I don’t havea goddamn clue what I’m playing at.
My best friend all but admitted he’s in love with this girl. Yet I can’t stop myself chasing her. I haven’t stopped thinking about her all week—her laugh, her mouth, the way she looked at me.
When she told me she wanted me again earlier, it was like my body shot back to life. A defibrillator straight to the chest.
She wants me. Not him.
Best friend or not, she threw his hat on the ground and made her choice. I want to hear her side of the story. I need to.
I pull onto the main road and tap my fingers against the steering wheel, glancing over at her. She’s staring out of the window like she’s trying to dissolve into the glass.
“Reese really likes you, Lola,” I say, and the words taste like acid coming out of my mouth.
Her head flings around to face me. “Reese is a fucking creep. Why are you friends with him? He doesn’t fit in with you at all.” Her eyes narrow. “Or are you not who I think you are?”
I raise an eyebrow. That spirit in her. That fire. I want more of it. I want to pour gasoline on it and watch it burn.
She has a point, though. I’m not at all who she thinks I am. Well, the other half of my life isn’t. She knows the cowboy. The single dad who chases his kid around bouncy castles and tips his hat at pretty girls. Not the man who has buried people in the fields behind his ranch.
“He’s been my friend since school. We grew up together. He enjoys different things than I do, yeah. But, we’ve stayed friends ever since.”
She nods, taking that in, twirling the rings on her finger the way she does when she’s thinking. “Right. So, you know he’s delusional, then? If you’re really good friends.”
I chew on the inside of my mouth. And then I ask the question that’s been clawing at the walls of my skull since the second I saw his arm around her. “Have you fucked him?”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“What, you want to work out who fucked me first? You want to see if you won and stole me first?” she snaps.
“No.”
She scoffs, and I immediately regret asking her. “Is that what you think of me? Just some girl from New York that came here to fuck her way ‘round town?” Her voice shakes with a fury that fills the entire cab. “Stop the fucking truck.”
And my cock fucking aches.
I ignore her request and push my foot down on the accelerator.
She slams both hands down on the dash hard enough to rattle the glovebox. “Stop this motherfucking truck, or I will jump, Hunter. I’m done with you. Your stupid fucking friends. This whole place.”
I take a deep breath. Keep my cool. Pull over slowly onto the shoulder and kill the engine. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but open fields and a sky turning purple at the edges.
She lets out a shaky breath, and I reach over and place my hand on her trembling thigh. “Is that what you want? To run from me?” I let the question sit. “Hmm?”
She closes her eyes. Refuses to look at me.
“Is that what you want, firefly? Tell me.”
“No.” The word comes out so quietly I can barely hear it over the ticking of the engine.
“Louder.”
“No!” she shouts, and the force of it bounces off every surface in the cab.
I grin.
“Right.” I squeeze her thigh. “Good girl.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and I chuckle, giving her a shrug like I haven’t just detonated something between us. “I have no issues chasing you, Lola. You can run, I’ll catch you. I’ll fuck you. I’ll make you mine.”