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“Oh my God!” he shouted, lifting his hands and ducking behind them. “I just meant you looked nice. It was supposed to be a compliment. But forget it. Just…forget it.”
I huffed out a breath, knowing I’d gone over the line, but I sensed something else at play here. Something I didn’t like.
Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Whatever. Let’s just go.”
“Right,” he whispered as if sucking in a big, bolstering breath that he needed in order to keep dealing with me for the rest of the night.
Ignoring him, I stepped onto the porch and showed him my back as I locked the door. But when I turned around again, he was still, like,right there.
I yelped, startled, not liking how my pulse jumped at our close proximity or how amazing he smelled…and looked. The dude was playing havoc on my senses.
So I snapped, “Why are you just standing there?”
For a moment, he appeared to be frozen. “I really don’t know,” he finally answered as if he too were trying to figure that one out for himself. Then he turned on his heel and stiffly stepped off the porch, walking away without me.
I sighed and rolled my eyes.
Up ahead of me, he slowed when he reached his truck. He even reached for the passenger side door as if he was going to open it for me. But then he paused, squeezed his hand into a fist, and said, “Nope,” to himself before he pulled his arm back and let me get the door on my own.
Then, once we were both seated and he had the engine running, he had the gall to ask, “Any music recommendations for the radio?”
I spun to blink at him before demanding, “What is wrong with you tonight?”
He glanced up in surprise, then squinted in confusion before he almost nervously returned his attention to the road as he pulled out into traffic. “What do you mean? Nothing.”
“You’re acting weird. It’s freaking me out.”
“I wastryingto be a gentleman,” he gritted out. “Reallytrying,” he added under his breath
I shook my head. “Why?”
“I…” His mouth opened and he looked completely blank for a moment. Then he uttered, “I don’t know.”
My brows rose. “You don’tknow?”
He laughed a little and shrugged. “I don’t fucking know,” he insisted, sticking with that story. “I guess, I just thought I’d try something new and benicefor a change.”
“Well, it’s freaky and weird,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. “So cut it out.”
“Roger that,” he murmured stonily. The rest of the trip to Bella’s place was dead silent, and I started to feel really crappy as if I should apologize for overreacting and being a bitch.
But he was acting soweird. Something wasn’t right with him. And I was going to figure out what it was.
* * *
A couple of hours later,I was absolutely miserable, and I wanted to go home. My head throbbed with a headache, and everyone talking only made it worse.
I’d been sticking it out, anyway, because these were my people, and I usually loved to be around them. I hoped the headache would abate.
Except it didn’t.
It was also my first night out with the family again. I’d wanted so hard for it to feel normal and like old times that I would just naturally slip back into the role I usually played. But everything felt different.Ifelt different.
Tucked up on the end cushion of the couch with Lucy sitting next to me and idly rubbing my knee as if to comfort me, I listened to Beau and Gray regale Vaughn with a story from our high school years.
“So Bella’s behind the wheel, supposedly waiting for us to tell her when to crank the engine,” Beau said, his hands motioning along with the story, only for Gracen to pop in with, “Supposedly.”
“But she starts it before we tell her to, right? And it electrocutes the shit out of both of us.”
