“Jealous?” I flash a grin.
“Nope. Just impressed. You’re hot stuff, Hartley. I don’t think we’ve passed a single girl tonight who hasn’t stopped to drool over you.”
“What can I say? Women like me.” I’m not trying to be arrogant. It’s just a fact. My twin and I are good-looking, and good-looking guys are popular with the ladies. Anyone who says otherwise is damn na?ve. When it comes to our basic animal instincts, who we’re sexually drawn to, appearance matters.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” Mac asks.
“Don’t want one.”
“Ah, I get it. Commitmentphobe.”
“Nah.” I shrug. “I’m just not in the market for one right now. My priorities are elsewhere.”
“Interesting.”
Our eyes lock for a fleeting, heated moment. I’m seconds away from reexamining the aforementioned priorities when Mac visibly swallows and changes the subject.
“Alright, time for another ride,” she announces. “We’ve been dilly-dallying long enough.”
“Please go easy on me,” I beg.
She simply snorts in response and dashes off in search of our next death-defying adventure.
I stare after her in amusement. And a touch of bewilderment. This girl is something else. Not at all like the other bored clones at Garnet. She doesn’t care how she looks—hair wild, makeup sweating off. She’s spontaneous and free, which makes it that much more confounding why she stays with that jackass Kincaid. What the hell does that guy have that makes him so damn great?
“Explain something to me,” I say, as we approach some enormous bungee thing that slingshots a small, two-person basket of screaming victims nearly two hundred feet in the air.
“If this is you trying to stall, it won’t work.” She marches right up to the ride attendant and hands him our tickets.
“Your boyfriend,” I start, stepping around her to get into the basket first.
The attendant straps me in and starts his spiel that amounts to: Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle, and if this kills you, we’re not liable.
For the first time tonight, Mac looks nervous as she slides in beside me. “What about him?”
I choose my words carefully. “I mean, I hear things. None of them good. And for a girl who insists she doesn’t want to be her mommy and daddy’s little princess protégé, I’m wondering why you would do the expected thing and settle for another Garnet clone.”
The thick bundle of cords, which will in a moment launch us into the night sky, rises up the ride’s arms that form an obtuse angle above us.
“That’s not really any of your business.” Her expression turns flat, her tone adversarial. I’m touching a nerve.
“Come on, if you two have crazy-good sex or something, just say so. That I understand. Get yours, you know? I’d respect it.”
She looks straight ahead, as if there’s any chance of her ignoring me in this four-foot-wide tin can. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“I know it’s not for the money,” I say. “And the fact that you never talk about him tells me your heart’s not in it.”
“You’re way off.” Mac snaps her gaze to me, lifting a defiant chin. There’s all sorts of fight in her now. “Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you.”
“Oh, is that right, princess?” I can’t help myself. Getting a rise out of her kind of makes me horny. “When’s the last time you touched yourself thinking about him?”
“Fuck off.” Her cheeks turn red. I can see her biting the inside of her cheek as she rolls her eyes.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me he gets you hot and bothered just walking into a room.”
Her pulse is visibly thrumming in her neck. Mac adjusts in her seat, crossing her ankles. As her gaze flicks to mine, she licks her lips and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am.
“There are more important things than chemistry,” she says, and I hear the uncertainty in her voice.
“I bet you’ve been telling yourself that for a long time.” I slant my head. “But maybe you’re not as sure of that as you used to be.”
“And why’s that?”
“Okay,” the attendant announces, “hang on. Counting down from ten. Ready?”
Oh, fuck it.
“I’m calling in your marker,” I tell her.
“My what?”
“Eight. Seven.” The attendant counts down.