“What were you doing, hiding in the bushes?”
“Nah, just needed to step away for a minute.” He nods toward the crowd.
“Those your friends?”
“No,” he replies with a grimace.
“Oh.”
An awkward silence descends but Dean doesn’t allow it to linger. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I smile nervously, gripping the bottom of the steering wheel tighter. “Me too.”
His eyes hold mine.
Dark.
Haunting.
Harboring something I need. Only, I can’t figure out what. I keep trying to come up with something to say but I have nothing.
I’m too nervous.
And he is way too calm.
Finally, he lets go of my gaze and rounds the front of the truck, climbing into the passenger seat.
“Are we not going to the party?” I ask as he closes the door.
He stretches out, making himself comfortable. “Nah…I kind of just want to be alone with you. If that’s okay.”
I gulp twice as warning signals begin to fire off in my brain. Linc’s voice blares with insistence from the back of my mind.
He’s trouble.
However, my morbid curiosity outweighs the risk. Dean is mysterious, yes, and definitely intimidating, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would hurt me.
Not intentionally anyway.
“Sure. Where do you wanna go?”
“You tell me. I’m not from around here.”
I put the truck in drive and head toward the tracks. “So, how’d you end up in Grandeur of all places?”
“You don’t like it here?”
“It’s only the smallest town on the planet. And there’s absolutely nothing to do here.”
“Well, I can think of one thing I want to do right now.”
His words are deliberate, meant to tempt and entice. I let them hang between us, waiting for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.
“My parents died in a house fire two years ago. Dani came to live with my aunt so I moved down here to be closer to her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. They weren’t very nice people.”
