both hands over my chest. Landon had been enrolled as a biology student since yesterday with the help of Cast, and this is the first time he has said anything to me that wasn’t safety or school oriented.
“You know I do more than speak, Peach,” he drawls, voice dipped in gravel and smoke. He plucks the cigarette from his lips and exhales through his nose, twin curls of smoke drifting up like some devil just out of bed.
Then his gaze drops—and stays. His eyes sweep over me, darkening as his pupils bloom wide across the sharp blue, hunger barely leashed beneath the surface.
“What I didn’t know about you,Peach,” he murmurs, voice low and rough, “is that you wear dresses.”
I fight the heat that threatens to crawl up my neck and do a slow spin, just to spite him.
The dress hugs my waist before falling into a dark blue ripple of cotton and movement, a V-neck that dips just low enough to tease, sleeveless to show the tattoos curling along my right arm. The hem hits just below mid-thigh, brushing against the edge of a worn leather holster I use for my phone. My curves aren’t dramatic, but the dress knows what to emphasize. My chest—C cup, not that anyone’s counting—and the swell of my hips that sway as I shift weight between my worn black knockoff Doc Martens. Landon’s jaw ticks.
My half-unshaved hair is tousled from the wind, the dyed red streaks catching the late afternoon light like sparks in dry grass. My grey eyes don’t leave his.
“You like it?” I ask, tone neutral but my lips betraying the smallest smirk.
His eyes flicker—slow, dark, and dangerous.“I’d like it better off.”
Brooke clears her throat. Loudly.
“He is…” I look Landon over, my bottom lip sliding between my teeth as I take a moment to think.
Landon watches me through heavy-lidded eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching like he already knows what I’m thinking. His voice drops—low, indulgent—wrapping around me like velvet laced in smoke.
“Yeah,Peach, what am I?”
“A nuisance,” comes a voice sharp enough to slice clean through the tension.
