“I won’t. Jesus,” I said under my breath, but loud enough for him to hear.
“Not even a ‘Stratton for Governor’ one.”
“Right. As if.”
We both smiled at the thought of that—me riding around town with a Joe Stratton sticker on my car. No way, no how. Though I supposed I was going to have to wear a button or something at campaign events this summer.
Another point to negotiate with Grayson Spaulding when the time came.
“How’d you get this sticker, anyway?”
“I registered the car for you with the admin office, got the sticker, got it all squared away.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I was pretty sure he’d done it all to protect Yvette, not me.
“I also installed an extra theft-protection system. If someone tampers with her locks, you’ll automatically get a text. So will I.”
“Okay.” Wow, he’d gone to some trouble. This must be the kind of stuff he was doing for Grayson Spaulding—restoring Caroline’s cars, getting one all set up for me. Still, it seemed like an odd coupling—Stick and Grayson. Throwing serene, refined Caroline into the mix even made it weirder.
“At first I hated the idea of you leaving her out here in a student lot. Still do, actually.” We passed my dorm and took a right turn to head toward the edge of the small campus and the lots where students parked their cars.
Some colleges didn’t even allow freshmen to have cars on campus, or only if you lived so many hundreds of miles away and got, like, a special dispensation or something.
But Bribury kids would not be denied their sports cars and luxury SUVs, and so all students were allowed to have cars on campus, but you had to walk quite a ways to get to them.
“But then I figured, what the hell—every car in this lot is going to be expensive as hell. I still think you should park her in a corner or something so someone is less likely to scratch or ding her.”
“They tell women not to park in dark corners, or out by ourselves.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I guess scratch that idea.”
We entered Lot H and found a spot that was away from all the other cars, but still out in the open and under a light pole.
“Do you want me to drop you back at your dorm?” he asked as he pulled a phone out of his jeans pocket.
It was still light out, and I thought the walk would feel…refreshing after being so close to Stick for so long. “No, I want to walk.”
He nodded, then flipped the phone open and dialed. “Yeah. Hey. I need you to pick me up at Lot H on campus.” He listened, then said, “Now. Yeah. Thanks.” He snapped the phone shut and put it back into his jeans.
“A flip phone? Seriously? Must not have been too good of a car thief if that’s all you can afford. No wonder you’re getting out of the business.”
Out of his other pocket he pulled an iPhone, flashed it at me, then put it back. “I just haven’t taken the time to transfer my numbers over yet.”
“Because you just got the iPhone?” I wondered if Grayson Spaulding had gotten it for him. If I’d be expected to be in such close contact like that?
“No, I’ve had the iPhone for a couple of years.”
Then I remembered watchingSons of Anarchyand that they all used flip phones that they could easily ditch and weren’t traced to them in any way like a cell contract. “Burners,” I think they called them.
“Oh,” I said, getting it.
“Yeah, well, I’m using the iPhone mostly now, but still have some numbers that I haven’t—or don’t want to—transfer over.”
“Your hoodlum buddies don’t rate being in the iPhone contacts?”
He cut the engine, pulled the keys from the ignition and looked over at me. “You have some mouth on you, you know that?”
The way his gaze moved down my face, I knew he was going to kiss me.
