Page 43 of Crew Girl

“Love the self-sabotage.” Her voice had come out too sharp. Why did she take it out on other people when she’d been the one making an idiot of herself? Then again, this was Josh Regis. His skin wasn’t thick. It was Teflon.

“You’re such a buzzkill,” he snarled.

“And you’re a brat,” she snapped.

“Where’s your uniform?” he sneered. “If you leave early, you won’t get paid. And having seen your house, you need every penny you can get.”

Oh, wow. You pressed the wrong button, Josh Regis.

She didn’t care how rich or powerful he thought he was. How many strings he could pull. No one, and she meant no one, talked to her like she was less than. Especially when their entire life was handed to them on a silver platter like his was. “Screw you, Josh. You might have your big fancy party and your shiny new car, but the one thing you don’t have? Class. Not an ounce of it.”

Josh barked with laughter, like she was a pathetic kid throwing a pointless tantrum. “If you like the car so much, you can valet it.” He threw the keys to her.

She caught them, didn’t bother looking back before climbing into the driver’s seat, firing up the engine, and hitting the gas pedal. Hard.

JOSH

It wasn’t often that Josh wished being an asshole didn’t come quite so easily.

This was one of them.

He hadn’t expected Teagan to race off in his car, but after the things he’d said? He didn’t blame her. How on earth she rode this ancient bicycle to school every day was beyond him. Fired up from their argument, he made it to school in record time. His car was parked across three spots in the lot. She wasn’t in it. No surprise there. He rode down to the lake. As he’d thought, there she was, out on the water in a single.

It was windy. Too windy. No matter how angry she was, Teagan Tao wasn’t stupid when it came to rowing. She was trying to turn her shell around when an idiot in a speedboat roared past her, pushing a wake into her.

Her boat flipped over, dragging Teagan under the water. He waited a beat for her to surface. And another.

Oh shit. She should’ve come up by now. He tore off his shoes and dove into the lake, pounding out strokes like his life depended on it. Hers did. And he was the reason she was out there in the first place.

She didn’t come to until he was carrying her along the dock to the shore. She blinked her eyes and looked at him, confused. Neither of them said anything until he set her down on a picnic table and returned with a pair of blankets he’d found in the boathouse.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Your entire personality is rowing. It wasn’t hard.” She smiled, then winced in pain, touching the back of her head gingerly. He took a look. “It’s not bleeding, but there’s a pretty bad bump—” He went to touch it, but she pulled away.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“I’m fine. I don’t need you to—”

“Make sure you don’t die?” he finished for her.

She scowled at him.

He laughed. “You’d seriously rather drown than be saved by me?”

“I’m still deciding,” she said haughtily, then gave him a sheepish look. “Yeah, no. This is pretty humiliating. I’m going to go back in. Finish it off.”

Josh pulled her back onto the picnic table, then held up his fingers like he was in the Boy Scouts. “I swear on Phil Collins’s life, I will not let you drown.” He shook his head. “Why are you making this a big deal?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Could it be because you’ve been awful to me since the minute we met?”

True, but it wasn’t like she’d run off crying. “You give as good as you get.”

Teagan made a shooing motion, teasing him now. “Yeah, I think it’s time for you to get back to your party.”

“That train wreck?”