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Not really, but I had a feeling she would tell me anyway.
And that was exactly what she did. The entire ride, she told me about her basketball team and a girl named Sydney, who was her star player, and another girl named Macy, who gave her Sydney’s address, and a whole bunch of other shit I didn’t give a damn about.
But her voice was pleasant enough for background noise, so I didn’t complain.
It wasn’t until I was about a minute away from her house that she paused in her speech, and then I could see her start to tense.
“You can drop me off here,” she said. “My house is right around the corner. You don’t have to go all the way.”
“And you’re going to what?” I inquired. “Crawl to your doorstep?”
“No,” she said, crossing her arms stubbornly. “I can have my mom or dad pick me up or something—”
I ignored her, pulling up to her driveway. I got out of the car and went over to her side. This time, when I tried to pull her into my arms again, she fought against it.
“Thank you for the ride,” she muttered frantically. “But all this isn’t necessary. Look, you can just leave me here and—”
I glanced to the side to see a gangly boy running from the other side of the road. He had headphones around his head, and he completely ignored us as he ran into the house and slammed the door shut behind him.
Something about the boy seemed very familiar.
Before I could think about it deeply, Charlotte began to struggle even more in my arms. Looking down, I noted her wide eyes and the slight panic flashing through her expression.
Something was definitely up.
5
CHARLOTTE
Crap.
I knew it was a mistake letting Zane drive me home, but I didn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t be budged no matter what I said or did, and he refused to let me out around the corner either. Sure, it was probably kind of him to do so, but now it led to my absolute worst nightmare.
Zane seeing Casey.
Casey ran past us like he usually did when he was listening to music. My heart thumped in my chest, praying that Zane wouldn’t notice him, wouldn’t recognize anything about the boy. I mean, there was a good enough chance. Casey might be tall like his dad, but he had my sister’s blonde hair and fair coloring.
And beyond that, Casey was lean and lankier than everyone else in his class.
In many ways, there was no resemblance at all with his father.
Except for his eyes—those yellow-brown orbs that looked like something out of a comic book.
They were unmistakable.
It was why I was hoping Zane hadn’t seen his eyes. And on the off chance he didn’t, I needed to end this quickly so that Zane left and never came back here again.
I started wiggling to be let down again and also to distract him from looking too closely. His gaze shifted to me, but there was a furrow in his brows like he was already thinking about the thing he absolutely should not be thinking about.
Casey.
My heart was in my throat, pounding away a mile a minute. There were many terrible things in this scenario. He could see Casey and realize what we’d kept from him all this time. Mom and Dad could be home, and all hell would break loose if they saw Zane again.
Or all of the above.
“Okay, I’m home now,” I said, trying to keep the nerves from my voice. “Thanks so much. You can just leave me on the doorstep and go. I’ll be fine.”
“Who’s he?” he asked.
