She stared up into his blue eyes, so close and full of emotion.

It took a minute to find her voice. Six billion questions had been rattling around her head all morning, and now all she could manage was, “Why?”

Gabriel winced, almost imperceptibly. “Well, at least wait until after school. Then you can beat the crap out of me if you want.” His hands slipped free, releasing her. “Fighting in class is an automatic one-day suspension.”

She swallowed. Now that he stood right in front of her, she was terrified to ask.

No, she was terrified of the answers.

Students were pushing through the doorway. Gabriel moved fractionally closer. “You all right?”

Layne kept flashing on that moment on the hill when the sunlight had danced along her skin, and Gabriel had kissed a path across her stomach, stealing her breath and her fears and making her feel perfect for the first time.

And then her sanctuary—their sanctuary—had gone up in smoke.

She pulled his lighter out of her pocket and held it out. “I think I need you to tell me.”

A panicked look crossed his face. He snatched it out of her hand and slid it into his pocket. And then he was even closer, leaning in to speak right to her ear. “Getting caught with one of those is an automatic suspension, too.”

His breath tickled her neck. She shivered.

Focus.

“Truth?” he whispered.

She nodded. “I want to know everything.”

The second bell rang, and Layne jerked back. Her heart was in her throat.

“Free period?” he said.

“Yeah,” she choked.

Then Ms. Anderson was coming through the door, urging them to their seats, calling the class to order.

Layne did the six questions of the warm-up automatically, grateful for the distraction, for the need to keep her eyes on her paper.

A folded piece of notebook paper landed in the crease of her textbook. Layne unfolded it under the edge of her desk.

Are you afraid of me?

The breath poured out of her lungs in a rush.

Then she put her pencil to the paper.

A little.

She watched his face as he unrolled her note. No regret, no disappointment. Just flat acceptance.

With a little spark of challenge.

Layne’s palms were sweating on the pencil. She scraped them across her knees.

All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait for that free period.

The intercom over the chalkboard crackled to life. “Ms. Anderson?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please send Gabriel Merrick to the guidance office?”

Just about everyone in the classroom turned to stare at him—including Layne.

“Are you in trouble?” she whispered.

He shrugged and shoved his math book into his backpack. “I have no idea.”

Then he swung out of his chair and moved down the aisle. He was gone before she noticed the new fold of paper tucked beneath the corner of her notebook.

Truth: don’t be.