“You wore a path in the carpet, babe.”
A knock sounds at the door, and my heart does a flip.
“No pep talks,” I say, grabbing my keys and twisting the doorknob before she can open her mouth again.
“At least let me threaten him with a shovel!” Whitley calls after me with laughter in her voice, but I’m already slipping through the crack in the door.
And then I see him.
Rowan’s waiting on the porch, tall and broad and impossibly relaxed—until I notice the way his thumbs fidget in his pockets. He’s wearing a dark blue henley, sleeves shoved up to his elbows. The color makes his eyes look downright criminal.
His gaze lifts when I step outside, eyes sweeping down to the buttons on my cardigan, the jeans that took three different mirror checks to commit to. His mouth tugs up in a crooked grin, and then his gaze snaps back up to mine.
“Jesus, Violet,” he says, low and rough. “You look…”
I raise a brow, arms folding across my chest. “Like someone who owns clothes that aren’t scrubs?”
His grin deepens, but there’s a flush creeping up the side of his neck, and it hits me—he’s nervous. Big, broody Rowan, who once drove a stolen golf cart through the senior parking lot and didn’t flinch when the principal chased him down, is anxious about taking me on a date.
“You look like trouble,” he finally says. “The kind a guy dreams about and never quite gets out of his system.”
I…well. I pretend that doesn’t make my knees turn into Jell-o.
“Are you gonna keep saying things like that,” I ask, moving past him toward the truck, “or are we actually leaving sometime tonight?”
He follows and opens the passenger door for me. When I slide in, I swear I catch him mouthingtroubleto himself with a shake of his head.
Rowan climbs in behind the wheel, one knee knocking into the dash as he settles. The door thuds shut, sealing us inside. The cab fills with him, his presence, until there’s nowhere for the air to go and my next breath becomes a task.
“Your roommate is staring at us through the window,” he says, gesturing with his chin.
I follow his gaze and immediately regret having functional eyesight. Whitley’s face is mashed against the glass, lips puckered into something obscene. Then she pauses just long enough to mime a stabbing motion, then mouths something that looks suspiciously likeI know where you sleep.
“Oh my god.” I slide lower in my seat. “Please drive. Immediately. Before she remembers where she left the shovel.”
Rowan’s mouth twitches. One eyebrow lifts. “Shovel?”
“Don’t ask.”
He chuckles, throwing the truck into reverse.
“So,” Rowan says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, “is this the part where we pretend we’re not both overthinking every single thing right now?”
I snort, grateful for the tension breaker. “Is it that obvious?”
“Your left knee hasn’t stopped bouncing since you got in. And now you’re going to be conscious of it for the next hour,” he says, a smirk playing at his lips. “Sorry about that.”
“You’re not sorry at all.”
“Not even a little bit.” His eyes flick to me, then back to the road. “It’s cute. You being nervous about this.”
“I’m not nervous,” I lie, then immediately cave under his skeptical sideways glance. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’m a little…tense.”
“Just tense?”
“Apprehensive.”
“Try again.”