Chapter 8

Mateo

Nell’s eyes take in the swimming pool, surrounded by a mesh fence because the Del Vecchios, the people who live here, have a toddler. A little boy. Her mouth drops open, then closes, and opens again.

She’s been remarkably agreeable for the last few minutes, letting me drag her over here, and I don’t want to screw that up by pushing her too fast, so I add, “Or you can stay here on this swing and tell me all your deepest, darkest secrets.”

Okay . . . so maybe I don’t know how to not push her at least a little bit.

She gives what might actually be a laugh and says, “What a choice.”

“Well, I do like to be fair.”

She looks at the pool one more time, her gaze lingering just long enough to make me think she might say yes. I imagine her flicking open the buttons on her white shirt, shedding that cock-teasing costume, and I’m hard in seconds.

Damn. I just can’t keep my cool around her.

It’s got to be her similarity to Lina. Has to be. I cut myself off from thinking about Lina in that way a long time ago because every time I let myself remember her . . . it would fuck me up for weeks. Messed with my head. With my game on the field. And considering the game is why I lost her, I refused to let myself screw that up, too. That would mean I’d lost her for nothing. So, ruthlessly, I burned away the memory of her in my bed. I replaced it with new memories. Not just in my bed either. My truck, too. Anywhere that made me think of Lina. And not just places either. It sounds psycho, but I did my best to blot out memories of actions, too. There’d been this time with Lina when she wouldn’t let me kiss her the whole time we had sex. She held her mouth half an inch away from mine, but anytime I lifted up to seek out her lips, she’d pull away. Only after we both came would she kiss me, and it was the best goddamn kiss of my life.

Last year, three months into my first semester here, I re-created that night with one of the girls on the cheerleading team. It wasn’t quite the same. I’d had to hold her face to control her movements, but I held her just close enough, teased us both until we were desperate, only kissing her at the very last moment.

It wasn’t the best kiss of my life. It wasn’t even particularly good.

But it served its purpose. It had taken the edge off that memory, dulling it with this new one, until the grip of the past eased. I’d done that so well and so often last year that I rarely thought of Lina these days.

Until Nell.

Because it isn’t sex that raised the memories this time, but the cute indentation in her brow when she’s thinking. It’s the way she talks. Using words that I’ve only ever read in textbooks, rather than heard out of a person’s mouth. The arrogant tilt of her chin when she knows she’s right. Those are the things I’ve never been able to burn away about Lina, and I see them all in Nell.

And I’ve starved myself from the memory of her so much that I’m too damn hungry now to separate the past from the present. That’s the only explanation for why Nell can practically bring me to my knees with a tilt of her head or a long look.

I can’t decide whether that means that I should stay far, far away from her, or take this one last opportunity to demolish the remains of my broken heart. I can’t help but think that after a few weeks with Nell, I could break Lina’s hold on me once and for all.

“Well?” Nell asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Are you going to push me or not?”

I smile. “Your wish is my command.”

The tire is laid flat so that you can sit with your ass in the opening, but Nell is sitting primly on the other end in a way that’s sure to throw the whole thing off balance when it’s moving. I reach forward, hooking my hands under her arms and tugging her backward. She falls back, squealing, her body cradled by the tire. After a few seconds, she realizes that she’s not going to slip through, and she tilts her head back, looking at me from below.

My mouth goes dry at the sight of her.

Quickly, before I can do something stupid like lean down and devour that plump mouth of hers, I pull back on the ropes and send her swinging. When she comes back my way, I push on the tire, sending her higher, faster. I do this a few times before I allow myself to say, “So tell me about this list.”

Her tone blunt, she says, “No.”

I notice then that she’s still got ahold of the spiral, pressing it tight against her chest.

“Fine. I don’t need you to tell me what it is. It’s a list obviously, and judging by the contents, it’s a bucket list of things you want to do. What I don’t get is why. Most people’s bucket lists are about seeing the world and following their dreams and seeking adventures. Yours is about cursing and kissing strangers, which leads to the obvious conclusion that you’ve never done those kinds of things. Keep swinging if I’m right.”

I punctuate that last sentence with another push, and I think I see a faint smile across her lips as she flies away from me.

“I knew it.” Her eyes meet mine when she returns, and I grin down at her. “So I’m going to guess you’ve been pretty sheltered. Maybe your parents were strict. Religious probably. If you were a freshman, I’d say you were sowing your wild oats now that you’re out of your parents’ house, but I’m pretty sure Dylan said once that you two are the same age. So that can’t be it. You’ve been out from under your parents for a while. You are a puzzle, sweetheart.”

“It’s not that complicated,” she says, and I tamp down my wide smile at having won this little battle.

“Enlighten me.”

“I’ve just been really focused on school, and I’ve not had that much of a social life since I got here. I thought it was time for that to change.”

I ease back on my pushes so that her swinging slows to a lazy glide. “So you’ve been busy with school. Studying biomechanical engineering.”

She sits up on her elbows as she swings, looking back at me with raised eyebrows. “You remembered.”

“It might not seem like it, but I do listen. When I’m interested.”

“And you’re interested in engineering?”

“It’s a related interest.”

She frowns. “Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s connected to something else I’m interested in, so I’m interested by association.”