Page 97

“Kylie,” Paige hisses.

I sip my coffee and almost laugh. Nash watches me the whole way.

“Would you rather I fucked you?” he says.

My heart squeezes, and I shut all the way up. Nothing happens in my brain at all, because I didn’t think of it like that. Paige freezes. The entire table stops breathing. Koda looks at Paige like he’s about to applaud.

Nash doesn’t look at any of them. He keeps his eyes on mine.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought. So the next time you wear something like you did last night, I’m going to stare at you and watch you all night to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea.”

“Okay.” I pick up my coffee, which I don’t want. “Right. The wrong idea.”

“Did you look in the mirror before you left Corvin?”

“Yeah, I fucking did.” I stop with the cup halfway up. “I can wear whatever the fuck I want, Nash.”

“Never said you couldn’t.”

“You’re implying it.”

“Wear whatever you want, Kylie. But keep wearing something where I can see your ass, and I’m going to make sure you’re safe all night.”

“Great,” I say. “I want my shirt back.”

“Then come and get it.”

I go hot in my face and my chest. I blink at the table and remember we aren’t alone. Everybody is very quiet.

“Sorry, guys,” I finally say, and they all tell me it’s fine at once, in their own ways, except Koda, who says, “Keep going. I like seeing Kennebeck squirm.”

Nash drinks his water, looking at me, and I narrow my eyes at him. He stands and picks up his tray. “Finish your breakfast,” he tells me, “and stop by when you’re done. For your shirt.”

He’s already in the hallway when I get up to the third floor, leaning on the wall between our doors with his ankles crossed, looking at his phone, with my shirt folded over his forearm.

“That was fast,” he says without looking up.

“I didn’t finish my breakfast.”

“Why?”

“Because you ruined it.”

“I told you to finish it and then come up.”

“Have you been waiting here this whole time?” I don’t wait for an answer. I hold out my hand. “Shirt.”

He pushes off the wall and hands it to me, and he doesn’t let go. I’ve got two fingers and a thumb on the edge of my own shirt, and he’s got the rest of it, and we stand in the middle of the hallway with an eleven-dollar palm tree shirt stretched between us.

“Nash,” I warn. “Let go of my shirt.”

He tugs it, not hard, just enough that I come forward half a step, because I’m not letting go either, and now there’s a foot between us instead of three. My heart jumps.

“Koda invited Paige to the rink,” I say, because it’s the first thing that arrives in my mouth. “To watch practice this afternoon. They’re getting pretty serious. He calls her every night. She knows everything about him.”

“I don’t know anything about it.” His hand hasn’t moved.

“Let go of my shirt.”