His mouth was on mine hard and firm, and that’s a different word for the same thing, but he was kissing me, and he was driving.
I jerked backward. “Are you insane? You’redriving!” I scrubbed my hand along my mouth. “Are youtryingto kill us?”
“No,” he bit out. “But it’s the only way I know how to shut you up.”
A burst of surprised laughter escaped me. I pressed my fingers against my mouth, trying to hold back the laughter, but it wasn’t working. Dustin glanced at me and grinned, and we both started laughing.
“You’re fucking crazy, you know that, right?” he asked as we calmed down.
“I prefer passionate,” I said primly, still smiling at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Call it passionate, call it whatever — wild’s still wild, baby.”
His phone dinged again. “They’re in Cardinal, we need to speed this up. You done with all the—” his hand waved in my general direction — “you stuff?”
“The ‘you stuff’?” I tipped my head back against the seat. “You mean the crazy us stuff. Yeah.” I didn’t look at him. “I’m done.”
He surprised me when his hand covered my knee and squeezed. “Later, remember?”
He didn’t remove his hand, and I didn’t push it away. The way he affected me should have worried me. I simply nodded. The silence as we drove had less frenetic energy. It was almost comfortable.
We hit a town called Cardinal, and I looked around. “Who are we coming to meet?” And why was I only asking now?
“Ava. She’s a student at Cardinal, she’s cool.” He glanced over at me. “She knows stats like an algorithm knows stats. She’s impressive.”
“Oh.” I flipped the sun visor down; the vanity mirror lit up automatically, and I checked my hair and wished I’d brought some lipstick.
“You look good, Peterson.”
I flipped the visor back up. “What’s the deal with Dante and their QB?”
Dustin rolled his eyes. “It’s just sports stuff. Ego and testosterone.”
“Sounds stupid.” I fixed my sweater.
“No doubt.”
We pulled in behind Savannah’s car. The three of them were outside, lounging. I noticed Noah was eating something.
Dustin got out, and I heard Noah ask if I was still breathing. I got out too.
“Har har, you’re all so funny,” I snarked at them.
“You still have her friend’s number?” Dante asked Dustin. “I never thought to ask before.”
“I have Ash’s number,” Dustin said.
“Is Ash the friend?” I asked, hoping the stab of jealousy I was pretending hadn’t happened wasn’t noticeable.
“Ash Santo, tight end,” Dante explained. “Why do you have his number?”
And I thought I was the jealous one. Wow.
Dustin put his phone to his ear, Dante shook his head, and Dustin put the phone on speaker. “Because I went to school with him,” he said as if that explained it.
He waited, and then we heard the deep voice. “Dust?”
“Hey, Ash, yeah, it’s me. How you doing?” They exchanged brief pleasantries. “Hey, look, this is going to sound weird, but any chance you can give me Ava’s number, or give her mine to call me?”