Free Perfectly Unmatched by Liz Reinhardt Page A

he’s not going to back down if he’s confronted. I promise you, it’s taken care of.”
    “Of course,” he soothes, and I don’t believe his voice for a second, because I can read the rage still jabbing in his eyes. “I would never do anything stupid, Benelli. And please know how much I enjoyed dinner. I really hope to do this again with you. Soon.”
    He swallows so hard, I can see every tendon in his neck stand out, then he takes two solid steps backward, his hands still stuffed in his pockets.
    I inch into the doorway of my aunt’s house when he whirls back.
    “Wait.” He stares down at the ground and breathes deep, his shoulders rising and falling. “In answer to your question from before, no, I was never a ladies’ man. Never. I was a bullied, smart-mouthed runt. I never had the arrogance or cruelty that’s the birthright of guys like Akos Miklós. And I know guys like Akos are appealing to girls, even though I have no clue why.” He holds a hand up when I try to interrupt, tell him he’s wrong, tell him I can’t stand Akos and guys like him, but he shakes his head and I keep my lips buttoned, mostly because I want to know what he’s going to say next.
    “We barely know each other, and we probably only have a few weeks together this summer before you make the single biggest decision of your life. As a friend, I’m begging you, please value yourself in this decision. Please...please choose wisely.”
    He leans forward, so close, our lips could skim, our breath hitches and mingles in the space between us. I can smell him, books and ferocious man, two smells I never imagined co-mingling, but now realize have combined to create my new favorite smell in the world.
    He puts one hand up, close to my face, his body leaned inches from mine, then whips back, fast, turns on his heel, and walks away.
    A few blocks from my house he turns and gives me half a smile.
    I wish so hard that I could see the other half of that smile back in place, the wish morphs into an ache.
     

Cormac 2
    I’m scared shitless of that bastard Akos Miklós. He’s got a good four inches and eighty pounds of hulking muscle on me. I’m not a fighter. Never have been, never will be. The best I can do if I have a serious opponent to defeat is talk him into the ground.
    But this isn’t some schoolyard showdown. And Akos’s tiny brain probably can’t handle a complex argument, which means that I have to pull back from what I know I can do and hedge my bets on what I can probably maybe do.
    Emphasis on probably.
    Double emphasis on maybe.
    My father was a quiet, stern man, and he let me be who I was without reservations. His father was a sadistic, overbearing drunk who did things like throw me into the lake to ‘teach me’ to swim when I was a toddler. I hold out my hands and look at the scar the exact shape of a half moon on my lower palm. That was another of my grandfather’s little survival-of-the-fittest tests.
    I was two. I reached out to touch the side of a woodstove, so hot it was glowing orange.
    I remember howling with pain. My parents were furious with my grandfather.
    He said, “That’s how they learn in the animal kingdom.”
    My parents avoided him as much as they could, but my father’s sense of filial duty was deep-rooted. When my mother made the mistake of bragging that I took the lead in my posh school’s production of Oliver , Grandpa snuck me to the lot in the back of the woodshed, strapped old boxing gloves on my hands, and proceeded to beat the piss out of me.
    I remember his lined, sweat-soaked face, his green eyes gleaming with a psychopathic delight, spittle collecting at either side of his mouth as he nodded, bobbing and weaving before he delivered the occasional rough punch to the side of my head.
    “That’s a boy! Take it like a man! That’s it. No pantywastes come from my genes.” He threw punches that I ducked and a few that I couldn’t, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me