Staying On Top (Whitman University) by Lyla Payne Page A

this trip together, and if we didn’t end up acting on the feelings between us, it would be easy to shake it off. Somewhere in the past three days, that had changed. Not ever knowing what it was like to be with her—really be with her—would take some time to get over. Maybe a long time.
    Nothing sounded worse than finding out.
    “I’m guessing neither of us hit the lottery in the parent department.” I nudged her finger with mine. “Tell me more about your dad.”
    She hesitated. Her finger rested against mine now, relaxed. “It was . . . fun. His life. At least for a while. He wasn’t like other dads. Especially after my mom died, it was like he and I against the world. And it took me a while to realize that the little games we played were cons.”
    “You helped him steal from people?” My stomach clenched. Poor kid. Who got their ten-year-old mixed up in international crime?
    She tensed, drawing her hand back into her lap. I missed it as though she’d taken mine with her, as though her hand was a ghost appendage that I felt even though a surgeon had removed it. 
    “I’m not judging,” I rushed to explain. “You were just a kid. I’m . . . I don’t know. Sad.”
    “You don’t need to be sad for me, Sam. I had a more privileged youth than about ninety-five percent of the population, and no matter what he made me do, my dad never mistreated me. He loves me, in his way.”
    “But you’re tired of it. The stigma.”
    “I didn’t know I was helping him. I refused to keep doing it as soon as I realized what was going on.” She flicked a glance at me for the briefest of moments, then looked away.
    Without another thought to my previous promise, I reached up and slid my hand along her jaw, turning her head toward me. The expression in her deep brown eyes eluded me. The truth of her thoughts, of her feelings, hid behind things such as resentment and pride, and her daring me to say that she should regret her unorthodox childhood. 
    “I don’t blame you for what happened to me, Blair, and no one else your dad conned can blame you, either. He’s the criminal. He’s the one who should have known better.” I smiled, my heart doing a stutter-step when she lifted the corner of her lips in response.
    I couldn’t decide if her pissy face or her smile made me want her more.
    “You’re a good guy, Sam. I know because otherwise he wouldn’t have seen you as an easy mark. You’re too nice. You trust people too easily.” The smile fell away. “I’m jealous of that, a little. The way I grew up, especially after my dad’s lifestyle came out . . . I’m not sure I’m capable of trust.”
    I felt like a dumbass. After all she had seen and done, she must think I was a real idiot for falling for her dad’s bogus scheme. It didn’t stop my hand from tracing a line down her neck, over her shoulder, and down her arm until it settled on top of hers. Her skin was so silky, so smooth, and contradicted her prickly personality. “Maybe your way is better. At least people can’t take advantage of you.”
    “Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot, Sam. You can’t trust everyone. People are assholes, on the large.” She bit her lip and stared out the window. “But not trusting anyone isn’t the greatest life plan, either.”
    The speaker on the bus crackled to life, screeching loud enough to set my teeth on edge before the driver’s voice burst through the static. Most of it was unintelligible—all of it was in Croatian. “Did you catch any of that? I’m pretty sure I caught nothing.”
    “Not really, but we should be about ten minutes or so from the last stop in Bosnia. Next up, Belgrade!”
    “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear someone say that.” 
    Belgrade was not my favorite place in the world even though plenty of people thrived in its cosmopolitan atmosphere. It didn’t even rank in my top fifty, but the people I knew from Serbia were some of my favorites. Aside from Marija, who was hot