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She pretty much ran straight to the front door. “Bye,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Just going out with a friend for a couple of hours shopping. I’ll be back later.”
Her mom called something from deeper in the house, but she didn’t stick around to hear what it was. She disappeared out the door before Chance could appear and give her grief about the way her cheeks were flushed red. She figured he’d know just by looking at her face that something was off. If he asked her a single question, she’d probably cave, and she couldn’t stand him making fun of her.
Alix’s long strides ate up the front lawn and the three blocks to the Mathesons’. Sure as shit, Ross’s red sports car, a new one- not the same one he’d had in high school, but still red, sporty, imported, and expensive, was parked on the street.
One wavering inhale later and she stood right in front of the car. Ross flashed her his usual shit-eating smirk that she’d like to rub off his face with her fist. He turned his head and it was amazing to see that the cut there was pretty much invisible under his gorgeously mussed mahogany hair. She’d been right. It was just a small thing and didn’t require stitches, but it bled furiously. She’d also been the one to bandage it, and the rest of his thick skull and send him off to his den of iniquity, or wherever he crawled back to at the end of the night.
“You are going to stand out there all night, Alix Bear, or are you going to get in?”
“I’ll get in,” she hissed. “Don’t call me Alix Bear again. That’s for everyone else. Not for you.”
“What should I call you then?”
“Nothing. You don’t get to call me anything.”
“Alright, Nothing, are you going to get in? I have to get my dad at nine and it’s already six. If you want to get to second base, that leaves us only a few hours.”
“I said the authentic experience,” she snapped as she wrenched the car door open. She scraped the bottom edge of it along the sidewalk completely by accident, since the stupid thing was so low. Ross winced but said nothing.
No doubt he thought she’d done it on purpose and didn’t want to let her one up him by getting mad when he could easily afford to have the whole fricking car repainted eighty different times, eighty different shades if he wanted to.
“That is the authentic experience,” he confirmed, after she slid her seat belt in place. He stared at her stupidly. “You said second base. How the hell long do you think it takes to get there?”
“I pity the poor women that ever thought they’d get something out of dating you. You’re about as dense as a brick and as useful as a butt crack in the middle of the face.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is a butthead,” Ross clarified as he peeled the car away from the sidewalk.
“Yeah. You’re a butthead. The worst kind. No wonder every single girl you’re with dumps you. I don’t know what they see in you.”
“The same thing you do, apparently.”
“I’m different,” Alix hissed, with all the grace of a rabid squirrel. Not that she’d ever seen a rabid squirrel before, but she didn’t think it would be pretty. “This is about revenge.”
“Really? Trying to do the right thing requires revenge.”
“You didn’t do it for the right reasons. You’re no white knight in shining armor. You were just too lazy. You probably had better things to do like sleep.” You broke my heart. That’s the revenge.
“You sure you’re not just trying to make me pay for being an asshole like Chance was for all those years?”
“That too. He’s my brother, though. He gets a pass. You had no excuse.”
Ross shrugged as he narrowly avoided swiping a car right off the road. He drove like he went through life. Like a complete asshole. “You have a funny way of doing it. I don’t know what kind of make out sessions you’ve had and what kind of second base you’ve got to, but in my experience, it’s not a punishment.”
“Yes, but you don’t want to make out with me. You find me gross. That’s the punishment.” She wanted to lean over and smack him just for existing. For being so damn irresistible. For driving her, and the rest of female kind, crazy for years.
He shrugged. “Whatever sinks your ship.”
“That’s not how that saying goes, buttface.”
“Because you’re how old again?”
“Shut up.”
“Yup. Thought so.”
Alix jammed her arms across her chest. He was right. She was acting like she was five. He always did bring out the worst in her. The worst, because she was so worried about being at her best, that it often felt like she fell flat on her face when he didn’t notice her or when he made fun of her even though she was trying so hard.
