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“Bitch, get off me, you’re soaked!” She chuckles.
“So are you, asshole. What difference does it make?” I smile and try to wedge myself in at her side.
“I have room—” Chase begins, but Noah’s already grabbing me.
“I got her.” He places me on his lap, pulling the seatbelt over me awkwardly and buckling it.
I giggle. “I think I’ll be good, Noah. No one else has their seatbelt on.”
“Leave it on for me, yeah?” He speaks low, but we’re closed in a truck with no music, so I’m positive nobody misses his concern.
I nod, willing myself not to blush.
A minute or two later, I look up, catching Mason’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He stares at me, looks to my seatbelt, and then his attention goes back to the road ahead, his mouth curling into a small smile as he does.
Something inside me settles right then, only I’m not so sure what it is.
Chapter 19
Arianna
* * *
“I don’t feel like partying tonight. I’m fucking exhausted.” Brady drops onto the tailgate of Chase’s truck, the game having ended a little over a half hour ago.
“Same dude,” Mason agrees, tossing his bag in the bed. He turns to us. “What about you girls? How ‘bout a night in, come to the house with us? We can order pizza or some shit. Camp out in mine and Chase’s room?”
A party I could talk my way out of but a chill night at their house, when the celebratory party tonight is elsewhere? Not so much, so, I shrug, nodding along with Cameron.
My phone vibrates, so I pull it from my back pocket.
* * *
Romeo: You see me get laid out on my ass tonight?
* * *
I grin.
* * *
Me: I did. You got knocked down…
* * *
I wait a good ten seconds, letting his mind race, then send him the rest.
* * *
Me: But you got up again.
* * *
He sends back a laughing face emoji, and I chuckle.
* * *
Romeo: In case you were wondering, this will never get old.
* * *
I stare at his text, a strange warmth washing over me, and I gnaw at my bottom lip.
“Earth to Ari!”
My head snaps up, and I’m met with four sets of narrowed eyes.
“Sorry.” My face heats, but it’s dark, so I don’t think they see it. “Are we ready or… ?”
“Yeah, sister.” Mason rolls his eyes. “We’re ready.”
The boys hop in the back to make the short drive around campus and Cam and I slide into the main cab. If my attention wasn’t half somewhere else, I would have realized I was the first to climb in, forcing me into the middle seat.
I can’t help but think about the last time I road in his truck. It was during spring break, Senior year.
“You didn’t have to come get me. I told Mason I had a ride.”
Chase scoffs, flipping a U-turn and heads for home. “If you think I would let that asshole bring you home, you’re mistaken.”
“He wasn’t an asshole when you invited him to your New Year’s party,” I remind him as he rolls to a stop at the light.
“He became an asshole when he tried to kiss you at said party.” He shoots me a quick glare. “I told him to stay away from you. Looks like I’m going to have to remind him of that on Monday.”
“Okay, Mason.” I roll my eyes, taken aback when his head snaps in my direction.
“I’m not your brother.” His gaze narrows. “And I didn’t tell him that for Mason’s benefit.”
I do my best to nod, attempting to breathe as air evades my lungs, the alcohol adding to the flush of my skin.
The light turns green, and Chase faces forward, so I do the same, but my eyes, they refuse to stick to the road ahead.
I stare at his profile, at the way he pinches his lips together when he’s annoyed or angry. At the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he works through whatever is running through his mind.
Is it me?
Am I on his mind?
My stomach flip-flops at the possibility.
“I can feel your eyes on me, Arianna.”
My giggle is low and slightly slurred. “I would have sworn I was being as stealthy as ever.”
His chuckle is as quiet as his next words, “Maybe, but I always know when you’re watching.”
“How?” I don’t mean to whisper.
Chase’s hand tightens on the wheel, a small frown building along his face. “I don’t know.”
He’s parked in front of my house moments later, and when he turns to look at me, I hold my breath.
He has something to say, I know it.
His lips part, and then Mason is there, tearing my door open with a drunken grin.
“Hi, sister.”
I hold in my sigh. “Hi, brother.”
I sat awake that night, for hours, wondering what that moment meant, if anything at all. Hope bloomed within me then, but it was obliterated the next day when I learned his then girlfriend became his ex-earlier that night, and that ‘asshole’ he had referred to my date as was the asshole behind his breakup.
