“Keep doing that,” he gasps.

I hear laughter outside and jump, twisting my head toward the door.

But he doesn’t let my head leave the game. He reaches over and twists the lock and then carries me over to a chair at a lab table and sits down, keeping me straddling him.

Grabbing my hips, he brings me chest to chest. “Did you think about me this weekend?” He bites my lip and lets go. “Hmm?”

The feel of his teeth sends my stomach flipping, but I bite out anyway, “You wish.”

I press my body into him and sink my lips into his as he pulls my hips in again.

“You were talking shit to your dumb friends, weren’t you?” he pants, his kisses and nibbles quick and teasing. “I never wanted to teach someone a lesson as badly as I wanted to teach you one just now.” He pulls me again, my clit grinding against the bulge in his jeans. “I should’ve walked over, flipped up your skirt, and started going down on you right there, so they all know what you really like.”

I start rolling my hips, slow and taunting, but when he darts out and tries to catch my lips again, I pull away, teasing him. “You don’t know what I like.”

“I don’t think I’m going to disappoint.”

His threat lingers between us, and I look down, seeing the tip of a tattoo coming out of his shirt from his shoulder and drifting up just about an inch onto his neck. I can’t tell what it is, but I lean down and kiss it, trailing my lips slowly up his neck, to his ear.

“Sorry to eat and run,” I whisper, “but my friends are waiting for me.”

I don’t want to leave, but I have to.

I move to get up, but he yanks me back down. “That’s not how this works, princess.”

His eyes challenge me, and I feel his fingers squeeze around my thighs.

My heart beats faster. “Someone could come in,” I warn.

“And what? Find out I’m your dirty little secret?”

“Mas—” But he leans up and snatches my lips, cutting me off. He kisses me deep, and all of a sudden I just want to wrap my arms around him again.

“Don’t call me that when we’re like this,” he whispers against my lips.

Don’t call him Masen? “Why?” I ask.

“Just don’t.” He shrugs me off and stands up, forcing me to climb off his lap. “Now do me a favor and go in the lunchroom and sit in Trey’s lap, would you? I wanna look while your fucking prom date has no clue that I just had that ass grinding my cock a minute ago.”

He gives me a cruel smile, and I inhale a deep breath, raising my chin and trying to look unfazed.

But my heart pounds like a jackhammer. What an asshole.

Before I can reply with a witty, sarcastic, or utterly childish remark, he walks past me and out the door while the sound of the students in the lunchroom floods in.

An ache digs into the back of my throat, but I refuse to cry. Turning, I look out the window and see my reflection in the glass. I blink away the tears and check my face to make sure my mascara and lips aren’t smeared. Checking that my hair is smooth and perfect again.

Making sure the girl who got out a few minutes ago is tucked back inside, down deep.

I take a deep breath and walk out the door, joining my friends in the cafeteria.

Sitting in an empty Ferris wheel car, I tip my head back and close my eyes, letting the night wind blow across my face.

The ocean waves in the distance curl and crash ashore, filling the darkness with a steady presence at my back as a car above me creaks in the wind, the rest having been rusted silent a long time ago.

The camping lamp I’ve been using in the room sits under my propped-up legs, and I hold a pen in my hand and a notepad on my lap.

Fifty-seven times I didn’t call

Fifty-seven letters I didn’t send,

Fifty-seven stitches to breathe again, and then I fucking pretend.

I open my eyes and jot down the last two lines, barely able to see what I’m writing in the near darkness. Doesn’t matter, I guess. I can write it tonight and read it tomorrow.

I’ve been writing this song for two years, ever since Ryen started talking about “the cheerleader” in some of her letters. I got stuck half-way through, because I wasn’t sure where the story was going, just that I needed to tell it. I had Ryen’s impression through her words, but I couldn’t get further than that.

But leaving school two days ago, after finally having her in my arms in the lab, I needed to write. I was feeling things.

She knows how to work me. How to drive me insane, acting like I’m dirt under her shoe in public but like she can’t get enough of me in private. Her tongue and mouth, the little obsession she has with my lip ring, the way she grinded into me, and if it weren’t for a couple layers of clothes, I would’ve been inside her…

Yeah, that prissy little act drops like a bad habit, and she can get so hot, I want to take off everything except that lame-ass skirt and see how every inch of her feels.

If her whole stuck-up crew knew how their little princess melts for me…

But I look up, staring out at the theme park and realizing.

No. Not for me.

For Masen.

Damn, I can’t keep this up. I have to leave, or I have to tell her. She’ll never forgive me for betraying her like this. For being right under her nose and damn-near seducing her.

“I’m ashamed I didn’t guess you were here a long time ago!” a voice calls out, and I jerk, looking down at the ground.