“’Course I’ll like it. It’s yours, asshole.”
“Hmm.” His thumb drummed lightly on his breastbone, like he was counting out a beat to that imaginary song.
Then he rolled toward me and pressed his lips firmly to mine.
My eyes shot open, and I sucked in a breath through my nose like I was resurfacing after a deep dive. The clock on the dash said I’d been asleep for almost five hours, which didn’t seem possible, but the crick in my neck said it was.
Jay had two hands on the wheel as he sang along to the radio, his deep, throaty voice harmonizing effortlessly with Ari Friedrich’s slightly higher, sweeter sound on the track “Trust,” andfuck.Just like that, I was officially hard and fucking annoyed about it.
Poppingafternoonwood was not supposed to be a thing for guys my age—or for guys of any age who were trapped in a car with the man who’d broken their heart—but between Jay’s gorgeous voice and that kiss, I was all turned around.
The kiss had been a dream.Completely. I had never acted on my attraction to Jay. In fact, I’d tried as hard as I could not to even acknowledge it to myself so I wouldn’t start wanting something I couldn’t have.
Looking back, knowing what I now knew, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d been a hairsbreadth away from something and I hadn’t even realized it. What would have happened, back then, if I’d just leaned over and put my hands on him and…
“Well, hey. Welcome back to the land of the living.” Jay shot me a teasing grin as I knuckled my eyes. His deep voice sent tingles into places that I very definitely didn’t want tingling at that moment.
I clenched my hands into fists. “Pull over.”
“Sure, but can it wait a few minutes? I just got gas an hour ago. We’re good for—”
“No. Pull over,” I said again. “I need to piss.”
I needed to get out of the car.Immediately.Away from that dreammaker voice and the intoxicatingly sweet smell of him.
Jay sighed. “Alright, alright. Yeesh. Next rest area in three miles.”
“Fine.”
He got into the right lane just as the song on the radio changed and the opening chords of “Pretty Girl” filled the car.
This is what they call irony, kids.
Becausethiswas Jay’sactualbreakout song. A song which hadn’t been about our summer, but apparently about the first girl he’d fallen in love with. Award-winning actress Olivia Merry, maybe, if Maddie McKetcham was to be believed.
Jay reached for the knob to turn the volume up, but I knocked his hand out of the way and changed the station to some super-staticky news station instead.
“Hey!” Jay protested as he took the exit for the rest area and pulled into a parking spot near a decidedly sketchy-looking squat brick building. “Driver picks the music.”
“Perfect, ’cause I’m driving when I get back, and we’re listening to talk radio. Getting caught up on world events instead of listening to pop drivel.” I unbuckled my seat belt and made a come-hither motion with my hand. “Gimme the key.”
“What? The van key? No way. It’smyrental van—”
“You mean yourkidnapvan.”
“Ah, Jesus, are we back to this? Napping makes somebody a crankypants, hmm?” He mock pouted his lips, which naturally gave me all sorts ofotherthoughts about his mouth and the uses I could put it to.
Fuck again.
I gritted my teeth. “Having you abandon me at Mitchell’s yesterday was bad enough. I would rather not be abandoned at a truck stop in the middle of…” I looked around. “Where are we?”
“Just south of Macon.”
“In the middle of Georgia.” I laid out my palm and made agimmemotion with my fingers.
Jay rolled his eyes and dug the key out of his pocket. “You’re insane, you know that? It’s a push-button ignition. You don’t even need the key.”
“I know.”
