“Hey, are you okay?”
“Yes.” I run a hand over my face—compose myself. I don’t have to hide anything right now. Ben is supposed to be my boyfriend. I lean over and plant a chaste kiss on his lips. It makes me feel a million times better, and when I break away, he’s smiling and blushing.
Nate clears his throat. “I’ll drive.”
“Focus on the road!” I shout as he climbs in the driver’s seat.
I make sure Ben has his seatbelt on when he climbs into the backseat next to me. Watch Nate back out of the car park and decide he seems like a safe enough driver to trust him.
“Don’t worry,” Nate says with a grin when he spots me glaring at him. “My joy riding days are behind me.”
I turn to Ben. “Is he joking?”
He chews his lip. “Sort of.”
“I stole one car when I was fifteen, big deal.”
I keep glaring at him as he hits the road. My hand instinctively finds Ben’s on the seat and squeezes it all the way home.
23
BEN
The guys surround me when we get back to the house. I try to play the accident down as much as I can. It wasn’t a big deal at all, but I can imagine Elias blowing it up to epic proportions in his head and for good reason. I can’t even imagine how much this must have caused old trauma over his mom to resurface. I feel terrible that I did that to him. Nate didn’t help, joking about joy riding. I could have strangled him when he started up like that.
When Elias excuses himself to use the bathroom, I pull Nate into the kitchen to talk to him.
But before I can say a word, he jumps in.
“Hey, what’s Elias’ deal?”
My face flushes. I want to tell him to keep his voice down, but the guys are being noisy, fighting over the TV in the other room.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did he come barreling into the hospital like a protective husband?”
Husband.My heart pounds so hard it hurts before I give myself a reality check.
“He did not.”
“Um, yeah, he did. He was like one of those big alpha male guys.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean, they usually have darker hair, but they’re always as tall as Elias, maybe a bit broader, and they go around shouting things like ‘who hurt you’ and ‘I’ll kill anyone who touches you—with my bare hands.’”
I snort, but I’m ashamed to say the idea of Elias threatening to kill anyone who touches me kind of turns me on.
“He did not say that.”
“He might as well have. He looked like he was going to bludgeon me to death when he thought I’d distracted you from driving. I told him you only had whiplash—at worst.”
“You don’t understand, he has … listen, it’s his business, but, just please trust me on this, yeah? He has his reasons for overreacting today.”
Nate frowns. “Does he have anger issues or something? Ben?—”
“No, not anger issues, just some trauma. So can you please stop talking about crashing cars? It might really freak him out.”
