I exhale, loudly, glancing back to the road. “Yeah. Well, it’s a badass car. So… yeah.”
Why am I losing my cool with a sixteen-year-old girl? I shake my head and crack my neck.
“God, you’re just as pissy as my brother. Do the two of you twist each other’s panties or just your own?”
I glare at her. This is the last time I’ll ever agree to help Shane out. His sister is an annoying little shit. And I do mean little because she only stands like five-feet tall.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You had no right to put your nose in my business. I can handle myself.”
“Noted.”
“Who I hang out with is none of my brother’s business.”
I quirk a brow. “Maybe not, but if he caught wind thatyou were fucking some kid in the back seat of a car at the sawmill, you’d have a dead boyfriend and a brother behind bars. So, if you think about it, I did you a favor.”
She whips her head toward me. “What is wrong with you?”
“You know, I can see the resemblance. Shane asks me that same question all the time.”
She glares, before forcefully blowing air out of her nose and slamming back into the seat. “Great. Well, you can pat yourself on the back. Now no one in town will even look at me.” She shakes her head and stares out the window.
That catches me off guard because there’s no malice in her voice this time. I look over at her.
Shit. She’s kind of pretty.
Nope. Absolutely not. I can’t think of my best friend’s little sister as pretty. No matter how true that may be. No matter that her blonde curls look like morning sunlight, or that her gray eyes are almost silver with the moon reflecting off them. Or that her bottom lip is just a little fuller than the top, and she’s wearing this berry color that I can’t seem to peel my gaze away from as she bites the top one. And it especially doesn’t matter that the moment she climbed into my car, the space filled with the most pleasant warm vanilla smell. None of that makes it okay for me to see her as anything but my best friend’s sister.
I don’t know what to say, but that sad look on her face has my stomach tying itself in a knot.
So, I hit the gas. She straightens, grabbing the seat with both hands.
“Are you insane?” she shouts over the roar of the engine.
I glance over at her, grinning. “Now whose panties are in a twist?”
“I don’t know.” She cocks her head, blinking. “How about I tell my brother you asked about my panties?”
Fuck me.Why did she say that? Not only will he absolutely kick my ass if she tells him that, but now I have to resist the urge to think about her goddamn panties, which is definitely over the line.
My jaw tics, and I speed up.
“Or that you tried to kill me!” she shouts.
“Oh, don’t be a wuss. We’re fine.”
“You’re going like a million miles an hour, Gabe!”
“Nah. Just ninety.”
She stares at me for a minute before cracking a smile and rolling down her window. The night air blows in, flinging her hair around, and I grin, rolling mine down too.
A full, warm sound leaves her mouth, and I wish I didn’t like it so much.
Her laugh is like summer.
12
ASH
