He laughed, but still leaned forward to start to pull off his hoodie.“Fine, fine.But no peeking.”
I had, quite frankly, no intention of looking.
Even if I had, the weather wasn’t exactly obliging for surreptitious glances.The sound of the rain hitting the roof of the truck echoing in the cabin, louder than the yelling air vents.Visibility even worse than when I’d picked Flynn up; my knuckles were white as I gripped the wheel, nervous as the wind gained speed and it felt like I could see little more than to the end of the hood.
“Fuck, I forgot what these storms were like.”Flynn sounded more awed than frustrated.
I shrugged, wishing the lights did more than set each hefty raindrop glowing.My fear - well, one of them - was that some terrified deer would come galloping out, trying to cross in front of us.At the speed we were going, it wasn’t like injury was a huge risk, but my pay at the thrift store didn’t exactly leave much excess to cover unexpected truck damages.
“You look like you’re about to tear the wheel off,” he joked.
I narrowed my eyes.“And yet I’m not the one who went out, with a storm warning, and didn’t even take a coat.”
Flynn gestured, an apology I saw out of the corner of my eye.He’d pushed down his sweatpants too I realized, from my quick glance.Bare legs sprawling lazily into the footwell.
“I said I was grateful for you coming out to get me,” he told me, in a tone that suggested I was overreacting somehow.
“No,” I corrected him, “you didn’t.”
Flynn sighed.“I’m sorry, then.And grateful that you came out.There was no heating in the car, and I was all wet, and it wasn’t shaping up to be a fun night.So, thank you.”
I nodded, curtly.Somehow, I’d almost preferred it when we were sniping at each other.That, I knew how to do.
A huge crack of lightning lit the scenery like daylight, afterimages of waterlogged fields seared into my vision as I blinked.The thunder that quickly followed was less a rumble, than a vast pair of hands seeming to grab each side of the pickup and shake it.
Gingerly, I pulled to a halt.Hit the button for the hazard blinkers, their rhythmic click barely audible over the torrential rain.
“Good idea,” Flynn said, his voice practically a whisper.
I turned, to nod agreement at him, and then instantly regretted it.
I’d known he was getting undressed, of course.Had seen him toss wet clothes behind him.And yet somehow the knowledge of that wasn’t quite the equal of seeing Flynn actually sitting there, in black trunks and a seatbelt, across from me in the truck.
He was attractive, that was part of the problem.A reasonably big part, frankly.
A chest that’d obviously seen plenty of gym visits; arms which looked just as good completely bare as they had in the thrift polo shirt he’d tried on that morning.A patch of dark hair between his pecs, and a matching treasure trail that led down into the waistband of his underwear.
Underwear that, even my hurried view confirmed, was not only well-filled, but clinging more obviously thanks to the thorough soaking Flynn had just experienced.
I stared ahead, to the front of the hood I could only really see when lightning illuminated it, cursing life, and hot men, and the sexual frustration that comes when your primary relationship is with your own right hand.
“We’ll just, uh, wait out the...worse of it,” I told him.Wanting to go further, to suggest that we do so in silence.Only I knew that would only seem more weird, make Flynn more suspicious of my suddenly-brittle behavior.
For a while it seemed like we’d concurred, anyway.Flynn no more eager to talk from the passenger seat, as I was behind the wheel.A hopeful assumption dashed, when I heard him take a breath.
“Look, I know what’s happening.”
I clenched my jaw, wishing for invisibility, or maybe just for a lightning bolt to strike the truck and vaporize us both.After a moment, I realized he was waiting for me to say something in response.
“Oh, really.”
About as far away from a question, a nudge to share more information, as you could get.Not that I held out much hope that Flynn would oblige: after all, I’d acted like an absolute asshole to him so far this week.I couldn’t exactly blame the guy for wanting to get some revenge, at the expense of my roaming eyes.
He sighed.“I’m not gonna tell my parents.”
My frown was instinctive.Sudden flashbacks to how it’d been growing up, when we’d played together in the street.Stupid, childish pranks that’d backfired, and the specter of one set of parents or the other discovering the window smashed, or the car dented, or the new shirt torn.
“I’m not gonna tell my mom and dad that you were perving on me” was a new one, though.
