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I smile. “Come on. Sooner you drop me off, sooner you get to enjoy them.”
Ren throws Sebastian a hug, then me, watching us from the doorway as we walk to Sebastian’s car. This one is sleek and sporty. Not the Bugatti, but still one that looks low and dangerously fun to drive—if one enjoyed driving, that is, which I don’t. It’s so darn nerve-racking.
As if he’s just read my mind and lives to torment me, Sebastian holds his keys my way. “How about you drive us, Sigrid?”
I take a step back. “Oh. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He arches an eyebrow and leans against the hood of his car, swinging his keys around his finger like he swung my panties around them that night at the wedding.
That reminds me—where are my panties? Does he still have them?
“And why not?” Sebastian asks, dragging me back to the present moment. He jingles the keys in my direction.
“That’s…” I swallow nervously, putting another foot between me and the car. “That’s a killing machine.”
“It’s not. It’s actually a really relaxing car to drive. It’s low to the ground, very responsive. I just thought you might want to give it a try.”
“But I don’t like driving,” I tell him.
He stares at me, eyes flickering in the starlight. As he pushes off the car and walks up to me, his gaze searches mine. “Maybe it’s not that you don’t like driving. Maybe you simply haven’t found a car that makes you fall in love with it. I’m just throwing it out there. There’s no pressure to drive if you don’t want to, Ziggy.”
I bite my lip, torn.
“Well,” he adds, grimacing in this silly way that makes me smile in spite of myself. “Maybe a little pressure. I want to sit in the car and put a hefty dent in these chocolate cookies while you drive me. They smell fu—” He clears his throat. “Freaking incredible.”
I stare at him and tap my foot on the sidewalk, debating with myself. A big part of me wants to tell Sebastian Gauthier exactly where he can shove his fancy car keys and this sports-car propaganda. But another part of me wonders if maybe he’s right. Maybe this car, this drive, will be different from the rest. Maybe something I’ve spent my adulthood so far white-knuckling my way through might actually become something I enjoy. I won’t know till I try, and what better time to try than the season of Project Ziggy Bergman 2.0?
“Fine,” I mutter, plucking the keys from his hand. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Jesus Christ, Ziggy!” Sebastian grabs the oh-shit bar on his side as I whip around the turn, hitting the gas.
I smile, exhilarated. This is amazing. The car feels like an extension of myself. As Sebastian said, it is responsive—lightning fast and effortless to control. Two blocks away from Ren’s, I sensed how much I loved this car, then turned away from my place and took us on a massive detour.
“I warned you,” I tell him into the wind.
He stares ahead, wide-eyed, as I come to a stop at a red light, his hair wild and windblown. He looks like he’s just had a near-death experience.
Slowly, he glances my way. “Holy. Fuck.”
He looks so messed up and upended, a little like the Sebastian I surprised on his balcony last month, with that messy hair and stunned expression. It makes something crack inside me, then spill, bittersweet and bubbly. I want to laugh. And I want to cry. And I want to laugh some more.
Thankfully, at least, for now, the laughter wins, bursting out as the light turns green and I hit the gas again.
Sebastian stares at me like he thinks I might have a couple screws loose. “What are you laughing about?”
“I don’t even know!” I yell into the wind, drinking in the balmy Southern California September night.
Sebastian seems to relax when I decelerate a little, settling into the car’s speed comfortably as I wind us down the road. “Sigrid.”
“Yes, Sebastian.”
He drags his knuckles across his mouth. “Would you…uh—” He drops his hand. “Would you want to go to a bookstore with me?”
I swerve a little, blinking his way, then back to the road. “What, now?”
He glances at his fancy silver watch whose brand I remember him doing a magazine ad for. “It’s not too late, is it? When’s your game tomorrow?”
“No game tomorrow. Not till Tuesday.”
