His whole body’s so damn stiff, it looks like it’s gotta hurt, and his cheeks are this pasty color that looks way too much like the oatmeal he had for breakfast to be remotely healthy. He’s sitting at a kind of tilt, with his eyes fixed out the windshield, and his hands are gripping so damn tight to the fabric of his jeans that I can see each of his knuckles outlined in white.
“Fine.” One of his knees is jiggling up and down.
Like fuck I’m gonna believe that.
Once upon a time—like two weeks ago—I’d have been one hundred percent sure he was looking like this ‘cause he was pissed at me and that whatever was going on with him had tobe my fault. Now, I’m only worried about him.
After I throw a quick glance up to see that the driver’s eyes are glued to the road ahead and not on the rearview mirror, I unclick my seat belt and scooch my ass right over into the middle seat. Jesse gives a sharp gasp, and one of his hands unclenches from his jeans to reach out to stop me, but I’m already buckling myself in beside him.
I’m about to call him out on his BS and try and get an answer from him when the driver takes us around a sharp corner. Jesse’s hand comes down on my leg, gripping hard enough that it makes me jump as, for one stupid-ass moment, I think he really is pissed—
And then it clicks.
“You don’t like driving?”
Without taking his eyes off the road ahead, he shakes his head, all tight and jerky and quick.
I’ve got about a million and one questions right now, like the super obvious,why?Andwhat the fuck are we doing in a car then?But I only pry his hand off my leg and slip my fingers in between his, giving his clammy palm a squeeze.
“Want me to try and distract you?”
Thatactually gets him to snap his eyes away from the road and onto me for a sec, and I can’t help laughing at the way they dart up to the driver next.
“Sunshine!” I mock gasp, hand up over my mouth like he’s just scandalized me. “Not like that.” I knock my shoulder against his, hoping I’m not wrong and that maybe he doesn’t feel quite as tense. “I’ve gotsomestandards, you know.”
“Says the man who felt me up at the restaurant last night until we had to leave.” He whispers it so quietly in my ear that I can feel the words more than hear them.
Trying to pretend like everything about what he just did isn’t making my cock seriously chub up—thatwouldtotally undermine what I just said about having higher standards than giving our Uber driver an unasked-for show—I flash Jesse a smirk. “It’s working though, huh? You feeling a little better?”
“It’s working.” His eyes are fixed forward again, but his hand feels more relaxed around mine when he lifts my knuckles up to his lips for a soft kiss. “You make me feel better, Tris.”
Fuck. The things this guy does to my heart—
Except I’m meant to be distractinghim, not letting him distractme.
“So whereareyou taking me on this mystery date that’s worth driving for, hmm?”
“I wanted to take you to Pike Place Market.” He tears his eyes away from the road to ping between mine, like he’s checking my expression.Melt.
But seriously— “Pike Place? For real?That’swhere we’re going?”
“You haven’t been before, have you?”
I shake my head, grinning a crazy-ass grin I can’t do a damn thing about. There’d been a picture of Pike Place, a huge, open-air market that sells everything from flowers to fish to art to god-knows-what-else inside that brochure I’d thought I’d stolen from the bus station when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite pictures in the damn thing; all the smiling people carrying bundles of flowers. All the lights and colors.
“I thought it might give you some inspiration. For your paintings.”
Did I say I’d melted before?
If I didn’t think I’d probably give him a legitimate heart attack for unbuckling, and if I didn’t think I’d get us kickedout of the Uber for doing it, I’d be out of my seatbelt and in my sunshine’s lap this damn moment. Since I don’tactuallywant either of those things to happen, I settle for a probably questionably long, lingering kiss on Jesse’s cheek.
For now.
“I’m kinda losing track at this point,” another kiss, “but I thinkthismight now be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, sunshine.”
His cheek lifts beneath my lips so that I don’t even have to pull away to know he’s smiling. And when I feel the heat of his blush spread across his skin, it makes my already dangerously-full heart flutter with that warm, beautiful feeling I know I’m gonna have to face—and name—sooner rather than later.
Pike Place is every bit as totally fucking amazing as I’d hoped it would be. Considering how much I’d built the place up in my mind when I was a kid, I have a feeling the fact that reality is just as good as imaginationprobablyhas a whole lot more to do with the warm, big hand splayed out low on my back than the actual place, but does it really matter? And yeah, the actual place reallyispretty awesome too.
