I step back, moving the heavy case to my side and out of her grasp. “Uh huh, sure, and were you planning on managing just fine all the way into town?” She doesn’t have a car so that’s exactly what she’s planning but I’m not about to let her walk the three miles into town carrying all this shit.
“Come on,” I say, my boots kicking up dust as I stride over to my red pickup. I lift her suitcase into the bed of the truck.
“What are you doing?” she calls after me.
I look back at her. “Giving you a lift to your new coffee shop.”
Her hazel eyes widen and her chest hitches. “Really?”
I walk around the truck and pull open the driver’s door. “Come on Firebird, I ain’t got all day.”
Lola mutters something along the lines of “you set one barn on fire…” but she dumps her backpack in the truck and climbs her pretty little ass up into the passenger seat.
I suppress a smile as I take the book on plant life I’ve been reading out of my back pocket and let the engine rumble beneath me. God, I love that feeling. My dad would shudder in horror if he saw what I drove nowadays. It’s so far from the sleek Mercedes he’s chauffeured around in, but I guess when you send your kid halfway across the world to boarding school, the apple ends up falling pretty far from the tree.
My parents didn’t even want me home for the holidays, using the school’s host family program for international students to send me to live with the Fords instead. I shouldn’t complain though, I fit in better with my former host family than I ever did back in England, even if I have had to contend with borderline inappropriate thoughts of my best friend’s little sister for the last six years.
Lola bends down to tie up the laces on her walking boots and I force myself to look at the road ahead and not the tempting dip of her cleavage. Yeah, scratch the borderline, my thoughts crossed over into inappropriate years ago and having Lola back in Pine Rock for good is only making things worse.
I clear my throat and grip the steering wheel. “So, where am I taking you?”
Lola finishes with her laces and sits up. She twists in her seat to look at me, a slight tilt to her head.
I glance over at her. “What?”
She shrugs, the thin straps of her top shifting on her delicate shoulders. “You’re not going to try and talk me out of it? Tell meit’s a great idea but I should take things slow? Remind me that my parents love me, and they only want what’s best?”
I’m still fuming at her family for reacting the way they did but admitting that feels like too much. I’ve hidden how I feel about Lola for six years, telling her that the way her family treats her makes me vibrate with anger would be a dead giveaway. So, I just say, “Your parents do love you, but they also underestimate you.”
The slender lines of Lola’s neck bob as she studies the worn spine of my book lying on the center console. “Gregor’s old place,” she whispers.
“The hardware store?” I let out a low whistle. “That’s a great location.” Real estate on Pine Rock’s Main Street is in high demand thanks to the summer tourist trade, but old man Gregor’s place has been boarded up since he retired last season.
“He gave me a good deal because I’m not ‘one of them god darn smarmy city chains’.” She uses air quotes, an amused quirk to her lips. Gregor might be the only man in Canada not obsessed with Tim Horton.
I want to laugh along with her but the business owner in me hears alarm bells. “Still, that can’t have been cheap.” I wince, regretting the words as soon as they’re out. The last thing Lola needs is another person doubting her. I take one hand off the steering wheel like I can somehow grab the words back out of the air, but Lola just shrugs again.
“Yeah, well, I also let him see my tits.”
I slam on the breaks in the middle of the country road and thank my lucky stars it’s empty. I yank on the hand break and turn to face Lola, bracing my forearm against the steering wheel. “You did what?” I bite the words out, my teeth gritted so hard I’m surprised they’re not turning to dust.
Lola grips the edges of her seat, a precarious smile that screams I misjudged this frozen on her lips. “Kidding,” she says.
My nostrils flare as I breathe in deep, trying to gauge whether I need to pay a less than friendly visit to an old man.
“Seriously, Roman?” Fire burns out any regret Lola has for getting herself in too deep. “I saved up,” she says. “Working in bars in touristy spots gets you good tips and the backpacker life doesn’t exactly have many expenses so yeah, I saved up.”
Some of the tension in my body falls away but I keep my gaze firmly set on Lola. “Just so we’re one hundred percent clear, do I need to kill old man Gregor or not?”
Lola’s mouth parts. “Not,” she says, bright hazel eyes glaring back at me.
I nod and purse my lips, my gaze dropping to her open mouth. I swear this girl is going to be the death of me. I lift my hand and place the pad of my thumb on her plump bottom lip, tugging it down. “Such a reckless mouth, you should be careful how you use it.”
Lola’s breath skates over the sun-tanned skin on the back of my hand. Her eyes flare and my gaze drops low as her thighs squeeze together.
I swallow. Best friend’s little sister. Seven years younger.She doesn’t like you that way, Roman.
I pull back, burying my thumb inside my fist before I use it to do something stupid, like slide it into her mouth and order her to suck.
