Tessa Ever After by Brighton Walsh Page A

now I’ve turned into some sort of pansy-ass fucker who can’t get a girl out of his head. I’m thinking about the way she smelled , for Christ’s sake. I feel like Cade after he got all googly-eyed at Winter. No, worse. I feel like Adam. Bastard always was a sap when it came to women.
    And the worst thing is that I can’t talk to either of them about it. Adam will shove me in Tessa’s direction, telling me all the reasons it’s a good idea, and Cade will . . . Jesus. I don’t even want to think about what Cade will do.
    Which is exactly why I need to get her out of my mind. School isn’t working. Stressing about my impending doom with my father’s company only goes so far, and unfortunately has absolutely no bearing on what or whom my dick is interested in.
    What I should be doing right now is calling one of the two dozen girls whose numbers I’ve got stored in my phone. I should be going out, hitting a bar, and finding someone to distract me. Someone to distance me from everything I’m suddenly desperate to have.
    Instead, I’m going right back into the lion’s den.
    I pull up outside Tessa’s house and just stare at the large picture window out front. Behind the drawn curtains, I can see shadows moving around inside, and for a minute, I consider just leaving without talking to her. Without doing what I need to and telling her what’s been constantly on my mind.
    But I’ve never been a coward, so I take the keys out of the ignition, get out of the car, and walk up the front path while thinking of a hundred different ways to have this conversation with her.
    What’s the best way to tell a girl you’ve known more than half your life that you can’t get her out of your head? That, suddenly, I see her as so much more than the pesky younger sister of my best friend?
    Taking a deep breath, I knock twice on the door and wait for her to answer. And even though I have a few moments to compose myself, no amount of time would prepare me for what I see when she opens the door. She’s wearing a dress—black this time—that’s formed to her body and leaves her shoulders and arms completely bare and doesn’t cover nearly enough of her legs, unless she’s planning to wear this only for me. She’s changed her hair again since the last time I saw her a few days ago—purple streaks here and there amidst dark brown. And I love when she wears it like this, kind of wavy and tousled. Sexy. Like she just rolled out of bed. And that only makes me think of Tessa in a bed, her hairspread out on the pillow and only a thin sheet covering her body, which isn’t helping anything.
    Her lips—painted in a deep red—form an O when she sees me, her eyes widening in surprise. “Jason! What are you doing here?”
    I shrug. “Thought I’d stop by. You going somewhere?” I ask, gesturing to her dress.
    “I . . . um. Yeah. I am. Or I was.” Her phone rings from somewhere inside, and she opens the door wider before running off to grab it. “Amanda! Hi! No, thanks for getting back to me so quick.” She pauses for a minute, listening, then her mouth draws down at the corners, her eyes flicking to mine briefly before looking away again, her shoulders sagging. “Oh sure. No, I totally understand. It was really short notice. Okay, have a good night.” She hangs up the phone and tosses it on the couch behind her, muttering nearly every swear word in the book as she does so.
    With raised eyebrows, I ask, “What’s up?”
    She heaves a sigh and turns around to face me. “My babysitter got food poisoning this afternoon and called to cancel on me about fifteen minutes ago.”
    Suddenly, the thought of postponing what I came here to talk about seems like the best idea in the world. What’s another couple hours when I’ve already waited weeks? Months, if I’m being honest. “I can watch Haley if you need to go somewhere.”
    “I—” She looks at me, then toward the hallway leading to Haley’s room, where I can hear her