The rest of the room fades, like the world is in black-and-white, and he’s the only thing in color.

And I’m not just breathing, I’m seeing and feeling and hearing in a way that I’m not sure I ever have before.

Chapter 18

Silas

There’s no space around her. She’s sitting between Carter’s bulky frame and the edge of the couch, and that just won’t cut it. But I don’t know how to get near her, to make an opening for me without doing something that says something.

If I make Carter move, that’s calling her mine.

And holy f**k, just the word raises a hurricane in my chest. Terrifying and powerful and consuming. I want her with a fierceness I’ve never wanted anything.

Except football. Except getting out of my hometown.

And maybe that’s why she’s different. Maybe that’s why she’s the first girl who has ever tied me up in knots and unraveled me at the same time. She feels like a way out, a way to pull myself up a few more rungs on a never-ending ladder.

She’s the next big escape.

I don’t make Carter move. But rather than sitting down on the carpet or pulling in a chair from the kitchen like Torres did for himself and Katelyn, I make my way over beside her and sit on the armrest.

It puts me close enough that her shoulder touches my thigh, and the hand I brace on the back of the couch is in prime position to touch her hair when everyone stops f**king staring at us.

Not that that happens anytime soon.

For close to an hour, there’s always at least one or two people looking at us, and it’s driving me crazy. Enough that I’m ready to say screw it all and drag her up to my room, regardless of what people say.

I glare at Torres when he makes a lewd gesture and bounces his eyebrows. I’m about to go over there and snap him in half, but he looks away in a hurry.

He’s not always the dumbass he pretends to be for attention.

I shift, uncomfortable and annoyed, and Dylan giggles.

I raise my eyebrows in question, and she giggles harder.

“I’m sorry. You’re just so . . .” Then she does an impression of me that involves scowling and growling and flexing like a caveman, and she descends into laughter again.

“You’re weird, Captain Planet,” Torres calls from across the room.

I glower at him, and he turns and tries to start a conversation with Katelyn, who ignores him.

“This game is so slow,” Dylan whispers to me. But her whisper is loud enough for everyone to hear. Brookes and Carson look a little annoyed, but they can deal with it. “Like I swear I looked at the TV forever ago, and it was bottom of the fourth with two outs, and it’s still bottom of the fourth with two outs. I think time has stopped. Or is moving backward. Or it’s flip-flopping, and we’re in some weird time loop, and it just always is going to be the bottom of the fourth with two outs no matter what we do.”

Everyone in the room is watching, and it’s not with annoyance, but confusion.

This isn’t Dylan. Dylan is composed and intelligent, and makes me feel like a complete hack in comparison. She’s not really the giggly, ditzy type.

“Oh shit,” Stella says from the other side of the couch. “Did she have one of Carter’s brownies?”

Dylan lays her forehead against my thigh and rubs her nose back and forth a few times before settling down on one cheek and murmuring, “I’m tired.”

I pick up one of the brownies from the plate in front of Dylan. One good sniff and I know it’s chock full of pot. When Carter makes the shit, it’s usually crazy potent. I look at Carter and ask, “Did you see her eat one?”

“Relax, man. She just had one. She’ll be fine.”

I don’t like the way he shrugs. He’s always been that guy just on the fringe. With Levi and I, we always knew we could get Carter to do whatever we wanted because he was so desperate to be counted one of us. Because of that, he’s always doing stupid shit trying to prove he’s cool enough or whatever. But this . . . this is not f**king cool. I suck in a breath and try to stay calm. Relatively. “Did you tell her what it was?” He takes too long to answer. “Did you f**king tell her what it was?”

“She looked nervous. I figured I was doing her a favor, helping her loosen up.” He doesn’t say it, but I can see in his expression that he thought he was doing me a favor, too. Goddamn it.

Sound disappears from my ears, like those moments of fuzzy silence after a loud noise, and I want to take that stupid thick neck of his and twist it around until his head snaps off. I want to bloody his face until my heart stops beating so fast and hard.

But Dylan’s head is on my leg. She’s playing with a long strand of her hair above her face with a childlike wonder that makes me want to smile even through my fury.

But I know she wouldn’t willingly do weed. I might have suggested it the night we met, but I know her better now. She’s not your typical good girl looking to get a little wild. She likes control and order too much to cloud her head with pot. That stuff breaks down the walls and barriers in your mind, just flushes it all out. It’s for people who want to let go of control, and when it’s out of her system, she’s going to be so furious.

Or sad. Or disappointed.

With me.

“Get out.” I don’t look at him as I say it. I watch Dylan playing with her hair because if I look at him, I’m going to hit him.

“What?”

“I said. Get. Out.”

Dylan lifts her head up, balancing her chin on my knee, and says, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Silas, man,” Carter says. “If I had known—”

“Last warning. Get out of my house or I f**king throw you out bleeding.”

McClain is on his feet then, and he’s pulling Carter away, trying to talk him down. But still, the idiot tries to complain. He turns to Torres and Brookes trying to get them to let him stay.

When I stand, he shuts up fast. Then he’s on his way out the door, Carson following in his wake. I almost want to follow him. I’m scared this is going to f**k up everything with Dylan before it ever gets started. And I want to take that unfamiliar fear and put it in him.

But I don’t. I let the prick leave.

Dylan had flopped back against the couch when I moved, and I lean down to her now, curving my fingers over her shoulders. She squints up at me, her eyes already a little red, and she mimics my hold by placing one hand on each of my thighs.