Chapter 2: Bend Down, Bennett

Chloe's POV

The countdown ran in the back of my head, light on its feet, impossible to argue with.

Head down, I shoved forward and muttered under my breath, "Narcissist. If it weren't for this stupid game, I wouldn't even bother lifting my eyes to look at you."

I hadn't finished the sentence when a lazy voice came down from above my head.

"Talking about me again?"

My head snapped up straight into those black eyes. Four thousand people in the arena, the scoreboard still running, noise pouring in from every direction, and Carter's gaze sat on me alone, flat and direct, like none of them existed.

Something in my chest pulled in, and I looked away first. He let his eyes go too, aimed them past my shoulder, doing a decent impression of a man who didn't care. The corner of his mouth gave him up anyway.

Three years of this. With everyone else he was polite in that measured way; with me he'd started out genuinely angry, then it turned into a habit, and after that I couldn't have told you what it was.

Three steps became one. The toe of my Mary Jane nearly touched his sneaker, close enough that I could feel his chest move when he breathed.

I pressed my lips together, gripped my skirt, and tilted my chin up. "Carter. Bend down. I need to tell you something."

He lifted his eyelids and glanced over his shoulder. His teammates read it instantly and put an arm out to stop the girl coming over with a water bottle.

"Not now. He's got stuff to talk about."

At the edge of the stands, the electrolyte bottle in Rachel's hand was slowly losing its shape. Her eyes had come across the crowd, stuck on me, and stopped moving.

He bent down. He was tall enough that folding himself down cut off most of the light above me. From that angle, I got the line from his throat to his collarbone, the open collar, two hollows clear and frankly distracting. I looked, then pulled my eyes back fast.

How had I never noticed this person was built like that?

I shut my eyes, put my arms around his neck, and hunted for the corner of his mouth by feel.

First try missed. Second didn't.

He went rigid all over. Cool lips, a trace of mint. One thought got through: my mortal enemy's mouth — why is it this good to kiss?

His hands stayed at his sides, not one finger lifted. But I felt his knuckles draw tighter and tighter, the way someone tries not to make a fist and doesn't quite win.

The arena went quiet for half a second and then went off.

"Holy—"

"Did Chloe Bennett just kiss Carter Sterling?!"

"Didn't she say she hated him?!"

Rachel's bottle hit the floor, and the sound was buried under all of it. Her face froze where it was, past saving.

Those five seconds took forever.

Echo: [Dare 1, complete. Congratulations, Chloe.]

I got off his mouth and stepped back. My face was hot enough to smoke, and since I didn't dare lift my eyes, I stared at his chest, which was moving hard. He didn't move, like somebody had hit pause.

It took several seconds before his throat worked, and then he turned his face aside and left me nothing but the hard angle of his profile. I risked a glance up. His ears had gone red, from the rim of them all the way down his neck, red with no sense of proportion at all.

Behind him, his teammates traded a look and said nothing. The air in that spot was thick enough to cut.

Then he straightened his spine, drew his jaw in, and spoke with no temperature in either direction. "Bennett. Are you out of your mind?"

Everyone around us stalled.

"He didn't even yell at her?"

"He cusses people out for bumping into him. Anyone."

His teammates backed off two steps in silent agreement and left us the space. The losing team had settled against the railing to enjoy the show.

"So that's why he was playing like that all game. He was waiting for the little one to jump him."

"Man, I want Chloe Bennett to kiss me."

"You're not Carter Sterling, bro."

My head was a mess and my lashes were still shaking and I fired back before I checked it. "What? You're hot. Sue me."

I wanted to bite my own tongue off. I had said the thing out loud.

He stalled, like something he'd held down a long time had just been cut open in front of witnesses. Then he got himself back together and asked in the tone of a man making a reasonable point. "Do you have any idea what you're doing right now?"

I couldn't look at him.

Echo: [Dare 2. In your sweetest, most cloying voice, tell him, "Babe… your lips taste like candy." Fifty-nine seconds on the clock.]

Then, helpfully:

Echo: [Chloe. You already kissed him. Is one more sentence really where you draw the line?]

I wanted to die. I bit down on my lower lip, tightened my grip on my skirt, and looked up at someone a full head taller than me, watching me from under his eyelids, black as ink, doing nothing at all with his face.

Staying alive beats dying of embarrassment.

"Babe—"

His chest skipped a beat. His brows came down at once.

My tongue knotted up, and my voice shook. "Y…your lips taste like candy."

Disbelief all over his eyes, his gaze dropping darker, his ears redder than before. He kept the flat expression in place. "Bennett. Did someone drug you today?"

Cold. Not cold in a way that held up.

"Did she just call him babe?!"

"Aren't they, like, enemies?"

I wanted the floor to open up. My nails dug a red crescent into my palm. One thing left in my head: how am I ever supposed to show my face at Briarwood again?

[Echo, how long until the next one?]

Echo: [Dare 3. Current countdown: four hours forty-nine minutes.]

I grabbed it like a rope. Both hands over my face, I charged out of the crowd. Going past Rachel, I caught the side of her face, dark and humiliated. I didn't say a word to her. She stood frozen where she was, then turned to head toward Carter, and found his eyes still following the direction I had gone.

Carter's POV

He ignored the noise around him, raised his index finger to the corner of his own mouth, and ran his tongue across it without meaning to. White peach. So that was what she tasted like.

Miles dropped an arm around his shoulders, grinning like a problem. "Well, well. Didn't know Carter Sterling could be kissed like that."

"Touch me again and you lose the hand."

"Okay, okay. Joke." Miles lasted about two seconds. "You're not actually into her, are you?"

He turned his head and gave him a flat look. "You just figured that out?"

Miles stalled out completely. His brother had a person he liked, and he had known nothing about it. By the time it landed, Carter was already walking.

"Since when? Hey. Tell me since when."