“ ‘So you don’t care that she’s just using you? Why don’t you go over there and tell Trace.’
He laughed as though I’d just dropped the punchline to some silly, little kid’s joke.”
″ ‘Come on, Blackburn. I’m not as dumb as I look.’ He took another sip of his drink and focused back in on Nikki and Trace. ‘One minute I’m getting you a drink at Spring Fling and the next you’re on the dance-floor with Trace. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out why you both disappeared.’ ”
“I don’t like him,” I said, watching Trace as he leaned into Nikki and whispered something in her ear. My heart sank all the way down to my feet. “Not anymore anyway.”
″‘Let me go,’ I demanded, though it lacked punch. Being this close to Trace was no good for me, and I knew that, but the room was definitely spinning now and I wasn’t even sure I could stand upright anymore.
“My stomach bottomed out as I watched them from the doorway. He was leaning back against the wall, wearing jeans and a fitted white t-shirt that hugged him in all the right places, while Nikki was tipping into him, wolfing up all his personal space with her runway-ready body. She was all dolled up with a skin-tight pink dress and a pair of matching heels that looked like they belonged on a stage. And not the theater kind.”
“Dumbfounded, I stared at him like an apparition from a past life. He wasn’t supposed to be here, couldn’t be, and yet he was. The wind howled around me, ruffling my hair as it hissed its warnings to tread ever so carefully.”
“In my dreams, I was always free. I was happy, and I was with him. (...) It was always heaven like this with Trace. My own piece of paradise within the burning inferno.”
“What I needed was a way to undo this mess and get Trace back. Better yet, I needed someone to tell me none of this was happening. That it was all just some twisted nightmare I’d dreamed up from years of watching too many horror movies. And most of all, I needed Dominic to stop staring at me that way.”