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chapter 36
Gabe
“It’s okay to use someone else if you have to.”
~ Meredith Morgan
(played by the award-winning Meredith Wade)
Raising Ryder: Episode39
Kim’s hip-hop ringtone playing over the Mustang’s speakers slaughters the smile I finally coaxed out of Jess. It’s a no-brainer to let the call go to voicemail.
Only Jess says, “Aren’t you going to answer?” And it’s just crap luck my phone is voice-programmed to accept calls when it hears the wordanswer.
“You’re ignoring my texts.” Kim bolts straight into bitch mode.
“Not all of them.” I pitch my answer into the laidback zone.
“When are you coming back?”
“Not sure.” I glance at Jess, who’s refusing to look at me. Capturing her hand, I round our fingers over the gearshift so she’s crystal-freaking-clear there’s no competition—I’m withher.
“But youarecoming back?” Kim asks.
“Eventually.” Picking up speed, I change lanes as if that will steer Kim—and her choice of topics—a different direction. “I left my Xbox in the condo.”
“That’s not all you left in the condo.”
I need to curb this phone call before it turns fatal. I can feel Kim’s words clawing through the gift of the very new trust Jess has given me.
Kim’s drawn-out sigh hovers between melodramatic and manipulative. “We have to talk about getting—”
“I’m driving.” I cut her off before she saysback together. Haven’t had time for the btw-the-studio-that-fired-me-is-forcing-me-to-fake-date-Kim conversation with Jess yet. “I’ll call you later.”
“So that’s how you want to play it?” Kim’s attitude grows fangs. “We hookup, and you ignore me?”
Three things happen at once. Jess makes a sound that stakes my chest. I almost clip the rear end of a soccer-mom van. And my exit for the hotel comes up way too fast.
I have to pump the hell out of my brakes, grind the gears, and swerve across three lanes of traffic to avoid the SUV and enter the off-ramp—which costs me Jess’s hand and my next seven heartbeats.
“Are you even listening?” Kim yells over all eight speakers.
That’s what I get for tricking out my sound system. “We didn’t hookup.” I slam on the brakes for an orange light just as it bleeds to red.
“My shirt was on your floor.” Kim’s pitch goes atmospheric.
A repeat of that sound comes from Jess’s side of the car.
Shit. Shit. Shit. “That’s because you threw it there.” Stuck at the light, I tap the steering wheel and grit my teeth.
“You’re just like Nick,” Kim accuses.
“I’m nothing like that asshole. I don’t lie to get laid.”
“You think because you’re honest about what you want it makes you less of a user?”
“I didn’t kiss you to use you.” My gut cramps as I glance toward the girl doing a badass impression of a human iceberg in my passenger seat.
