His lips twitch. “Yes, it was.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Why don’t I text August and find out?” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws his phone. The bright screen highlights the stubble on his chin and casts his eyes in shadow.
Eyes on the road, Loren.
“Go right ahead.” Because I’m right…right? Of course, I am. “What do I get if I’m right?”
He drops his phone into the empty cupholder. “What do you want?”
Excellent question. Something good. Something embarrassing for him. Something like… “You have to feed me for a week. And you have to buy whatever food I say.” Might as well get something useful from this bet.
“Done.”
Okay, that was unexpected. Why did he agree so quickly? I could tell him I want filet mignon every day or lobster.
Mmm. Lobster.
“When I have proof that you’re wrong, I want crab cakes every day this week,” he says, that cocky smile back in full force.
I can’t afford that. Crab is expensive.
Not that it matters because her name wasn’t Tamela.
“Fine.”
Elliott taps the screen on the dash and turns on some music. We catch the tail end of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer,” then the beginning chords of Def Leopard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” blare through the speakers, which of course makes me think of the time I blared the very same song so I wouldn’t hear my neighbor banging his latest conquest.
Elliott huffs a laugh and cranks the volume, singing along remarkably in tune for a guy who’s had so much to drink. It’s Def Leopard, so of course I join in. I’m not a monster.
By the time we get to our apartment complex, we’ve made it through eight power ballads.
I park kinda far away, but it’s the only space that looks big enough for this mammoth vehicle.
The moment I shift into park, his phone lights up with a message. I grab for the thing, but of course his big hand gets in the way, and he gets to it first.
Elliott’s laugh booms through the cab, rattling my eardrums.
When he holds the phone across the center console, my stomach sinks.
AUGUST
Really, dude? Her name is Tamela
“I like to eat dinner at six,” Elliott says, handing me my purse from where he threw it on the back seat.
I drop the keys into his palm with a glower. “Fine, but you buy the crab.”
His laughter follows me all the way into my apartment.
As annoyed as I am, I find myself smiling as I throw the deadbolt.
But then I call Josh, and it goes straight to voicemail, and my smile disappears.
CHAPTER 18
LOREN
