“How do they know it was ahe?” I ask.
“Because it always is.”
And she takes another bite.
Winslet’s diary is like a voodoo doll. Filled with scratches and screams and tears and written in a way that maintains no clear thought other than what her senses are picking up or the deterioration of her mind.
But the feeling is obvious. She’s talking and drawing about the Night Ride. The car in her illustrations is the same one I’m seeing. The one Aro told me belongs to the auto shop at Weston High School.
So the questions are; who was driving then, and who’s driving now?
My voice comes out as a whisper, “What do you think the rider was looking for?”
Aro is quiet as she slowly chews. “Whatever it was, he must’ve found it.”
Because he—or she—stopped.
To us, the legend was always just that. No one we know has ever come into contact with the rider. If it ever really happened.
A knock rattles the back door, and I jump, watching Lucas enter from the alleyway.
Aro laughs under her breath at me, but she’d jump, too, if she was alone here late at night with a secret hideout just feet away.
Lucas steps in, dressed in a suit, and I stop breathing for a moment. His crisp white shirt stands out against his dark suit, and our eyes meet, the memory of last night making me almost shiver. His dark blond hair is pushed over to one side as if he raked through it with his fingers, and I can’t help but linger on his sun-kissed skin that’s the same tone as I now know his naked chest and back are.
He glances to Aro and then back to me, lingering and hiding a smile, and I try not to be obvious when I strip off my baker’s jacket. Laying it across the table, I turn back to him, seeing his attention drawn low to my tank top before he inhales a heavy breath and eyes me as if he knows exactly what I’m doing. “Ready?” he taunts back.
I stare at him. Are my panties still in his bed, I wonder?
“Yeah.” And I look to Aro. “I’m not allowed to ride my bike to Weston.”
She chuckles. “Hi,” she tells Lucas.
He nods back to her.
I need a change of clothes, so he’s taking me home before we head back to the gym. Will we talk at all? Will my brothers be there to make him nervous? What will he do if Farrow is there and offers me a ride home instead? We’re neighbors, after all.
Aro dusts off her hands and tosses the empty cupcake wrappers into the garbage. “Can I join you?” she asks both of us. “I wanted to check in on some friends. Hawke will come grab me after lights out.”
Lucas’s eyes dart to me as if I might have a problem with it, but I pop up off my chair. “Sure.”
We tuck in our chairs, and I double-check the front doors, throwing a glance at the closed mirror before I take my bag and phone. We drift into the alley, and I lock the back door, jogging around the passenger side.
“You can get in front,” I blurt out to Aro.
But she pushes the front seat forward and climbs into the back. “Nah, that’s okay.”
Great.Lucas and I are going to look like a thing, sitting in the front together, and if she doesn’t allude to that with Hawke, she’ll tell Dylan.
I put my seatbelt on as Lucas turns the key and starts the car. I avoid his eyes but glance at his hand fisting the stick shift as he punches it into reverse. My clit throbs once.
I blink long and hard, turning my eyes out the window as he backs us out into the street. In a few seconds, we’re on High Street, making our way to Weston.
I left the diary under the laptop on the worktable in the kitchen. I’m sure it’s fine, but I should’ve grabbed it. I have the utmost faith in Hawke to get into the bakery, even though I changed the locks, and I don’t want him confiscating it yet.
I lift my eyes, watching the trees in my side mirror flying past in the darkness.
“That’s an interesting tattoo,” Lucas says.
