“I can take you up to Northland,” Nick offers. He pulls out his wallet to pay. “Rogers, you drive Kell home?”
Jake nods, which doesn’t help the fact that I’m still not thinking clearly, because I shut that shit down. “I’ve got to drop Grey off at Northland, so I can take Addie, too,” I say.
Something passes between Nick and Grey. “I can take her,” Nick reiterates and stands, dumping cash on the table. His blue eyes ghost to Grey’s again.
Grey’s hand drops from the edge of my chair to my shoulder. “I didn’t drive to school. Would you mind taking me home? Nick’s got this.”
I share a glance with Addie, whose eyes are pleading with me to stop being an idiot. Pleading is the wrong word—they’re screaming, “You go with your cute boy and I’ll go with mine, dummy.”
Because I’m a total genius right now, I manage a super-smart, super-sexy, “Okay, then.”
17
GREY’S HOUSE ISN’T FAR FROM THE DINER. IT ISN’T FARfrom Northland either. I would say it isn’t far from Danielle’s house, but that would be an understatement.
It’s practically in our backyard.
He lives next door to the house that butts up against ours. If there weren’t a wall of trees along his fence line, I could see the back of his house from my bedroom window.
Not that I would try to look later, for the record. Okay, I might. But what I’d see then can’t compete with what I’m seeing right this second.
Grey is inches from me again, leaning in after taking off his seat belt as I coast to a stop in front of his house. Unlike my driveway, his isn’t filled with cars. Instead ofa pile of parental and kid vehicles, his three-car swath of asphalt is completely pristine. Just like the house, which has the same manicured feel as his mother. If a brick colonial could wear lipstick, this one would. I mean, Danielle and Heather have a nice house, but it’s on the smaller side for the neighborhood and needs some major renovation, so it isn’tthisby a long shot.
The house is quiet, too. Not a single light is on. Which makes the proximity of Grey’s face to mine even more heart-stopping.
“Why are you giving me that death glare?” he asks.
Because we’re so far apart, even though we’re almost neighbors.
My brows shoot up immediately as I try to remedy my expression and shake from my head the fact that he’s got triple the space for half the people, and I have to share a closet with my brother. “Oh, sorry.”
Grey breaks into a wide smile. “Don’t be sorry.” Again, he catches my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re pretty even when you look like you want to burn me to the ground.”
I snort. Real sexy, I know. “Is that what I look like? An arsonist?”
His smile collapses into its most comfortable half shape, but somehow he looks even more pleased. “Enough that I’d never hand you matches.”
“Ouch.”
His thumb grazes my lower lip. “Did you even hear the first part of that sentence?”
I blink at him, thoughts a jumbled mess on the cutting-room floor. Nothing seems adequate with his thumb on my lip.
“Pretty—I think you’re pretty,” he says. “Beautiful, actually.”
My heart slows, just coasting on fumes until I’m staring at him with the whole of me—blood, breath, mind—still.
“Beautiful, smart, funny, and you’ve got one hell of an arm.”
I sort of expect him to wink, but he doesn’t. His thumb hasn’t moved, and I struggle to give a straight answer. “You’ve made no secret of liking my arm.”
“What if I said I liked more than just your arm?”
Something about the nature of his face softens, and my lungs collapse. “That would probably back up the beautiful comment.”
Grey closes the space between us, his lips warm against mine. They’re softer than I imagined, but the scrape of stubble pressing into my chin is 100 percent rough-and-tumble boy.
We stay like that for I don’t know how long—one of his hands is cupping my cheek, but the other stays primly in his lap while my fingers grip the steering wheel—until a flash of light hits the backs of my eyelids. I open my eyes to see the light on his porch suddenly lit.
