“Someone will notice we’re missing … eventually.”
“What doeseventuallymean?”
“A week or so.”
“What?!”
He laughed. “Are you always so gullible? The maintenance crew will be here in a couple of hours.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know some of them. Sometimes I come up to the third floor after the race to think while the crew is still packing up down below. It’s quiet. No one’s up here.”
“Oh,” Nico sighed. “Okay, I can do a couple of hours.”
Rocco scoffed. “I can do more than a couple of hours.”
She glared at him. “Is everything a competition with you?”
“Isn’t it with you? How are you any different?”
Nico turned her back to him and began to pace.
“I thought things were going to be different after …” he muttered.
She swung around. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled.
The words came out from behind his gritted teeth with such force, Nico could almost swear they’d achieved solidity and were sitting there on the carpet.
“I heard you,” she said. “You said you thought things were going to be different.”
“Well, if you heard me, then why did you ask?”
“You said differentafter. After what?”
He didn’t respond.
She placed her hands on her hips. “Oh, I know.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“I do. You thought because you did one nice thing for me by jumping up on the hood of that car, I should be grateful.” Nico clasped her hands and held them against her chest. “My hero! Is that it? And then, what? I’m just supposed to make way for you out on the racetrack, is that it?”
He glared at her, shaking his head. “No, that’s not it. I didn’t do it to be nice. I did it because it was the right thing to do. I would have done the same for any woman. Don’t go thinking you’re so special.”
“I don’t think I’m so special.”
“‘You are so full of shit, if you ever had an enema you’d evaporate into thin air.’”
Nico sputtered and then laughed. She stopped when she saw he wasn’t laughing. He didn’t even crack a smile. Not even a hint of a grin.
He sighed, lowering his head as though he were speaking to the carpet. “I did it because of what you said.”
“What did I say?” she asked.
He looked up, clearly surprised.
