As one, the crowd sank to their seats, disappointment clouding the air in a heavy and unwelcome haze. We still hadn’t scored in the game and had just missed a golden opportunity. On the upside, I wasn’t still thinking about Ally’s lips.
“You know, I never noticed how well the school colors suit you,” Ally said, once play had started again.
My eyes dipped to my red T-shirt, and I had to make an effort not to laugh. “The school colors suit me?” I glanced in her direction.
She nodded. “Yeah, er, red’s really your color.”
I felt like I needed to scrub my ears out. Surely, I was hearing her incorrectly. “You’re complimenting me?”
Ally shrugged, a fake smile still plastered across her face. “It’s just an observation.”
I shook my head and turned back to the game, deciding that perhaps ignoring her might be the best approach. First, she came and sat with me, then she offered me her food, and, now, she was complimenting me. It was weird and not like her at all. It was like she’d decided her pleasant behavior this week hadn’t been enough to fulfill her end of the truce. Didn’t she understand that I missed the way she used to be?
“Gosh, it sure is cold tonight,” Ally said, moving a little closer to me so our bodies were sat flush against one another.
I froze to the spot, wondering what the hell she was doing. Ally’s voice had taken on a sultry, seductive tone that sounded all wrong coming from her lips. I glanced down at her, and her wide blue eyes blinked up at me. Her gaze dipped to my lips, and she ever so slowly started inching toward me.
We were so close it would have been simple to reach down and brush my lips against hers, but something about her expression was off. The electricity that had radiated between us last weekend at the house party had dulled to a mere flicker, and her eyes betrayed a hint of worry.
I jumped up from my seat and lifted Ally to stand with me.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked as her box of popcorn fell off her lap, sending its contents flying across the floor.
“We need to talk,” I growled, as I took her by the hand and began to pull her toward the exit. I didn’t stop until we’d left the stands completely and were out in the car park behind them. It felt dark after sitting under the bright lights of the field, but at least we were alone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as I turned to her. Her eyes were sparking with irritation, and it was the first evidence I’d seen all week that there was actually a person inside her body and an alien hadn’t abducted her. I still wasn’t wholly convinced that her body hadn’t been snatched. Or that perhaps she was a robot and, somehow, she’d short-circuited her fuse.
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” I replied. “What was that back there?”
“What was what?”
“The way you were acting on the bleachers. I swear I was just sitting next to Jenna Fox not Ally Lockwood.”
Ally’s cheeks warmed at my accusation. “I was being nice. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No, you were being fake.” I shook my head, knowing there was only one way to solve this. “The truce is over.”
“What? Why?” Her words were sharp and filled with frustration. Pleasant Ally was definitely gone right now, and I couldn’t have been more relieved.
“Because Ally the zombie is worse than Ally the harpy.”
“I’m not a zombie,” she replied. “And I was never a harpy.”
“Could have fooled me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest as she glared me down. “And you can’t just decide to call an end to the truce.”
“I can and I just did.”
She let out a grunt as she flung her hands in the air. “You were the one who wanted it in the first place.”
“I changed my mind,” I replied.
“Why?”
“I already told you: this Ally, all polite and friendly. It’s worse than the one who goes out of her way to irritate me.”
Her eyes narrowed on me, but then she let out an exasperated breath. “I can’t win,” she grumbled, he shoulders slouching. “No matter what I do, you hate me.”
She looked so fragile as she spoke that I wanted to kick myself for dragging her from the bleachers. I was such an idiot. All I’d wanted was to see a little more fire in her eyes again. Instead, I’d upset her.
I slowly approached her and stopped when I was only inches away. “I don’t hate you, Ally.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. For what felt like a minute, all we did was look at each other. At first, her gaze was filled with uncertainty and hurt. But as the seconds drew out, something changed in her eyes, and every nerve in my body started to tingle with desire.
This moment was so different to the one we’d shared earlier tonight. There was none of the nervousness I’d seen in her eyes and the connection between us blazed with heat once again. It took every ounce of self-control not to close the distance between us. I was trying to make things better, not mess them up even more.
My gut clenched as I realized what I was thinking, and a strange feeling rushed through me. I was actually concerned about Ally. I actually cared how my actions made her feel. This wasn’t the way I was supposed to act around her, and I needed to leave before I did something we both regretted.
I quickly drew back from her, and the electric connection between us seemed to fade as her gaze dropped to the ground. Now that I had a little distance, it felt like I could breathe again—like my mind wasn’t filled with a thick fog that made it hard to think.
“I don’t care either way about the truce,” I said. “Just please don’t pretend to be something you’re not around me.”
Ally’s eyes lifted to meet mine. She was frowning at me in a way I couldn’t begin to decipher, but she slowly started to nod. It seemed we’d come to an understanding.
She opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something more, but before she could speak, I turned and walked back toward the bleachers. She’d agreed to stop acting like a robot and that was all I’d wanted. I didn’t need her questioning why I cared so much that she act like herself—not when I was unwilling to ask the same question of myself. I was far too afraid of what the answer would be.
20
Ally
I stared at the ceiling as I tried to fall asleep, but like the other two nights this weekend, sleep just wouldn’t come. My body might have been exhausted, but my mind was wide-awake. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Chase had insisted I stop being nice to him or how Operation Pest Control was becoming a complete failure.
He was correct in thinking I’d been acting differently around him recently, but I’d been trying to make him interested in me not drive him further away. The flirting had all been Tessa’s idea and was supposed to help me accomplish the final step of the plan.
She’d suggested it when she found out what Chase had said to me in his grandpa’s truck last weekend. She was convinced that meant he was ready for us to kiss and that the football game was the perfect chance to make it happen in front of my dad.
So, all week, I’d been flirting with him—or, at least, trying to. But when Friday night came along, I had a sudden attack of nerves, and I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I felt so much pressure to time everything perfectly. When my opportunity to kiss him appeared, I completely froze up, giving him enough time to back away. I should have just launched myself at him, whether he liked it or not. But for a second, I’d reconsidered the whole thing, and then my chance was gone.
I felt at a complete loss for what to do now. It seemed I couldn’t win. When I was mean to him, he wanted a truce, but when I was nice to him, he wanted me to be mean again. I couldn’t understand where I’d gone wrong in my attempts to make him like me, but his lack of explanation had my mind clutching for answers.
I let out a breath and glared upwards, like it was the ceiling’s fault that Operation Pest Control was a disaster. But really, I could
only blame myself for doing a hopeless job at completing Tessa’s four-step plan.
It didn’t help that my own emotions kept getting in the way. Chase told me I drove him crazy, but he liked it, and I was beginning to understand exactly what he meant. I almost wished we could just go back to simply hating one another. Life was so much easier when my heart and mind weren’t a jumbled mess.
I just needed to stop thinking about him all the time. But, even now, I kept glancing toward my door. It seemed unfair that he slept peacefully only mere meters from where I lay, while I was kept up at night with his words running through my mind on repeat.
Before I could overthink it, I threw my covers off and pushed myself from my bed. I walked over to my door and flung it open, before crossing the corridor toward Chase’s room.
I hesitated outside the door for the briefest of seconds. What the hell was I doing? My Dad was asleep just down the hall, and my brother was in his room only two doors down. Barging into Chase’s room definitely wasn’t a part of Tessa’s carefully constructed plan—not unless I was going in there to seduce him. But seduction was the last thing on my mind. I had too many questions rattling around my head and I needed answers if I was ever going to get to sleep.
“Screw the plan,” I muttered under my breath as my hand slipped around the door handle, and I slowly started to turn it. My heart was practically pounding in my ears, but I couldn’t bring myself to step away and return to my bed.
I pushed the door open and found Chase’s room was dark. The moonlight streamed in through his open window and highlighted his bed, but the rest of the room was bathed in shadow. At the sound of the door opening, Chase sat up.
“Shane?” he asked, his voice sounding far too alert for someone who was supposed to be asleep.
I darted into the room before my dad could hear Chase’s voice from down the corridor;, and closed the door behind me. “No, it’s not Shane.”
I pressed my back against the door as I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart. It didn’t help that, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that Chase slept without a shirt. I swallowed and drew my gaze away, feeling my cheeks warm at the sight.
“What are you doing in here, Ally?” His voice was hard,, but not unkind. I knew he was probably annoyed I had just barged into his room in the middle of the night, but this wasn’t about him.
“I can’t sleep,” I admitted.
“So, you decided to wake me up?”
I shrugged. Not that he could see it in the darkness of his room.
“Why do you care if I act differently around you?” I asked, in a sudden rush of words.
“You woke me up to ask me that?” he grumbled.
“No,” I replied. “Yes. I don’t know.”
There was silence for a moment, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to respond, but then he started talking. “The girls at school are always fake when they’re around me and I hate it. I guess I didn’t want to see you acting like that too.” He let out a long breath before he continued. “I don’t think you should be in here, Ally.”
“I don’t think I should either,” I agreed. I didn’t take a step to leave though. I felt a heady rush at being in Chase’s room, alone with him in the darkness, and I couldn’t make myself leave.
He pulled back the bed covers and started to stand. All he was wearing were his pajama pants, and I felt somewhat relieved I couldn’t see him more clearly. He paced toward me slowly, like he was worried I might frighten if he came at me too fast.
“Ally, what are you doing in here?” he asked as he reached me. He stood just a foot away, but, in the darkness of the room, it felt much closer.
He’d already asked me the question once, but apparently, my first answer wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t pin down my exact motivation for coming into his room though. So, I gave him the closest answer I could find.
“I’m here because you’re driving me crazy,” I said, taking a step toward him and closing the gap between us. Our bodies were only inches apart, but even that small distance seemed far too much. The energy between us felt electric, and the sparks only grew stronger as I neared. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and my body seemed to have a mind of its own as I reached out a hand and slowly traced a finger down his chest. His skin was hot and hard, and Chase took in a sharp breath, freezing under my touch.
“Ally,” he murmured my name like it pained him, but he didn’t move to push my hand away. My heart was beating wildly as my tumultuous feelings ran riot through my body.
“Tell me you don’t feel anything for me,” I whispered, slowly looking up into his eyes. I needed him to deny any feelings he might have for me so I could become rational around him once more, but a part of me also desperately wanted him to do the opposite. He seemed just as torn as me as he met my gaze.
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say the words I needed to hear though. Instead, he slowly lifted his hands and traced them down the outside of my arms. They moved slowly downward before settling on my waist. I pushed down a shiver as the hairs on my skin stood on end, in the wake of his touch. I enjoyed the way his hands felt as they moved against my skin, but I knew it wasn’t the kind of reaction I was supposed to have. I was supposed to revile everything about him, and I hated that I didn’t.
“Can you really not stand being this close to me?” he asked.
His thumbs had started making small circles against my hips. The sensation was a kind of sweet ecstasy that I was desperate to stop but also never wanted to end. I unconsciously nodded in response because being so close to him was a kind of torture. His light touch wasn’t enough, and I wanted to be closer still, but I also desperately wanted it to end and to be as far from him as possible.
It was like an intense battle of tug-of-war, and I was a fraying piece of rope being jerked in two extreme directions.
“Yes, this is horrible,” I agreed.
A soft smile spread across his face. “I thought you might say that. I hate this just as much as you do.”
His touch was killing me. It was all I could focus on, and my head was spinning as I tried to think about anything else other than the way he was making me feel. I felt like we were playing with fire. One wrong move and the whole house would go up in flames. I enjoyed the way the heat licked against my skin, and I savored the buzz of adrenaline that was pulsing through me as I was drawn to the very thing that had hurt me before and would probably do so again.
The whole world had gone quiet around me, and all I could hear was the soft sound of Chase’s breaths. Like me, he was barely breathing at all. As I looked into his eyes, I could see tension building within them. It was like the two of us were standing at the edge of a precipice, agonizingly close to falling over the edge.
These small torturous temptations weren’t enough though and I was ready to fall. “Tell me you don’t feel anything for me,” I begged one last time.
“I can’t do that,” he said before his lips descended on mine. I’d been trying to be cautious with the fire that burned between us, but now, I let the flames consume me. Chase’s every touch was white-hot and incendiary. I’d had a few fumbled kisses before, but none of them compared to the overwhelming bliss I was experiencing as Chase devoured my lips. I’d be nothing more than a pile of ash once he was done with me, but this was worth being burned to the ground for.
It wasn’t the perfect kiss; it was the kind of kiss that was sparked by raw emotion. It was messy and heated but so passionate I never wanted it to end. This one kiss would be my destruction because I knew it would never be enough and, when it was over, I would be left always craving more.
When I finally pulled back from him, I was breathless. With one kiss, I felt as though everything had changed. The feelings rushing through me were powerful and undeniable; there was no faking the intense connection between us. My body protested as I stepped back, but I needed to get away from the strong pull of Chase’s orbit before my
world was thrown irreparably off-kilter.
I stared at him with wide eyes as I tried to process what we’d just done. It seemed I wasn’t alone with my inner turmoil, and Chase was staring right back at me with just as many questions in his eyes.
“So, that just happened,” he said, finally breaking the silence between us.
“Yeah, I guess it did.”
“You seem confused.”
My brow creased in a small frown as I thought about it. I was confused but not for any reason he would guess. I’d finally achieved the next step in my plan to get rid of him, but now that I’d succeeded, I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted anymore.
He gave me a warm smile. “If it helps, I’m happy to kiss you again so you can work out any of that confusion.”
I quickly shook my head. Kissing Chase again right now would only make it worse. “What does this mean?”
“It means I like you, Ally Lockwood.”
His words stole my breath away, and my stomach flared with guilt. I’d somehow succeeded against all odds in making Chase like me, and I should have been happy about it. But instead, the plan felt like a dark gray cloud hanging over my head. I needed to get out of Chase’s room and clear my thoughts.
“I’d better get to bed,” I said, glancing toward the door.
“Right,” Chase said, a hint of disappointment in his eyes. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll see you then,” I agreed.
I rushed from his room, tracking silently back to my own. It was cold out in the corridor, and the crisp air seemed to wake my mind from the fog it had been in. I had some serious thinking to do because falling for Chase wasn’t an option if I wanted to go through with the plan. I was going to have to make a choice, and to do that, I needed to figure out my feelings.
I Hate You More Page 18