“What?” She’s daring me to either say something as inconsiderate as Charlie, which I’m sure she would not respond as gracefully to, or come up with a new excuse for not letting her drive.
I don’t get a chance to say anything before Harris’s group pulls to the curb in a choking cloud of exhaust. He pops open his door and tosses me the keys. I uncross my arms to snatch them out of the air, giving him the opportunity to engage my students before I can.
Gemma rises from her spot at the picnic table, and he does a double take. “Whoa, boy. Starting a new trend, Gemma?”
She bounces on the balls of her feet, mimicking a basketball player warming up. “Karson was threatening to ban me from driving.”
“We take safety seriously.” Harris shrugs the boulders he calls shoulders. “But it looks like you’re up now.”
I lift my chin at Harris in thanks for having my back. Then I hold out the keys to Gemma. “Go get ’em, Tiger.”
Her gaze jumps to mine again, as if she’s forgotten that she’s supposed to be avoiding me or glaring at me. Her eyes remain clouded with uncertainty. Either she’s actually afraid to drive our racetrack or she wasn’t expecting me to cheer her on.
She reaches for the keys, and her smooth nails tickle my palm. That’s all. Just her nails brush my skin. But they might as well be a stylus on a touchscreen, pulling up video reel from all our interactions—from when I took her fingerprints to when she offered to kiss me.
Should she ever be able to capture scenes like this in her screenplays, she’ll have directors wrapped around her little finger, not to mention the power to toy with the emotions of an audience. Which is exactly what I don’t want her to do to me. Neither the emotions nor the wrap-around-the-finger thing.
Without another word, I turn toward the cruiser, breaking off contact. “Kai and Charlie, you’re in the back.”
Kai pulls out his phone. “Can I film?”
My default is to say no, but I suspect this experience is going to be way too entertaining not to share with the world. I face Gemma over the hood of the cruiser. I can’t see her funky getup from this position, but she still seems completely out of place.
Her shiny lips part. From the rapid rise and fall of her chest, I know she’s sucking in air. And there’s a flash of fear in her eyes.
She has nothing to be afraid of—I’m right here.
“Sure, why not?” I answer Kai. “Go ahead and film.”
Gemma’s eyes harden into glacier blue. She flips her hair back and pulls it into a ponytail with some fluffy hair band. Then she bites her lips and drops into the car.
I don’t realize I’m grinning until Kai points his phone my way and Charlie says, “Smile for the camera.”
I scowl and sink into the passenger seat. When I gave permission to film, I didn’t mean me.
The car rocks and doors snap shut. Thankfully Kai’s phone is now pointed at Gemma. We all watch her look at the console and the computer system she’s not used to. Then she lifts her chin and studies the orange cones on the course.
Kai turns the phone as if taking a selfie. “Charlie and I are in the back of a cop car,” he tells his imaginary audience.
“We’re not in trouble,” Charlie explains, as if he’s afraid this video could be used against him in a court of law. “Gemma is simply going to take us for a ride.”
So far, our driver hasn’t even turned on the ignition.
“You okay?” I ask. She’s probably wishing she’d used her shoes as an excuse to back out of this situation.
“I’m just getting my bearings.” She straps on her seat belt.
I follow suit, though I barely hear the click of safety before the engine roars to life and Gemma steps on the gas hard enough to give me whiplash.
“Whoa!” I’m pressed against my seat as though we’ve blasted off toward the moon. I stare in horror out the windshield at the chainlink fence zooming toward us and wish I had one of those brake pedals used for training student drivers. I’m torn between offering up one last prayer of repentance before I die or shouting for Gemma to brake so that I might possibly live another day. I open my mouth to shout when she spins the steering wheel, and we’re rounding corners like Lightning McQueen.
I grab onto the door handle and rock violently back and forth while Gemma expertly snakes her way through the cones. The hoodlums in the back seat whoop it up. I just try to point and shout warnings, but we’re going so fast that anything I might have possibly helped prepare Gemma for is already behind us.
We make it to the final stretch, and Gemma drives it like she stole it.
Larry and his radar gun are nothing but a blur when we race past, though I can imagine him giving Harris a bad time about how Gemma just smoked his mph.
She screeches to a halt, though my heartbeat continues to race. It sounds louder now that the car is quiet. Then it’s drowned out by eruptions from the men in back.
