The Wright Mistake(9)

“You’re mistaking my scowl for sexual attraction.”

His lips quirked up. “Am I?”

“Yes.” I kept my voice strong and my eyes hard.

“You’re right. Why the fuck would I think to bring you up to Make-Out Point?”

“What?” I snapped.

“Where did you think we were? An abandoned parking lot?” he asked with a crisp, tight laugh, as if I were an idiot for not seeing it for what it was. “After the sun has set, this place will be crawling with teens.”

I was about to boil over. He hadn’t brought me here for the fucking sunset. He hadn’t wanted to make me happy or convince me to draw the beautiful scenery. He’d wanted to fuck me. Plain and simple.

“You really are disgusting. You know that, right?”

“And here I thought, I was doing you a favor,” Austin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you wanted a rebound.”

“I want nothing to do with you, but thank you for reminding me of that fact,” I spat in his face.

Then, I turned on my heel and stormed back to the truck. My hands were shaking as I reached for the door. I yanked it open and was halfway inside when Austin’s hands were on my hips.

“Don’t storm out of here,” he said.

“Fuck off, Austin.” I slapped his hands off of me and whirled to face him. “I might want a rebound. Something fun and light and easy. Something to take my mind off of things. But you’re an idiot if you think that I want that from you.”

“Who do you want it from then?” he asked, as if it were a challenge.

I clenched my jaw before spitting out the first name that came to mind. “Patrick.”

Austin’s eyes went flat and deadly. Patrick might not be his brother, but he was closer to his best friend than his own blood. I’d committed treason with one word. And it felt fucking good.

“Patrick,” he repeated.

“Yeah. Have something to say about that?”

I could see all the words he wanted to say clear as day on his face. Pretty much all of them were four letters, and the rest were more colorful versions of the favorites. But I waited and held my ground, daring him to say something.

“Good luck with that.”

“I’m getting out of here. You drive me crazy.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

I wanted to scream. Oil and water. Christ!

I jumped into the front seat of the truck and slammed the door in Austin’s face. Everything about my interactions with him left me feeling irritated and vulnerable. How is he able to press my buttons so easily? And not even all the good ones.

I didn’t wait for Austin to get into the truck. He just thought I was pissed and needed some space from him. But I was so done with his ass.

Without a backward glance, I peeled out of the parking lot. Through the rearview mirror, I saw him holding his hands up and cursing my name, but I didn’t turn around, and I didn’t stop. Served him right for bringing me up here, expecting that, just because I was newly single, I’d fuck him. Sex was never our problem. It was everything else that I had issues with.

All we did was argue and fuck. I couldn’t have the second, and I was tired of the first. He made my blood boil—in the best and worst ways. And, right now, it was only in the worst way.

Yet I couldn’t stop myself from giving it as good as I got it.

I didn’t know what it was about him that brought this out in me. I wasn’t this argumentative with my friends. Heidi, Emery, and I could go a whole night without a single argument. But, man, when I saw Austin, a switch flipped in my brain.

And I knew that when I’d followed him outside, when I’d driven the truck up the cliff side, when I’d parked overlooking the canyon to watch the sunset. I’d inherently known all of those things were a bad idea and, in some ways, romantic, yet I couldn’t stop myself from stepping into the stupid situation with him.

It made me angrier that I’d let him have this power. That I’d let any man have this power ever again.

I’d told Heidi once that I was the kind of girl who attracted bad, bad boys. They couldn’t help themselves. It was as if the tattoos and bright hair and nose ring were a blinking arrow pointed straight at my heart.

Then, even when I’d tried for the nice guy, when I’d tried to make it work with the Trevors of the world, I always came back to the bad boys. The ones who followed the blinking arrow and decided it now belonged to them. The ones who staked claim and fought and bit and fucked like animals. The ones who reminded me to live by bringing me so close to death. Adrenaline and fire and toxicity wrapped in a pretty, smiling package of wrong.

The truck skidded to a halt in front of the lake house. I killed the engine and hopped out of the cab. Patrick was standing at the front door when I tromped up. He leaned his shoulder into the door and seemed to be fighting a smile.