“Guess we’re special, then.” She smiles.
I laugh faintly. “Guess so.”
We pull in front of an apartment building and Lennon looks out the window. “This is it. Thanks for the ride, I appreciate—fuuuuck,” she groans, and her head hits the glass with a dull thud.
“What? You okay?” I try to look out the window to see if anything looks amiss, but it looks like a regular building to me.
“Grace is having a party.”
I look again, and on the third floor of the building, there’s an apartment with multi-colored lights flashing through the window. “Is that yours?”
“Yep.” She throws her head back against the headrest. “Ugh, and I have to be up so freaking early in the morning.” She’s almost on the verge of tears.
“Why? We don’t train on Saturdays.”
“I have a shift at the café.”
“You work there?”
She frowns at me. “Yes,” she says slowly. “I told you I’m a barista. And a tutor, too.”
I blink, trying to remember if she mentioned that.
She scoffs. “Of course, you weren’t paying attention.”
“I was,” I say defensively, although the information she’s telling me is not cataloged into my memory. It sends a pang of guilt through me, and I wonder what else I don’t know about Lennon.
And maybe, I’d like to find out.
“I just need to sleep.” Lennon drags her hands down her face, the exhaustion evident. She’s been working hard in the rink, and apparently, out of it too, and it’s clear she needs rest.
“Can’t you just ask her to shut it down?”
“What, so I can be the buzzkill to everyone upstairs?” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Well, do you have anyone else’s place that you can stay?” She seems to get along well with the team, so surely there’s someone else she could crash with.
“It’s Friday night,” she grumbles. “Everyone’s either out or over at someone’s place for a party.”
I notice she doesn’t mention a boyfriend, and I don’t know why that piece of information seems to stick like glue in my head.
“It’s fine,” she says and reaches down by her feet for her backpack. “It’s not your problem to deal with.” When she faces me, one hand on the door and red heavy-lidded eyes, I make a split-second decision.
I throw the car in drive and pull away from the curb.
“What are you doing?” she exclaims. “I need to go to bed.”
“And you’re not going to do it there,” I say. “You’re not going to get any sleep, and we both know it.”
“I know, but?—”
“You can stay at my place.”
Lennon’s stunned into silence, and hell, I am too. What am I doing right now? It’s one thing to give her a ride home, but to take her to my place? To let her sleep there?
That’s gotta be breaking like ten code violations. I know I’ve never been one to really give a fuck about the rules, but even for me…
“I-I can’t do that.”
