“You’re so fucking dramatic. We werefine,” she replies, still laughing. I shake my head at her, unsure as to when she became such a hurricane, practically begging for danger. “Fine. You can come. Only because I want to hear you scream again.”
“I didn’t scream,” I mutter, but taking it as a win anyway.
We go through another round of comfortable silence, except for the song she chose to play through the computer.‘In My Life’by the Beatles plays softly as we both work.
She’s stopped aggressively typing now and is instead sketching out a logo for the app while I work on the boring parts of creating an app. We’ve been working so quietly together, listening to The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac that I don’t even realise it’s raining hard outside until Scarlett gasps, snapping out of her trance.
“Oh, shit!”
“What?” I ask, startled.
“I haven’t been keeping track of time. I’m meant to be going to the Greyson Fauvel event today,” she explains, starting to pack away her things. Well that explains why she’s so dressed up.
“Oh yeah? I was going to go to that too.”
I wasn’t.
“Really?” she asks, taking a look at my outfit which is a pair of black baggy jeans and a white tee.
“Yes. I was invited.” That much is true. Rich boys in the industry send out invitations like their parents have told them to invite everyone to their birthday party. People of our status want the most of us there as possible to slowly build an army of little rich boys doing what they want. I was never going to go. I always get invited to shit like this, but it would be a waste of time. I have no idea why she wants to go there. There’s nothing good for her there. I’m just dying to spend more time doing anything that isn’t being caught up in my head. “I'll come with you.”
She pauses what she’s doing. “What?”
“Yeah, I was going to go and you drove here so I might as well carpool with you,” I suggest casually. I already convinced her to let me go with her to that restaurant. Maybe I’m pushing it too far.
“And you want to go inmycar?”
I make a face. “That’s exactly what carpool means. Why are you making this weird?”
“I'm not making it weird,” she says defensively, pinning her arms across her chest. The defiant look on her face lasts five seconds before she turns to look out the window as the rain pours harder. “It’s just..” She sighs and then adds, “It’s raining.”
“So?”
She doesn’t look at me as she whispers, “I don't like driving in the rain. I was going to think of an excuse to leave my car here and get an Uber and now you’ve ruined my plans.”
She’s embarrassed about not being able to drive in this weather, but I don’t know why. I get it.If this is something I have to do for her to chill out, I’ll do it.
“Just let me drive then.”
* * *
It only took two lightning bolts to strike down for Scarlett to agree to let me drive her car. The rain is relentless. I changed out of my home outfit into black trousers and a white button down and of course, a black tie. I have gotten used to driving her car. It’s comfortable and is doing okay on the road, despite the rain. The Greyson Fauvel event is held at the same place every year, but I’ve never driven there from my dad’s house.
Unlike the drive to the jewellery store, she doesn’t have her leg propped up and is instead sitting with her legs crossed, slightly exposing the tan skin of her thigh. Frankly, it’s distracting.
All I can think about is what she would do if I placed my hand on her thigh? Would she let me? Would she let me slip my hand further and further up until she begs me to give her a release?
I’m doing fine until I take the wrong exit on the freeway, and I have no idea where we’re going anymore. The signal starts to become weak, and the GPS is left blinking in the same spot that we were in twenty minutes ago. Now, we’re on the edge of a forest, rain pouring heavily on the hood of the car as we both stare at the fucked-up GPS.
“Great. Just great,” Scarlett mutters angrily. She turns to me, her cheeks red with anger. “How did you manage to do this? You said you knew where we were going.”
“I did. I just got confused and I… spaced out for a few seconds,” I say, not sure if that’s helping my case.
“You can’t space out while you drive, Branson. It’s, like, rule number one of road safety,” she argues, tugging on the car door and opening it to the windy atmosphere. More rain pushes into the car by the wind, covering the console and hitting me in the face.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you,” she shouts, slamming the door. I flinch when the sound hits me, watching her strut away in that red dress, practically hypnotising me. I watch for a handful of seconds before opening my door and trying to catch up with her.
