Read Online Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake - Free Book Online

turns to face me. “Lived in Nashville before that.”
    â€œReally? Me too. We moved this past summer.”
    â€œYeah, I know.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks away as my phone pings in my bag.
    â€œSorry.” I dig it out and find a text from my dad.
    Hope your day went well, sweetie. Love you!
    I stuff my phone in my bag without replying.
    â€œHow do you know?” I ask Sam, who’s rummaging through a box filled with paperback novels and shampoo bottles.
    â€œHow do I know what?” he asks, standing up with a few books. The top one is a tattered copy of
Romeo and Juliet
.
    â€œThat I used to live in Nashville.”
    â€œOh. From Josh.”
    I fight to keep my lip from curling. “Ah. I see.” I’m sure Josh has been a wealth of information.
    He runs his hand along the tawny wood of the banister, starting up the steps. His fingers are long and slender, almost elegant. “All my books and stuff are in my room.”
    Sure they are.
I follow him, glad his back is to me so he can’t see the smirk that’s taking over my face right now. I managed to go all day without talking to him. Ms. Artigas drowned us in her lecture on the power of disguise in
As You Like It,
and I made sure I sat in the back of the room. Luckily, my locker had been scrubbed clean and Sloane had yet to strike again, so I flew under the radar most of the day. I’m almost positive Sam is in my lunch block, so I ate in the library with an
Us Weekly
while the Sci-Fi Club sketched pictures of balloon-chested intergalactic spacecraft captains onto posters advertising for new members. This is my riveting social life. The only person I said more than three words to was Kat, who leveled me with plaintive are-you-sure-about-this looks every thirty seconds.
    â€œI mean, you’re basically going to manipulate him into thinking you want to hook up,” she whispered while we changed for gym. “You really want to be that kind of girl?”
    â€œWhat kind of girl?”
    Kat pressed her mouth flat and she busied herself with her shoelaces.
    â€œBesides, I’m not manipulating,” I said, pulling on a royal blue Woodmont High T-shirt. “I’m just . . . proving a point.”
    â€œAre you sure that point doesn’t have something to do with making the whole of the male population suffer needlessly?”
    â€œI’m sure.”
    By the time I got to Sam’s, I wasn’t sure about anything. I’ve never played around with guys like this, and honestly, I’m not sure I know what I’m doing. Usually I get with a guy because
I
want to, and then I stop things before they go too far. Even though I pick guys who aren’t assholes—Josh Ellison represents a grave lapse in judgment—I’m fully aware that I’ve developed a reputation as a tease in a few short months. But it’s not a game to me. It’s not a power trip. It’s comfort without too much risk. No one gets too close. No one gets hurt. At least, not until Jenny Kalinski.
    Sam’s room is pretty much what I expected. A mess that makes my palms itch. Boxes everywhere, clothes draped over the unmade bed and desk chair. Stacks of books and magazines. Some guitar-driven music pumps out of an iPod dock.
    From his desk, he grabs his laptop and trades the paperbacks for a copy of
Much Ado
before settling on the floor against the bed.
    â€œSo what act do you think we should do?” he asks, flipping through the play.
    I sit down next to him and take out my own stuff. “I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I’ve read it.”
    He flips through his notebook, a few wrinkled papers sticking out from every direction. “Do you have the packet explaining the project? I can’t find mine.”
    I open my binder and find it immediately. “It says we need a multimedia component.”
    â€œCan I see it?”
    â€œOh . . . um