“
How do you think people are going to feel when they find out you’ve deceived them?” he asked. “When they find out you’ve been playing them all for fools for weeks on end?”
I didn’t answer until we were safely out in the parking lot. Then I turned to face him.
“Gee, I don’t know, Mark. I imagine they’ll be furious and hate me for it. Is that the point you’re trying to make? I get it. Though, for the record, I never wanted to deceive anyone.”
“Then why pretend to be dead in the first place?”
“I already told you I can’t tell you.”
“Then let me tell you something, Calloway--O’Connor--whatever your name is,” Mark said in a furious voice. “I am going to write the tell-all article of your nightmares.”
“Gee,” I said. “Now there’s a surprise.”
I began to walk quickly through the parking lot in the direction of the street. If I didn’t get away from him soon, I was going to do something completely disgusting, like disgrace myself and cry.
“Don’t walk away from me. Where are you going?” Mark said.
“To the bus stop.”
“What do you mean to the bus stop? Nobody leaves the prom on the bus.”
“Now the heck do you think I got here?” I all but shouted, rounding on him as a flood of frustration overcame my desire to cry. “In a carriage that will turn into a pumpkin at midnight?”
“Why didn’t Crawford pick you up?”
“Because I wasn’t his date,” I said succinctly. “Elaine was. Is.”
Mark dragged a hand through his hair. “My car’s right over there,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”
“No way,” I said. “And listen to you tell me what a lying jerk I am all the way across town? I think I’d rather walk.”
Before I could take so much as a step back, Mark crossed the distance between us and yanked me into his arms. In the next moment, his mouth crashed down onto mine. Twice before I’d thought he was going to kiss me, but he hadn’t. I guess he must have figured he had nothing to lose now.
The kiss was full of frustration, almost as full of frustration as of desire. It was a kiss that begged for mercy, took no prisoners, searched for answers, and made promises it could never keep, all at the same time.
In other words, it would have knocked my socks off if I’d been wearing any at the time. It certainly made my knees weak, a thing that probably would have annoyed the hell out of me if it hadn’t been quite so exhilarating.
“That’s the last thing I’m ever going to say to you,” Mark said when the kiss was over.
In a silence that felt like a blackout at the end of the world, I let him drive me home.
”
”