The flashbulbs are going at a lightning quick pace now. I keep a half-smile on my face and my hand pressed to Dylan’s chest just long enough for the men to get their shots, and then I put my hand up. “Photo shoot’s over, boys. Have a good day.”
I start walking again, and Dylan hustles me away and into the car.
Once we’re inside, I wait for him to let me have it. But he surprises me when he breaks into a laugh.
“You’re amazing, Jasalie,” he says, his eyes filled with…admiration?
“You’re not mad?” I say. “I did the opposite of what you instructed. Bill usually gets really pissed off when I do that.”
“Well, I’m not your boss,” he says in a slow, sexy tone that has my thighs clenching. “Am I?”
I shake my head.
He glances in the rearview mirror. “But I need to ask you to put your hometown skills to good use and drive us somewhere the vultures can’t follow.”
Dylan’s request hangs in the air like a firecracker.
I fasten my seatbelt and turn on the car. I could take him to see the cacti or to that art museum I’ve been curious about. The problem is, I don’t know how to get to either one.
I reach for my phone to glance at the city map.
“How long has it been since you’ve lived here?”
Dylan’s calm voice cuts through the silence inside the car.
“A…a little while.” I wave my hand vaguely in the air. “You know time is relative.”
I zoom out of the parking lot and turn left without checking first for oncoming cars. Luckily, the road is clear, but I narrowly miss the median strip as I speed up and head for the stoplight. I drive four blocks, blind with an unnamed emotion that’s bubbling up from inside my chest and threatening to burst out of me.
I feel Dylan glance over at me, but I ignore him and turn right.
After passing three street signs I don’t recognize, I drive onto the sidewalk. I hastily jerk the wheel and return the car to the street. I was really only on the sidewalk for a few feet, but unfortunately, it was enough time to terrify the one man who happened to be there at the same moment.
“Jasalie, whoa.” Dylan touches my arm lightly. “Why don’t you pull over up here, and let me drive?”
“Dylan, I’m fine.” I refuse to look over at him as I careen down the road and turn left. “See, this street here should take us to Broadway.”
Only it doesn’t. And I don’t realize that until the damn thing just randomly ends.
I stop the car at the dead end and look out at the desert beyond. I can see a street across the sand and cacti, about a hundred feet away as if the city had planned to complete this route someday but never got around to it.
I’m so busted.
Silence takes over the car with the low hum of the motor the only thing potentially stopping Dylan from hearing my pounding heart.
“You’re like the worst tour guide ever,” he finally says in a light tone. “Maybe if your rental had GPS you could have done a better job of faking it.”
I glance at him. “I don’t know what to say.”
“On the other hand, I’m seriously considering offering you a job as my driver, seeing how easily you just shed the paparazzi.”
I manage a weak laugh.
His expression turns serious. “You’re not really from here, are you?”
I exhale. “I really was born here, but I spent most of my life in L.A. So I’m not that familiar with Tucson.”
“Well, it’s no big deal. We can figure it out together. Unless you had a place in mind you wanted to go…”
