my index finger into his chest. “I’m not some dumb slut who is dying to say I was with Mason Cartwright. You’re not that impressive to me.”
He reeled back. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or mad. “Please don’t let my ex friends taint your opinion of me.”
“Why? It’s hard not to assume you’re at least a little like them. You must have something in common with them. And presumably they know you well enough to have a pretty good idea about what your intentions with me were. Are there really women out there who let your friends talk about them like that?”
He didn’t have a response. He turned his head to the side, clenched his jaw, and closed his eyes in a long blink. His expressions were really hard to read and I had no idea what he was feeling. I didn’t plan to stick around to find out.
“This was a mistake,” I said as I fumbled through my purse, looking for my phone.
“No, Derian, don’t say that.” He reached forward and held both my wrists so I wouldn’t dial my phone. “Please, let me prove to you I’m not like them.” He stared into my eyes and waited for me to say something.
Disappointed that he wasn’t the sophisticated and interesting person I had hoped he was, I asked, “Why do they call you Chance? Is that some sort of womanizer thing?”
“It’s stupid and immature.” He dropped his hands. “And it’s not true. Let me finish our date so you can form your own opinions. Please.”
My instincts were still telling me there was more to him than rumours and reputation, but the glaring evidence to the contrary was making it difficult to know for sure. I studied him without saying anything, trying to detect a sign in his expression that would confirm he was bullshitting. “Why would I bother wasting my time on a date with a guy who only wants one thing? One thing he’s not going to get, by the way.”
“It’s not like that. I just want you to get to know me better. Nothing more.” His tone actually sounded genuine. In fact, he appeared to be upset about what was happening.
I leaned back against the wall and crossed my arms. “You invited me here to meet your friends as a way to get to know you better, but you are allegedly nothing like your friends, so how does that help me gain an accurate impression?”
He tilted his head back and exhaled tension. “It doesn’t. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Did you ask me out only because you want to sleep with me?”
“No. I mean, maybe one day, but no. I just wanted you to get to know me better.”
“Why?”
He chuckled like it was a stupid question. “Because I like you.”
“Why?” I challenged.
“What do you mean why? I like you because you’re smart and gorgeous and nice to everyone. And even though I’ve been gone for a year, I never stopped wondering about you.”
It didn’t make sense. Guys like him who could date and sleep with whomever they wanted didn’t wait around a year for small-town girls like me. Something didn’t fit. “Why? It’s not like you knew me that well before you left.”
“I know we didn’t spend any time together in high school, but I always noticed you. You sketch buildings when you’re bored; you smile at the people most other people ignore; you laugh out loud when something is only a little funny, and you laugh silently when something is really funny; your cheeks go red if someone compliments you and you believe them, but not if you think they’re being fake; and you don’t lie about who you are because you don’t need to. Everyone else was phony and had an agenda for being my friend. But not you. Your genuineness stuck out right from the first time I saw you. And, honestly, I liked the fact that you were one of the few girls who didn’t throw yourself at me because of my dad’s money.”
My eyes darted back and forth between his face and the party in the background as my mind attempted to process everything. It was nice to know that he had noticed me back then. I had definitely noticed him, too. But I was still worried I was nothing more than a hard-to-get conquest in a game that had gotten too easy for him.
Sensing that I was undecided, he smiled tentatively and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs where we can be alone. I want to show you something.”
“You’re joking, right?” I shoved his arm off me.
“No. I didn’t mean—it’s not like that. Shit, this is getting worse by the minute,” he said under his breath.
With one hand propped on my hip and a snarky tone, I said, “Sorry to ruin your night.”
“It’s not you. I’m messing everything up. It’s my fault and I just want to make it better. Tell me how to make it better.”
“Take me home.”
“I don’t want to take you home.” He stared at me, struggling to think of something to say that would change my mind. “The party was a bad idea. I should have taken you on a proper date. We can go somewhere else, just the two of us. Tell me where you want to go.”
I shook my head without saying anything. Going somewhere else wasn’t going to change the fact that we were from completely different worlds and had nothing in common. And it wouldn’t change the fact that he had only one goal, which despite Sophie’s encouragement to be more adventurous, was not a goal I shared.
After a long silence, he sighed and his perfect posture sunk slightly. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you home, but I’ve really been looking forward to tonight. I don’t want it to end before it even starts.”
I had never met anyone who was so hard to read. His face only showed his feelings part of the time, in flashes. It was like putting the pieces of a puzzle together, only most of the pieces were missing.
“Why does this mean so much to you?” I asked.
His eyebrows angled together and he checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was close enough to hear our conversation. “When I moved to Squamish and saw you around school, it was obvious there was something different and special about you—not just because you’re pretty, nice, and smart. It’s hard to explain, but it felt like you could see me. Not like everyone else saw me, but for who I really am. Being the new kid at school for senior year, it was easier to let people like me for my image and reputation. It felt nice to know that at least one person knew there was more to me than that. I was intrigued that you noticed that side of me even without ever having a conversation with me. I’m not only telling you this to flatter you, but nobody has ever made me feel the way you do when you look at me. I know it sounds weird because we haven’t spent any time together. But that’s why I’m interested in getting to know you better. And that’s why I’ve been looking forward to finally spending time with you. I’m sorry I got too excited and didn’t put enough thought into planning the actual date. I haven’t even talked to most of these people in a year.”
It took a while for everything he said to filter through my brain. It was quite the speech and I knew the connection he was referring to. I had always felt like I saw a different Mason than everyone else saw. I glanced around at the people at the party—people who thought they knew him because of the type of clothes he wore and the type of cars he drove. It was sad to imagine what it was like to be friends with people who didn’t really know you. “Maybe you need to make some new friends who take the time to appreciate the real you,” I said.
He lifted his gaze to make direct eye contact with me. “I’m working on it.”
I nodded and then sighed as I thought. He waited patiently as I considered all the options. Anyone watching us would have probably assumed he was being really smooth and I was being naïve, but for some reason that I couldn’t exactly explain, I knew without a doubt there was more to him and that he was willing to share it with me if I let him. And I wanted to let him. “What did you want to show me upstairs?”
He