Leaving me with Stick and my own muscle car.
“Let’s go,” he said as he opened the passenger door of the Corvette and waved me in.
“Where are we going?” I asked, but made my way to the car, lowering myself onto the smooth leather seat, which was warm under my butt.
“Driving lesson,” Stick said, then closed my door and walked across to the driver’s side.
Chapter9
“Is this a convertible?”I asked when we’d cleared the town of Schoolport.
“Yes,” he answered, the only word he’d spoken since he’d driven away from my dorm.
“But it’s February.”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “It won’talwaysbe.”
Well, yeah, that was true.
“And aren’t Corvettes the cars that men buy during their mid-life crises? Isn’t this basically a ‘I still have a penis and know how to use it’ car?”
“I don’t know about a penis, but you sure have a set of balls on you, so does that count?”
I looked to the side window, not wanting Stick to see the small smile his comment produced. “No, it doesn’t count.”
“The Corvette is an American classic. It’s about power, but with style and class.”
“But certainly not understatement.” Smile gone from my face, I once again was facing the front, able to see him from the corner of my eye if I wanted to. Not that I did.
“Yeah, and you’re such a master of understatement.”
The corner of my mouth quirked up again, but I let that smile slide.
“Well I’m not all about style and class either. Or power, for that matter.”
“You don’t think whatever you did to get Spaulding to take the leash off Lily took power?”
I shrugged. “I had something he wanted.”
“Isn’t that what power basically is?”
“Now you sound like one of them.”
I saw his hand tighten on the gear shift next to me. “I am nothing like them.”
I looked over at him, waited until he sensed it and took his eyes from the road to meet my eyes. “Neither am I,” I said calmly but firmly.
He nodded, went back to not crashing my new car, and said, “Fair enough.”
We were driving through downtown Chesney now. I hadn’t been back through since the wedding. We passed the Marriott and neither of us said a word. I wondered if he was thinking about dancing with me. Or…the other part of that.
A turn later and we drove past the club that Stick had dragged me out of months ago when Lily had been worried about me.
“Bang that prof yet?” he asked, speaking of Montrose, who I’d been trying to snag when Stick took my hand and literally pulled me out of the club.
“What’s it to you if I have or haven’t?”
He shrugged, and downshifted (is that what it was called? That was why I was on this lesson, I suppose). “Nothin’ to me.” He put the car in neutral as we came to a red light. He looked over at me. “And I’m guessing it’d be nothing to you, either.”
