Jack Hammer by Tabatha Vargo, Melissa Andrea

met? Like mother like daughter. Right, Princess Chelsey?”
    She was practically hissing when her hand came up. I caught her wrist before she could hit me, yanking her to me. She felt right against my body, and I wondered how something that felt so right could be so wrong.
    I bit back a moan when she moved against me to get free.
    “Let me go, Blaine.” She sounded fierce despite her small size.
    I had to give her credit, she knew how to be aggressive toward me. But I was still a part of her mind. She still thought about me, and I was still able to get a response from her. I could see it in her big, brown eyes when she looked up at me.
    She pushed at my chest and looked away. “This isn’t going to work. I’m going to ask Mr. Liam if we can work separately. I think it’ll be better for both of us.”
    “Are you that afraid to be alone with me, Chelsey?”
    Her eyes clashed with mine. “What?”
    “You are, aren’t you?” I chuckled sardonically. “I just can’t decide if you’re afraid because of your parents or because of yourself.”
    “My parents have nothing to do with this.”
    “Don’t they? You seemed to be on your mother’s side the morning after we got arrested.” I spewed the hard, angry words at her.
    Her eyes widened. “I wasn’t! What my mother said was horrible, Blaine! I never thought those things about you. I apologized for her words. ”
    “You did, but then in the next breath you said you just wanted to be friends. Like I wasn’t good enough or some shit.”
    I remembered the day almost a month ago like it was yesterday. I remembered how hurt I felt and how I wanted to hurt her even more than she was hurting me.
    Her eyes flashed with fire and then she took a calming breath. “Why are you so angry, anyway? You were the one who decided we shouldn’t even be friends. We both agreed, as in you and me, that it was better if we just went our separate ways, remember.”
    “Of course I remember!” I snapped. “But I didn’t think that meant pretending we’d never even met.”
    “Forgive me for not knowing the rules of our situation, Blaine.” She sighed in annoyance.
    I couldn’t blame her for being annoyed. I was being unfair. I was angry at her, but more at myself for letting an entire month go by without talking to her. Of course she wanted nothing to do with me. I’d jerked her around and all because of my stupid pride.
    “Look, I don’t either. I’ve never been this way with another girl,” I said honestly.
    She stopped pushing away from me and her body softened in my arms. “What do you mean? You’ve never been like what with another girl?”
    “For starters, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” I confessed.
    I stared her down, unwilling to look away or be ashamed of my words.
    “Blaine,” she started.
    I knew her next words were going to be bad so I interrupted her. I had a lot of damage control to do, and I was going to need this week with her.
    “Listen, I need this extra credit, too. Without it I won’t pass. I don’t want to be just another statistic, Chelsey.”
    It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was as close to the truth as I was going to get. I didn’t want to become her charity case.
    I wanted to tell her I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted her to tell her I couldn’t care less about passing or graduation or college, but when I was with her, that’s all I seemed to care about. Those things were important to her, and there was a strange ache inside of me begging to be important to her, too.
    “We can be partners, or friends, or whatever the hell you want. You can call the shots if you help me with this assignment, okay?”
    I hated that I sounded so desperate.
    She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip and watched me carefully. As much as I liked her eyes on me, I squirmed a little. She was looking for something, and I didn’t know if she was going to find it.
    “You promise you’re going to take this seriously?” she asked.