“Hey Dad. I thought I was driving Baba and Ded back?”
Dan cleared his throat and stood. “Uh, yeah. But I had left my laptop at work, and I needed to grab it. Figured you’d want the freedom to not have to go home straight away.”
Lame fucking excuse. More like he wanted to interrogate me because Sebastian was too fucking good of a person to just leave me the fuck alone.
Enoch nodded and turned to me. “Shy, did you want to shower before we hit the road?”
I nodded, avoiding Dan and Sebastian’s gaze as I left the room.
The ride home was comfortably silent until Enoch asked if I wanted to stay at his place during Thanksgiving break. My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt a shimmer of sweat breakout on the nape of my neck.
Fuck, it’s so hard to lie to you.
I boldly grabbed his hand from where it rested on the gear stick and interlaced our fingers.
“Maybe for a day or two,” I finally said, keeping my gaze on his face, trying to memorize the shape, the mole in the arch of his brows, the way his hair was still damp from his shower and the curls reached down to his eyebrows.
Enoch spent the rest of the drive chewing anxiously on his lip and I couldn’t help but feed off that energy and twitch in my seat. When he finally parked in front of my apartment building, he unbuckled his seatbelt to face me directly.
“Shy, is there something going on that I should know about?”
Great, he must have overheard the conversation with his dad and Sebastian.
“Nothing that I can’t handle myself.”
“It doesn’t sound like that. I know Sebastian was asking my dad for his help to get you to live with my sister and him. He made it sound like you were in danger at home with your dad.”
“He’s just overprotective and worried about me because of Javier’s death. My dad used to be pretty out of control when we were younger, so Sebastian was concerned because of that. I’m not in danger at home now though. My dad’s a functioning addict. The bills get paid and it’s really not anything to worry about.”
Enoch studied me like he knew I was lying and my stomach dropped.
“I’ll tell you if I ever feel like I can use your help. Okay?”
Enoch smiled softly, leaning over the console so we were only inches apart.
“Promise?” he whispered. “Because I want you to be okay—more than okay. I want you to be happy and healthy and safe. And if you don’t feel any of those things for any reason, promise me you will come to me.”
I nodded, even though I couldn’t keep the promise. I just didn’t know how else to get him to drop it when there was no reality in which he could ever help me.
My heart was hammering against my rib cage as I saw his eyes flutter down to my lips.Is he gonna…
As if he could read my mind, his eyes returned to mine and he reached up with his spare hand, slipping his fingers through the hair behind my ear. For the first time, I felt like we were having a silent conversation of our own. His eyes bore into mine, asking if he could kiss me and I hungrily pressed my lips against his in response.
It was the first kiss I had ever initiated, and I was loving the feeling of butterflies in my stomach, heart pounding in my ears, a soft acoustic song in the background and the taste of him on my tongue.
It was a long moment before we pulled apart, both breathless, and when I opened my eyes, I found him staring at me like he wanted more too. He rested his forehead against mine, his hand gently pulling my hair as he sighed once more and placed a tender kiss on my lips. He pulled back and my whole body was tingling with excitement.
“Is it lame if I say I’m going to miss you?” He mumbled, his voice low and husky like it was when he was sleepy.
My stomach flipped, worried for a moment that he knew I was leaving soon before I remembered he was referring to the fact that it was Thanksgiving break. “Maybe a little,” I smirked. “But we can be lame together because I’m going to miss you too.”
He chuckled softly, stopping to admire me with a boyish grin.
“If you miss me too much, you know where to find me,” he finally said with a smirk, straightening up in his seat and unlocking the car doors so I could exit. “I’ll either be at work or home. And I would not mind at all if you happened to show up unannounced at either of those locations. Of course, you can always call or text me too. But that’s too predictable.”
I tried to laugh at his joke, but it fell flat. We were dancing around this fucked-up reality called my life, and he knew it, I knew it, yet we didn’t address it further. With a parting goodbyeand my stomach clenching as I exited the car, I walked up to the entrance of my building.
When I reached my cold, empty apartment the stale lingering scent of my brother’s ghost made me shudder. I wanted Enoch back. But I needed to focus on becoming Olivia Lane permanently.
