When her amusement had run its course, she said, “What’syourname?”
He considered her for a long, breathless moment. She’d never seen eyes that dark before, and found them both piercing and impenetrable, like he could take her precise measure without giving away anything in return.
“Nick,” he finally said.
Nick. She turned the syllable over in her mind. So abrupt, like a punch. It suited him. “Well, hi, Nick. I’m—”
“Aubrey. Yeah. I know.”
A flush crept up her neck. “You heard me, then? In English? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because. I don’t like cheerleaders. And they definitely don’t like me.”
A normal person would have been stung by his dismissiveness. Maybe driven off and left him standing in the road. But his words sparked all the opposite desires, because they sounded like a challenge.
And she’d never been much good at backing down. Not when there was a puzzle in need of solving.
“Cheerleading isn’t something I actually care about,” she said. “It was just to round out my college applications. It doesn’t define me.”
He dipped his chin. “Mmm. I’m getting that.”
“Okay, well, good.” She tugged at her seat belt. “Does that mean you’ll get in the car now?”
The corner of his mouth curled. His lips were uniquely plush amid the ascetic lines of his face—the top one pouted out, fuller than the bottom, and she stared at it while a long silence unraveled.
Abruptly, Nick withdrew from the window. Aubrey started to protest, but he didn’t walk off. Instead, he jerked the dooropen, flopped onto the passenger seat, and slammed the door with an arch of expectant black brows.
“There,” he said. “Happy?”
Surprise knotted her tongue. She sat there until the blare of a horn jolted her. When she glanced in her rearview mirror, an impatient driver gesticulated.
Aubrey stomped the gas. What was wrong with her? She’d stopped in the middle of a two-lane highway. How stupid.
“Put your seat belt on,” she said.
Nick gave her an appraising look. “A cheerleader who likes mathandsafety? This is getting weirder by the second.”
Warmth stung her cheeks. “Well, I went to all this trouble to rescue you. I can’t have you dying on me now.”
He let out a scuffed laugh. “I don’t need rescuing. Not in the hallway, and not when dickhead jocks decide to punch me.”
“Clearly,” she murmured.
“You didn’t think Gallant would actually listen when you told him not to hit me, did you?”
“No. But it was worth a try.”
When Nick didn’t respond, Aubrey searched for another topic. “So... you just moved to Henderson?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“From?”
“Baltimore.”
“Did you get in a lot of fights there, or something?”
He gave a stiff shrug. “Some.”
