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“I haven’t seen it since the accident,” she said with regret.
“Ugh,” I groaned, pissed at myself for being so careless. “Mine is back in the dorm. I completely forgot it when Vaughn picked me up. If I don’t check in with Hayat, she’s going to alert our parents. Aunt Lucy will call Lyric to come check on me, and when he finds me gone, I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
“Well, I’m right there with you,” she grimaced. “I bet Elias is freaking out right now.”
“Wait, he doesn’t know you’re with us?”
Sadness, and something else, flickered through her still slightly unfocused eyes. I’d seen that look before, but not from her. Vaughn’s shone with whatever that was often. “I have no idea what he knows at this point. Vaughn was impulsive in snatching me from the hospital. My mom and brother Ryan were on their way to see me. That’s the last thing I was told before I fell asleep.”
“He hasn’t mentioned your mom,” I mused, hoping she would give me a little something so I knew where they all stood. So far, all he’d told me was that his dad was sick. He’d briefly mentioned how his younger brother had a different mom from Vaughn and Sammy, which suggested that their parents had an on-again, off-again relationship at one point. Was that still the case? I’d grown up in Hollywood and the music industry. There were plenty of people who had that same kind of marriage.
Outside, Vaughn dismissed the pilots and turned to walk toward the SUV.
“We both have a complicated relationship with her,” Sammy murmured, watching her brother walk toward us.
That was all she got out before the driver’s door opened and Vaughn slid behind the wheel. I readjusted in my seat beside Sammy in the back. Vaughn turned to glance at us, his eyes lingering on me for a moment, the brown lit up with that heated smolder that made all my anxiety over meeting his family vanish.
“Are you two comfortable? It’s a bit of a drive from here.”
“I need to check in with Hayat,” I told him with a small smile. “And Sammy should text Elias. Can we borrow your phone?”
“Give me Hayat’s number, and I’ll text her for you,” he offered, something flashing across his face, but it was too fast for me to tell what he was thinking.
“She needs to hear my voice, or she gets worried,” I explained. “It’s a rule we have. If we don’t speak every day, we have to alert our parents. And I really don’t want to tell my mom I left school right before finals.”
He just sat there, looking right at me, not saying a word. I bit my lip, wondering why he wouldn’t want me to use his phone. Unless… Did he not want me to see something?
Mine.
Jealousy raged in the back of my mind so hard and fast, it made my head spin. Vaughn was mine. I didn’t care about his past, but his present and his future belonged to me.
That didn’t mean his phone wasn’t filled with something he didn’t want me to see.
He worked with Professor Lynch. Maybe they talked regularly about university business. I wouldn’t lie, that would upset me. But I wasn’t going to go looking for that kind of thing.
Yet.
Later, that was a different story. For the moment, however, I didn’t have time. Hayat was probably already getting worried that I hadn’t sent my morning text. If she didn’t hear from me soon, she wouldn’t hesitate to call her uncle to do a wellness check.
“Come on, I’m not going to snoop through your phone or anything. I just need to call my friend.”
Vaughn stayed silent, his dark eyes continuing to look at me like he was trying to figure me out. That possessiveness I normally loved so much glittered in his eyes, but this wasn’t the time for that.
He’d brought me all this way, just to turn into a jerk over his phone? I loved him, but keeping me from Hayat in any capacity was a hard limit for me.
“If you want me to be here with you, the least you can do is lend me your phone for two minutes. Otherwise, you can let me out, and I’ll grab the first flight back to California.” Thankfully, I’d at least brought my wallet, which was tossed into the gym bag with my dirty sleep clothes and a few pairs of fresh underwear.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he growled.
I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. For a moment, we had a stare-off. “What, do you not want me to see your conversations with your girlfriend? I promised not to snoop through your cell.”
With a groan, he pulled his phone from his pocket. Before handing it back, he unlocked the screen. “Look at whatever you want, wildfire.”
I hesitated before taking it, feeling conflicted for goading him like that. I trusted him. If he wanted someone else, they would have been with him right now, not me. But why was he acting so weird about my talking to Hayat?
Taking the device from him, I fought the urge to go searching through his text messages. He was acting off, but maybe I was being sensitive because of my own guilty conscience.
I should have already told him I was going home for the summer.
