Tease, Part 2 (Chapters 7-14) by Sophie Jordan

Author:Sophie Jordan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062367372
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

WHEN THE UNKNOWN NUMBER popped up, I was in the process of stuffing my laptop into my bag. Sometimes my hair salon called to confirm appointments and they didn’t always use the main line I had plugged into my phone. Zipping up my bag, I answered. “Hello?”

My art history professor, a Frenchman about my height, glared at me as I was squeezing out between desks. I sent him a small, apologetic smile. Class was over, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Emerson? It’s me. Justin.”

I stopped, my fingers clenching around my phone until my joints ached.

A girl bumped into me from behind at my sudden stop.

“Excuse me,” she said sharply.

I looked dumbly over my shoulder and stepped aside so she could pass, too shocked to even muster up an apology.

“How did you get this number?” My lips felt numb as the words passed out of my mouth. I stepped out of the classroom and walked slowly down the hall. It was crowded, lots of students buried in their phones or talking to the person next to them. Except for my snail-crawling pace, I didn’t look out of the ordinary. Even if I felt it. Even if I felt like I’d just gotten hit by a semi.

“Your mom.”

Of course. My thumb started to stretch for the end button, ready to push it and put to death his voice in my ear.

“Wait! Don’t hang up,” he pleaded. Like he could read my mind, like he knew what I was about to do.

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure why, but I stopped. I’d never heard his voice sound like that. There was a thread of desperation to it. He’d always been cocky and teasing, but he had never sounded quite so human.

Unable to keep walking with his voice in my ear, I stepped to the side of the hall and leaned against the wall, staring blindly into the ebb and flow of students.

Thumb poised, I waited for him to say something else, something more . . . to reveal that he was a different person. That what had happened between us was just a mistake of youth. That it had been the alcohol and poor judgment.

He sighed into the phone. “We want you to come to the wedding, Em.”

By “we” I assumed he meant Mom and him. His father wouldn’t care either way. The good thing about Don was his lack of opinion when it came to me.

“I want you there,” he added, filling the silence.

“Why?”

“We’re family. Don’t you think it’s time we move past—”

“Are you owning up to what you did?” I cut in. Because that would go a long way. If he just admitted it to me, I could maybe move on. If he admitted his mistake to Mom, even better. She had never believed me. She thought it was me being a pain in the ass and trying to wreck what she had going with Don.

He sighed again. “Will that change anything, Emerson? I want us to move on and not rehash old history.

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