Inhale. Exhale.
I can breathe.
“Let’s go.”
Eight
River
Holden and I snuck out the front door and hurried down my driveway as twilight turned to night. I felt like a thief who’d robbed his own house.
“Let’s take your truck,” Holden said and waved at a driver leaning against the side of a black Cadillac parked just down the street.
“Why? Where are we going?”
“I don’t want you to accuse me later of kidnapping you.” He shot me a heated glance. “Mostly, I just want to watch you drive.”
Fuck.
Everything this bastard said or did, every look that flashed across his eyes, was sexy as hell.
“As to where we’re going,” he said as we climbed into the cab of my Chevy, “don’t worry about it. I’ll navigate.”
I started up my truck’s engine as the black sedan drove away. “That was your personal driver?”
“He was.” Holden turned to me with a grin. “Tonight, it’s you.”
Fuck again.
In the falling dark, we left my upper-middle class neighborhood and headed south. The houses grew larger, separated by gates and dense trees that provided privacy. It was a short drive. After only a few minutes, we crested a hill, and the ocean spread out before us, deep blue streaked the orange of the setting sun.
“That one.”
Holden pointed at a huge modern house in white with geometric windows framed in black steel. Every window was dark.
I gave a low whistle and started to pull the truck into the drive. “You live here?”
“Park on the side,” he said. “Can’t leave grease marks on the driveway.”
I parked, killed the engine, and started to follow him out of the truck’s cab when I came to my damn senses.
“Shit, wait. What am I doing? I completely ditched Violet.” I fished my phone out of my tux pocket. A text from her waited.
I’m here. Coming soon?
“I have to go back. I can’t do this to her.”
“She’ll get over it,” Holden said. “Trust me.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“I told you. She and one of my best friends are soulmates.”
“Didn’t seem that way at the party,” I said, then remembered Miller Stratton’s death glare when I joined Violet in the closet. “Miller’s your friend?”
Holden nodded. “We need to give them a chance.”
“But…she agreed to come with me to the dance. I can’t just ditch her.”
