All Broke Down (Rusk University #2) (7 page)

“What if I’m just mostly naked?”

Silas shakes his head, and nudges his friend toward a kitchen that opens up to our left. “Go drink some water and sober up a little before you embarrass yourself.”

He holds his arms out, drawing my eyes to his toned body again, and says, “Who’s embarrassed? Your girl there doesn’t seem to mind my public display of perfection.”

I flush, and resist the urge to duck my head when Silas looks at me.

He pulls me a little closer and tells his friend, “I’d take off my shirt, but then we both know that wouldn’t be a fair fight. Besides, I wouldn’t want to steal all that attention you crave.” He gives Torres a joking push, and this time the guy turns and heads for the kitchen.

I relax at his parting, only to freeze up when Silas leans down and brushes my ear with his lips. “If it’s a display you want, maybe we can have a private one later.”

I push down my nerves and think of this like a debate, a verbal battle of wits.

“Is being conceited a requirement to play football?”

My answer doesn’t come from Silas, but from a petite Asian girl descending the stairs next to us.

“More like a requirement to live in this house.”

Silas shrugs. “Brookes isn’t that bad.”

He doesn’t even try to deny it.

The girl rolls her eyes. “Isaiah is plenty arrogant. You’re measuring him against you and Torres. Everyone is humble compared to you two.”

Silas doesn’t reply, and the girl’s eyes shift to me, specifically to the arm around my shoulders. She’s petite and gorgeous with perfectly symmetrical features, and I feel like a mess in comparison. I haven’t even looked in a mirror since I was handcuffed and hauled off to the sheriff’s department.

She holds out a hand and smiles. “I’m Stella. You’ll have to introduce yourself because Silas here wouldn’t know manners if they bit him in the ass.”

“Dylan. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Cute,” she says. I don’t know if she means my name, or me, nor do I even know if it’s a compliment. She asks, “Do you go to Rusk?”

“I do, actually. I’m a junior. Or I’ll
be
a junior when classes start back up. I’m a journalism major, um, with a sociology minor. Potentially pre-law.” Why am I still talking? Why am I telling this girl everything about myself? I grab hold of Matt and pull him up beside me. “This is my friend, Matt. He’s social work. Big football fan apparently.”

She tilts her head to the side and raises her eyebrows at Silas, and I just want to bang something into my face. Repeatedly.

“How do you all know each other?” Stella asks.

Oh you know. PRISON. Or jail. Whatever you call it when you don’t actually leave the police station.

“Um . . .” I fish for a suitable explanation. “We met at a thing.”

A thing.
Really smooth.

Silas drops his arm from around my shoulder, and I’ve officially screwed this all up. Where is the nearest oven into which I can stick my head?

It’s probably for the best. I’ll let Matt do his thing, and then we can get out of here.

“You done with the third degree, Stell?”

She stands up straighter and shrugs. “No third degree. I’m just wondering how you leave your own party after . . .” She trails off, but not before giving Silas a look. “How you leave your own party and come back home with two strangers and a bruised face.”

His expression has gone hard, but his words are still light. “What can I say? I make friends everywhere I go.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right. And what exactly did your face make friends with?”

Silas drags a hand through his hair. “Jesus. We met at the police station after I got arrested for beating the shit out of Levi. So, if you don’t mind, I’m not really in the mood to rehash my terrible day. Take your gossip and go.”

He grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room.

Stella calls after him, but he ignores her. A younger guy vacates a recliner, and between one breath and the next, Silas has sat down and pulled me straight onto his lap.

Chapter 6

Silas

S
pooked. That’s the look in her eye as I curl a hand over her bare knee and turn her sideways on my lap. She already has big eyes, but now they’re two wide blue oceans set in a heart-shaped face.

“Um, I think I’ll find another seat.”

I tighten my grip on her knee and say, “You see one?”

A frown pulls at her lips as she looks around the packed room. “I’ll just . . .” She shifts like she’s going to stand, but I stop her. I’m fucking this all up. Coming on too strong, pushing her too much. I know it’s crazy. This one girl doesn’t define my place here, but I can’t take another moment today where my shortcomings are thrown in my face. I need this. Need her.

“I’ll be good. I promise.”

“I think we probably have very different definitions of good.”

I laugh at having my own words thrown back at me. And I’m a little puzzled at why she’s still hanging in there with me. If she’s actually as uptight and serious as she seems, she probably wouldn’t have even climbed into my truck. The way she smiles at me from beneath her wild hair makes me feel like what I’m seeing is just what she wants me to see. Maybe I’m not the only one pretending.

“What’s your last name?” I say.

She’s worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes scanning the room uncomfortably as she answers, “Brenner.”

Brenner. The name sounds familiar. Or maybe it’s just that it flows right in my head. Like she’s one of those people that you have to say their full name every time.

I watch her fingers tangling in her lap for a few moments, and I can see her closing herself up. I grip her hips and shift her forward until she stands. I do the same, and then push her back down into the recliner alone. Then I balance myself on the edge of the end table next to her.

“Tell me about yourself, Dylan Brenner.”

She gifts me a smile that just might be grateful, and she shrugs. “You’ve already been party to my most mortifying experience—”

“Are we talking your arrest or that weird verbal diarrhea back there?”

“Oh God.” She covers her eyes with her hands so fast, I can actually hear her palms hit her face. Laughing, I reach out to tug on her braid again. I don’t know what the fuck my problem is, but I can’t stop touching her hair. I don’t want to stop.

“I’m kidding. Besides, it gave me
some
info. You’re a junior, so that makes you what, twenty? Twenty-one?”

I slip my fingers down her braid, the texture smooth and complicated. She lifts her head out of her hands. “Twenty-one. Just turned in June.”

Reluctantly, I let go of her hair.

“And what did
the
Dylan Brenner do for her twenty-first?”

“The Dylan Brenner?”

I shrug. “I figure people are going to call you that someday. After you’ve changed the world a few times. I’m just getting a head start.”

She says, “I don’t know that it’s really possible to change the world.”

“Then why go through all the trouble?”

She pulls her feet up into the recliner and balances her arms atop her knees. She did that in the jail cell, too, and I swear to God it’s like she wants to torture me. I try not to stare at the gentle curve of her thighs, not while she’s got this far-off, contemplative look on her face. She gazes just above my head as she speaks, like she’s somewhere else entirely. Or like maybe she’s explaining it to herself more than me. “Because once upon a time, someone went through the trouble for me. And I want to be that kind of person. The kind of person who fights for what I believe in even if I’m already beat. I don’t think I can change the world, but I can change one person’s world at a time. And that’s something.”

Her shirt still hangs off her shoulder, revealing the gentle slope up to her neck. She tilts her head to the side and shrugs, brushing off what she’s just said. My gaze gets stuck there, on the sun-kissed skin of her neck and shoulder. She looks so soft. Her whole personality seems too sweet, too good to be real.

Or maybe that’s my history. I only know how to expect the worst of people because it’s all I’ve ever seen.

“I think
you’re
something.”

Her lips pull into a small smile.

“Something ridiculous?”

“Something special. Where I come from people are more concerned with changing their own worlds than someone else’s.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It is when nothing ever changes. Each new scheme or plan always winds up just how you started. And all you’ve got is some messed-up cycle that does nothing but drain you a little more each time around. I think it would be easier to change the whole damn world than to change some people.”

She lays her head on top of her knees, and those big blue eyes lock on me, studying and sizing me up like I’m her next save-the-world project.

Oh hell no. Enough about me.

“You didn’t answer my question. What did you do for your twenty-first?”

She does another one of those deep-breath things where her whole body moves, and she looks out at the party, her eyes flitting between groups of people talking, drinking, and smoking. “Honestly? I went to dinner with my boyfriend.” Her eyes flick to mine. “My ex now. We had dinner and then went back to his place. That was about it.”

“No big party? No night out on the town with friends?”

She shrugs. “We weren’t really party kind of people.”

“You weren’t? Or he wasn’t?”

“You know,” she laughs. “I don’t actually know.” Her laugh is this pure, perfect thing. Everything about her is light. She makes it seem so easy, like I could just toss off all the bullshit and live in a bright shiny world just because she’s in front of me and that’s the world she lives in.

I want to forget myself in her, and maybe help her do the same with me.

“Well, you’re in luck, Pickle. Because you happen to be with an expert partier.”

I stand and slip one arm beneath her knees and band the other around her middle before lifting her up. She squeaks and wraps her arms around my neck.

“Excuse me,” I call out on my way to the kitchen. “Novice partier in the house!”

“Silas,” she groans. I dig my fingers into her side, and she jerks, squirming and squealing in my arms. “Oh my God, stop!”

“No groaning then. At least not that kind.”

She stills and the pink blush on her cheeks brings out her eyes even more, and who would have thought getting arrested would put me in a
better
mood?

I keep shouting until my way into the kitchen is clear, and then I sit her right onto the counter. People are staring, and I can see her noticing them all. Intent on distracting her again, I lean against her knees and am surprised when her legs move to let me rest between them.

Not so nervous anymore, are you?

I end up being the distracted one, too caught up in how I like the feel of her knees pressing into my sides. It makes me want to really be between her legs, to be pressed right up against her. Up on the counter, she’s the perfect height so that my head is just a few inches above hers. And if I tugged her to the edge, she’d be at the perfect height there, too. I plant my hands on the countertop beside her and lean in until all I can see are those wide, nervous,
excited
eyes.

“What’s your poison, Pickle?”

She frowns. “What will it take to get you to stop calling me that?”

“Stop answering my questions with other questions. Tell me how you want to belatedly celebrate your birthday.”

“I really don’t think I should.”

“Why not?”

“I just . . . alcohol leads to bad decisions. And I’ve already made enough of those today.”

“So we’ll get high instead.”

Her mouth opens on a surprised inhale, and
goddamn
her lips are perfect. Curved and full, and I’m thinking of all the other ways I could make her lips part like that.

“I can’t do
that,
” she says.

“Your friend Matt doesn’t have any problem with it.”

I nod my head over to the kitchen table, where Matt is part of a group sharing a bowl.

She looks afraid, but she asks, “What’s it like?”

I shrug. “It’s different depending on the person and what you’re smoking. Some stuff just makes you relaxed. Clears your head and calms you down. Some makes you happy and kind of light. Everything makes you laugh or seems really entertaining. It’s like taking a break from the world, you know? The outside stuff just kinda melts away, and you forget to care about the things that are bothering you.”

“Is that why you do it?”

I give in to the itch to touch her and start at her bare shoulder, dragging a finger along until I can curve my whole hand around the back of her neck.

“You’re gonna have to stop trying to analyze me. I’m really not that complicated.”

For a girl like her, analyzing is step one. Fixing me would be step two.

She leans her head to the side, and my hand falls away from her neck.

“Tell me about the fight tonight.”

And so it begins. “Why?”

“Tell me about the fight. Let me clean up your hands. And then, I promise to let you teach me how to party. Or whatever.”

I feel like I’ve just stepped into a courtroom, and am being outnegotiated.

“So we’re making deals, are we?”

She smiles. “I suppose we are.”

I reach up again, and this time she doesn’t pull away when I curl my fingers around the back of her neck. I brush my thumb over her pulse point . . . feel that thin, vulnerable skin, and
fuck,
beneath that bossy exterior, I can see her nerves. But they’re different now. She doesn’t look scared or uncomfortable. Her heart is racing, blood pulsing fast beneath my finger, and she’s taking these tiny sharp breaths. It turns me on in a way I don’t even understand. Normally, the skittish, inexperienced types send me running. But the thought of teaching her anything makes my jeans feel too tight. I want her on her back in my bed, legs spread wide, eyes big and blue, lips parted, mouth babbling that nervous nonsense until I make her forget what she’s saying, forget how to talk altogether.