Page 27 of Rush

“Fuck off, please.” I give him a saccharine smile.

He laughs loudly, his eyes sparkling, and I hate the glow in my chest that I feel, knowing I made him laugh.

“You’re funny when you want to be, Jailbird,” he tells me, still chuckling. “But you are ridiculously small.”

“I am not ridiculously small.” I glower at him.

“Mmhmm.” He nods, lips pressed together. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“It’s a fact.”

“You can’t even climb in my truck, Jailbird.”

“Stop calling me that!” I snap. “I can’t get in your truck because it’s ridiculously big!”

“It’s a normal-sized truck. You’re just undersized.”

“Ugh, shut up, you big…tree.”

“Original.” I can almost hear his mental eye roll from here. “Now, stop being bitchy, and let’s do this.” He steps over me, and I hold out a hand, stopping him.

“And what exactly are you doing?” I suspiciously eye him.

He raises a brow. “Helping you in my truck. I’d like to get home at some point tonight.”

“If your hands touch anywhere near my ass, I will kick yours.”

“Don’t worry, Jailbird. I have zero interest in touching your ass. You’re not my type.”

Before I can register his words, large hands grip either side of my waist and lift me like a toddler into the car.

“There. That was easy, wasn’t it?” he says smugly.

I give him a fake smile and the middle finger.

Laughing, he shuts the door and rounds the truck, climbing in the driver’s side.

Engine on, the radio comes to life with Fall Out Boy’s “Alone Together,” and I want to laugh out loud.

Apparently, I do because he says, “What?” He pulls the truck out onto the street.

“Oh, nothing. Just this song.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I do. It’s just…the lyrics remind me of…getting sober.”

He goes silent. Then, he says in a quieter voice, “I didn’t know that’s what this song was about.”

I glance at him. His eyes are fixed on the road ahead.

“I don’t know for sure that it is. It’s just the way I interpret it—addiction and the road to recovery. It probably means different things for different people.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The only sound is Patrick Stump’s voice flowing through the car.

“So”—his voice sounds gruff—“where am I taking you?”

I rattle off my address, and then that’s it for the rest of the ten-minute journey it takes to get to my apartment. We don’t speak another word.