I don’t know why I told him the story of my parents no longer being able to afford wing nights. I don’t know why I let him drive, or why I even agreed to come, but by the time I’m polishing off my paper-lined tray of boneless BBQ wings, I’m sort of glad I did.

If you ignore the things that make him repugnant—like his whole rapey jock thing, for example—Carter is actually pretty all right to hang out with. The 95 seconds of exposed vulnerability I felt when I slid into the passenger side of his Mustang and wondered if he might pounce on me were stressful, but he kept to the driver’s seat just like he said he would, and he has behaved himself ever since.

Instead of torturing me or trying to make me uncomfortable, he has behaved like a respectable human being. We’ve talked about Mr. Hassenfeld’s uncanny resemblance to the host from that restaurant rescue show on the Food Network, my love for iced coffee (he doesn’t get it), his love for hot wings (I don’t get it), our mutual preference for orange Popsicles (why do they even make any other flavor?), and the new comedy we both want to see, currently playing at the local movie theater.

I’m wary of admitting to the last one, because it seems like the next step from “You want to see that, too?” could very easily be, “Well, we should go together,” and I would prefer not to be put into another situation where I have to shoot him down.

As nice as this lunch is, I can’t bring myself to agree to go on a date with him. How can I? It would be so twisted. Literally the first time he ever spoke to me, he made me go down on him. He showed up at my house with soup when he knew I wasn’t sick. He showed up where I work with his sister, so I couldn’t be mean to him. He’s manipulative and potentially dangerous, and I can’t let myself lose sight of that.

Even coming to lunch with him today, I worried I was putting myself in a dangerous situation. A date would give him the wrong idea. A date would make him think I’m open to maybe possibly sleeping with him someday, and I’m not trying to mislead him. Not least of all because, knowing what I know about him, I can’t be sure he wouldn’t take what he wants from me if he thinks it’s owed to him.

Damn entitled assholes.

My fear proves valid when the next thing out of his mouth is, “Well, I’ve got practice tonight, but if you’re not working tomorrow, we could go see it.”

I shake my head. “Can’t.”

“Because you work?”

I sigh, feeling mean, and then get angry at myself for feeling mean, because he certainly deserves it. “Please stop makin’ me tell you no, Carter.”

“I’m not making you say no,” he says easily. “You could start saying yes. It would be much more fun.”

“I disagree. I was stressed out about spending two minutes in a car with you. If I agreed to sit in a dark theater with you, I would have gray hair by the time the movie ended.”

“I’m not gonna pounce on you in public, Zoey. I do have an image to maintain, you know. I’ve pushed the limits, definitely, but even I can’t get away with that level of misbehavior out in the open. A movie theater is crowded. Lots of people around. You could call for help, if you felt the need to. I would behave myself. I want to see the movie. I’d invite you to my house if I just wanted to fuck you.”

“No.”

“How about we take someone else with us? I can bring a couple people so you won’t be alone with me.”

“Again, you brought people last time.”

“Fine, then you can bring people,” he offers. “Does Grace have a boyfriend? Bring them. I might want to shoot myself in the face if she likes the kind of guy I think she probably likes, but hell, I can survive alongside them for a few hours.”

“Grace doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, and yes, you would have hated her last one. He’s a goody two shoes. He even got on my nerves, and I’m friends with Grace.” Looking at him as I grab my drink cup and take a sip, I add, “But the answer is still no. In fact, if ‘bring Grace’ is your suggestion, my answer is an even more vehement no. She was already scandalized that she saw me talking to you in the hallway, so something that looks like a date is out of the question.”

“It would look like a date because it would be a date,” he informs me.

“I’m not going on a date with you, Carter,” I tell him, plainly.

“Why not?”

I stare at him for a long moment, then sigh and shake my head. “You are relentless.”

“Yep,” he agrees, before popping a salty French fry into his mouth.

“You know why I won’t go out with you,” I tell him. “You can ask 20 more times, the answer isn’t going to change. If you wanted to date me, you should have started there, not… where you started.”

“Well, I didn’t know I wanted to date you then,” he states, somehow reasonably. “I just thought you were some shy, boring nerd who grossly overreacted to Jake wanting to bang you. It took a couple interactions before I noticed what he must have noticed first. Now I see it. Now I want you. I’m much more persistent than Jake Parsons, I’ll tell you that now.”

“See, that sounds like a warning,” I point out. “I don’t go out on dates with guys who exude such willingness to do harm. My type is ‘not a dangerous sociopath’ and I’m not convinced you fit the bill.”

Carter smiles like that amuses rather than offends him. “I’m not a sociopath.”

I press my lips together with exaggerated firmness. “That’s just what a sociopath would say.”

“I’m aggressive when I’m going after something I want, that’s all. That doesn’t make me a sociopath.”

I tick off fingers. “Superficial charm, intelligence, grandiose sense of self, ability to harm others without any apparent remorse, relentless pursuit of your own desires at the expense of others, liar liar pants on fire...”

Before I can continue my list, Carter laughs. “Was that last one a technical term, Dr. Ellis?”

“It was,” I say with a nod.

“I haven’t lied to you,” he says.

“You lie to everyone,” I state. “From what I can tell, your whole entire life is a lie.”

“I didn’t say I don’t lie to anyone, I said I haven’t lied to you,” he repeats, meaningfully.

My stomach bottoms out and I break his gaze, grabbing a French fry to distract myself. I’m not sure what to say to that.

On one hand, it could be a manipulation. He must know I have some kind of soft spot for him, because by all rights, I should be seething with anger and discomfort every time I see his face, not skipping out on lunch to go get boneless wings with him.

On the other hand, it could be true. If he’s actually being sincere, I don’t want to be mean and shut him down. If he’s actually trying to reach out, I don’t want to swat his hand away.

But I also don’t want to be one more dumbass who has fallen for his act, and for all I know, that’s all this is. For all I know, he knows exactly what he’s doing, exactly how conflicted he’s making me feel, and this is all intentional, just the best way he could figure to get what he wants.

His horrible words from that classroom float back to me, reminding me that this person acting like he’s opening up to me in a way he doesn’t with other people is the same asshole who told Jake Parsons to hold me down so he could rape me, the same asshole whose interest was only stirred by the knowledge that I’m a virgin, and who said he wanted to hurt me, that he wanted my virgin blood to be the only lube when he stole my innocence.

Regardless of the words out of Carter’s mouth, I’ve seen him weave a web before I was emotionally involved, and he could easily be doing the same exact thing to me now, only I can’t see it. My judgment is cloudy because deep down I want to believe he’s not as bad as he proved he was that day, and when you want to see something so badly, sometimes you invent evidence to support that belief.

Carter’s mind moves fast even when he hasn’t had time to prepare—I saw that in the empty classroom, when he turned a routine bullying into sexual assault with a hint of potential murder if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, when he hijacked Jake’s crusade because he discovered I appealed to his particular appetites. That all happened in the space of a few minutes; Carter had no idea what he was walking into or that any of that would happen, and he still directed it like a fucking maestro.

He has had much more time to figure out how to play me. He’s not winging it; he has had time to study me like I’ve studied him, time to gauge my reactions, time to learn how to get what he wants—which is possibly still me alone somewhere so he can hurt me.

That reminder is like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. I toss the rest of my French fry into the empty wing boat and grab my phone, checking the time.

“We should head back. Lunch is going to be over soon, and I can’t be late to my next class.”

He regards me studiously, like he’s trying to pinpoint where he went wrong. At least, that’s how his gaze feels. Maybe now I’m being paranoid, seeing calculation where none exists, but I can’t be sure and I’d rather be safe than sorry.

“All right,” he says, easily enough. Looking at my mouth, he points to the corner of his. “You have a little sauce right there. Might wanna go fix it in the bathroom first, or everyone will know you had BBQ wings for lunch.”

I cover my mouth, jumping up and running to the bathroom.

There’s no sauce on my face. I see that immediately when I get in front of the mirror. It also occurs to me the bathroom is down a hallway, more removed from the dining room. Isolated.

I swallow, looking at the door, half-expecting for it to swing open and Carter to bust in, smirking victoriously at how easy it was to get me alone. Visions of being attacked in this bathroom flood my mind and the walls start to close in on me.

Rather than stand here and work myself into a panic, I pull the restroom door open, braced to see Carter on the other side, waiting in the hall.

He isn’t. The hall is empty, so I quickly escape it and head back to the relative safety of the dining room. Carter is lingering by the door, behaving himself. He threw out our trash and the table we sat at is empty now.

“Ready?” he asks me.

I nod my head and walk toward him, my stomach still rocking from the stress. He opens the door for me, and I murmur a distracted thank you. If he didn’t send me to the bathroom to wipe away phantom wing sauce so he could corner me alone, then why?

Carter opens the passenger side door for me, too. I’m surprised, and even more guarded by his gentlemanly behavior. Carter Mahoney is not a gentleman, I know that to be true. Pouncing on me in this driveway would also be ill-advised; we are out in the open here. Even the high school parking lot would be a better spot, though given there are security cameras on the outside of the school (just not the inside, where they could have helped me) even that would be ill-advised. The football team would probably get him out of that one, though. My understanding is Carter’s position on the team is crucial to their success, so if I turned another football player in for their foul play, the tapes proving me right would probably mysteriously turn up missing. They already lost Jake Parsons for the season for the sake of my honor; they’re not going to lose Carter Mahoney, too.

Plus, if I legitimately tried to get Carter in trouble, the whole town would turn on me in such a way that their response to my problem with Jake Parsons would look like a welcome wagon. Just like Carter told me the cheerleaders sided with Jake over me even though they’re girls, and as vulnerable to sexual harassment as I am, it all comes down to who they like more. It will never be me. Grace is probably the only person in town who would stand beside me if I stood against Carter, and even she might struggle. We’re good friends, but she has many more, and most of them would turn on me. Remaining loyal to me in that scenario would be stressful for Grace, and I’m not sure I could ask her to do it.

I’m not cut from the right cloth to fit in, while Carter Mahoney seems to be a chameleon. I don’t know if I’ve actually seen the real him, or if this is just some other facet of The Carter Mahoney Show, but I do know he has a ready supply of charm and amiability, and I lack both. No one sides with the unlikable loner over the town’s golden boy. Hell, my own mother struggles to support my defense of myself, and she should be my champion, she should be in my corner, no matter what everyone else thinks.

Carter pulls me right out of my thoughts when he drops something into my lap. I blink at the piece of plastic, the size of a credit card. Another gift card? I cast him a questioning look as I pick it up. “What’s this for?”

“One of those family wing nights you told me about. Give it to your mom, she can use it to pay for dinner one night.”

“Why?” I demand, frowning at him. “Why do you keep buying me gift cards?”

His lips curve up in amusement. “I’ve bought you two, Ellis. It’s not exactly a habit.”

“Why?” I ask again.

Carter shrugs. “Why not? I have money and you don’t. Can’t I just do something nice for you? It costs me nothing.”

I lift my eyebrows, turning the card over and seeing $50 written in permanent marker on the back. “It costs you something. Between the two cards, you have given me $100. I’m startin’ to feel like a low-class hooker.”

“Except I’m not sleeping with you, so that doesn’t make much sense,” he points out. “I’m just doing something nice for you, that’s all. Relax.”

“Or you’re grooming me.”

He glances in my direction before turning his eyes back to the road. “Grooming you?”

I nod my head, clinging to my objections. “Sometimes when a predator has prey in his sights, he’ll give them gifts to soften them up, to endear himself to them or make himself appear harmless, like a friend. But it’s a trick, he’s lulling them into a false sense of safety so they start trusting the predator, that way the predator can take advantage of that trust and pounce on them when he’s ready.”

“You already know I’m not harmless, Zoey. I don’t think a few books and a belly full of chicken wings is gonna make you forget.”

“It won’t,” I assure him.

“All right,” he says, glancing at me as if to see if he’s supposed to care. “Then we’re in agreement. What’s the problem?”

I can’t put my finger on the problem, exactly. The first gift card had me questioning whether or not it was even okay to use it, but now that he’s given me a second one, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s trying to make me feel like I owe him something. That he’s building good will with the sole intent of exploiting it later.

I don’t know if these concerns about him are all in my head, or these are instincts about him I should listen to. I hate how unsure of his motives I am. I hate how this constant swirl of questions about him gives him a permanent place in my mind. Every single day now, I live my life with questions about Carter Mahoney as constant background noise.

“You never answered me yesterday,” I tell him.

“About what?”

“Before Cartwright interrupted, I asked if you had ever…” I pause, trying to figure out how to refer to what he did without making it even more awkward.

He doesn’t make me say it. “Ah, that. No, I haven’t. Never had an opportunity present itself to me the way you did.”

“That’s all that’s stopping you? Lack of opportunity?”

He glances over at me. “That’s not what I said. I said the opportunity with you was too good to pass up. That’s not the same thing.”

“How is that not the exact same thing? Same words, different order.”

“I’m not running around victimizing other girls, if that’s what you’re asking,” he states. “Believe it or not, I have an endless stream of willing women, all a phone call away. I don’t have to try this hard, and I don’t have to force myself on scandalized innocents to get off.”

“Then why do it to me?”

He shrugs, more cavalier than I appreciate. “Variety is the spice of life.”

“Bullshit.” I don’t even know why I’m so confident this is bullshit. He could mean that, I just don’t buy it. He looks over at me wordlessly, so I keep going. “I deserve the truth,” I tell him. “If I don’t get justice, if I don’t get to defend myself, I at least deserve to understand why it happened.”

The last thing I expect is for my words to harden him, but that’s what happens. As decent as he has been throughout lunch, now he turns it off. It appears to be as easy as flipping a switch, like he did at the bookstore when he thought I was judging him, but less fleeting this time.

“You want to know something, Ellis? I’ve got bad news for you, so listen up. Sometimes people do bad shit to you, and they don’t get punished; they get away with it. Hell, sometimes they get rewarded for it. If all this shit with Jake didn’t show you that, if all this shit with me hasn’t shown you that, maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that, but we’re at the school now, so I don’t have to. Carter parks aggressively, slamming the car in park and killing the engine. Without another word, he shoves his car door open and climbs out.

I follow him silently, unable to find words to respond. I’m not sure I would anyway. Whatever nerve I just hit, it was a real one, and I’m wary of tangling with him when he’s mad. I shouldn’t even care if he’s mad, or what I said to upset him. I certainly shouldn’t feel compelled to lessen the blow or make peace, but I wasn’t raised to make waves. I’m teaching myself to do that on my own, but every bit of my upbringing tells me the right thing to do, the thing I’m supposed to do, is smooth over the feathers I just ruffled. My mother’s voice echoes in my head.

Don’t be rude, Zoey.

I shake it off. I love my mother, but that’s bad advice. I’m not morally required to be polite to my abuser, and the conversation that pissed Carter off was one where I brought up what he did to me. If it touched a nerve, maybe it should have. It if made him feel badly, maybe it’s because he should.

But then Grace buzzes around in my head, telling me it’s perfectly fine to defend myself, but sometimes the better thing for everyone is to act with love.

There are too many people in my head pushing me in too many different directions. I take a breath and do my best to silence them, focusing on my own inner voice. My own instincts. Not the defensive ones I’ve had to adopt to combat the well-meaning guidance of my mother, but what’s in my own heart. It’s not purely anger or resentment. I would never be interacting with Carter this much if that’s all that was there, and I refuse to entertain the notion that it could possibly be his extreme physical attractiveness that keeps my interest on him. I am not that shallow. It’s not that. It’s something more.

Putting my own ego aside and running through what Carter just said to me, I realize those words may not have been about me at all. Maybe he told me something personal, something real, without even meaning to.

“Carter,” I call out, as he prepares to enter the school.

He pauses with his hand on the door and turns back to look at me, but his expression is still dark and stormy. He actually looks dangerous now, so it’s probably lunacy that pulls me closer to him. Nonetheless, I ride out the crazy and take a few tentative steps closer until I’m maybe a foot away.

“We aren’t what is done to us,” I tell him. “People are going to hurt us, and it’s going to be hard, and sometimes we might never get closure. We might never understand why. But that’s the reason I asked. Maybe deserve isn’t the right word. People don’t get what they deserve, people just get what they get, and then they have to make the best of it.”

He’s still standing there, watching me, but there’s a little less malice painted across his handsome features.

“But I want that closure, and you could give it to me. I don’t need it from Jake, so I don’t know why I need it from you. I guess Jake just feels simple and generic, and I can’t help—I can’t help feeling like there’s more to you.”

He stares at me for a long moment, and I’m struck by the thought that his mind is like an exclusive, secret club I desperately want access to. I want to know who he is, how he thinks. Maybe he’s simpler than I want him to be and I would be disappointed, but one way or the other, I could stop wondering. One way or the other, I would have my answers.

Instead of giving me any, Carter turns back around, pulls open the entry door, and says a little mockingly, “Come on, Ellis. Can’t be late to that next class.”