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“I’ve either offended you, or I’ve put dirty thoughts in your head.” His eyes shine as he studies me. “I’m just not sure which one.”
“Trust me. No thoughts involving you have entered this head in a long time.” I assure him, ignoring the fact that I’ve just made myself sound like a moron.
“In a long time?” He lifts his eyebrows. “Which means they have in the past? No need to answer that. The bright shade of red you’re turning is answering for you.” He presses his lips together, his eyes sparkling. “Though if you still have that diary …”
“Just stop talking to me,” I hiss, glaring at him.
“You’re quite the little firecracker.” He chuckles. “What happened to the Katie who was too scared to talk to me?”
“I thought you couldn’t remember anything of high school?” I tease him.
“The memories come and go.” He shrugs.
“There’s a name for that,” I inform him. “It’s called bullshit.”
“You want silence?” He grins. “Fine. Five minutes, not a word from me.”
Finally.
But the silence is just as bad.
He starts to whistle. At first, I ignore him and gaze out the window, but there’s something familiar about the tune he’s whistling. Something I can’t put my finger on. I turn my head sideways and frown, because it’s really starting to bother me that I can’t identify it. He winks at me. What the hell is it? I know that tune—
Oh fuck.
I close my eyes, sure I know what’s coming …
“You could’ve had it all. I would’ve given it to you raw …”
Every embarrassing moment in my life pales in comparison to this. Add them all up and they still don’t even come close to how I’m feeling right now. My hands clutch my thighs so tightly that I can’t feel my fingers. I wipe my sweaty palms along my thighs and then I pick up my phone and open my chat session with Darcy.
Me: Pause your music.
Wait for it …
Darcy snorts, then moments later, my phone vibrates.
Darcy: I feel really bad for joining in now.
Me: What’s the worst kind of ad I could place in someone else’s name? Payback for being a total dick?
If I close my eyes and concentrate hard enough, I’m fourteen years old again and lying on my bed, crying over him. I’ve thought about that song so many times since then. Every time I thanked God I was never stupid enough to sing it to him. And then I do this. How could I have been so stupid? I can’t even blame Lily.
This is my mess.
I stare down at the text Darcy just sent me and smile.
Oh, that’s brilliant.
“If I’d known you’d had that much writing talent, I would have paid you to write my English papers,” he teases.
I’m too busy putting my writing talent to good use to answer him. I hit save, a rush of adrenaline sweeping through me as I slide my phone back into my bag.
Now all I need to do is wait for an opportunity to get his phone number.
“Are you done?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Nope.” He smirks at me “I’m just warming up.”
I press my lips together and smile as he pulls into a gas station, parking in front of an empty pump. He gets out, leaving his phone in the holder.
Perfect.Chapter EightAdam“You keep yawning.”
I glance at Katie and shrug. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I admit.
“Me neither.”
She looks at me, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she realizes what she’s saying. I smirk when she blushes, because we’re both thinking about that god-awful song.
It’s just past seven in the evening and we’re almost halfway home. I glance in the mirror at Darcy and Lily, who are both asleep. Every so often Lily lets out a string of incoherent mumbling, but she doesn’t wake up. I’m actually impressed with how soundly she’s slept. And relived, because a sleeping Lily is less likely to cause me trouble. I just hope sleeping all day doesn’t mean she’ll be awake all night. Especially if we have to stop somewhere, or I might just have to call in Katie to clean up a crime scene.
I glance at her. “Is it hard?”
She looks at me, an alarmed expression on her face. When her eyes dart down to my crotch, I laugh. Her face goes red, but she recovers quickly, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Your job,” I clarify, still amused.
“Most of the time I can separate myself from what’s obviously happened.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I could do it. Cleaning up tragedy after tragedy, especially when you know it could’ve been prevented.” She frowns at me. I shrug. “What? I don’t always have a smart remark.”
“Anything involving kids is hard.” She pauses for a moment and looks out the window. “I went to a car crash last week. The other driver was drunk and he hit a van head on, killing himself and a family of four. I broke down when I saw this small, blood-soaked teddy bear. It was lying in the middle of the road, away from the car.”
