I Knew You Were Trouble - Cassie Mae Page 0,37

of Candace for her squeaky voice, but my brain stutters when I catch a glimpse of a somewhat familiar face.

He’s around my age, so that always catches my attention. It’s not often we get the college kids on the weekends, since we’re packed with the younger generation. But it is the holidays, so families are in town. There’s a flash of recognition in his eyes as they meet mine, and it’s right then that it clicks.

An odd sinking feeling rests in the pit of my stomach. Candace isn’t at the podium but standing just outside, peering over my shoulder as I shut the door behind me.

“Was that your bad boy?” I ask, completely forgetting my hot mic. Her mouth opens with a cute pop, and I laugh as she yanks the mic from my head.

“If I didn’t need you, I’d kill you.”

“Aww, so sweet.” Laughter fills that sinkhole in my gut. Guess I know why she was so squeaky. “You okay?”

She blows out a shaky breath, fear replacing the smile behind her eyes. There’s the Candace I’m more familiar with. What is it about this guy that turns her into a lit fuse?

“Are you doing anything after work?” she blurts.

“You mean besides sleeping?”

“I was hoping to squeeze out another lesson from you.” Her brows knit inward. “I’ll pay you extra.”

That’d be nice, but I don’t need more than she’s giving. She’s overpaying me as it is. “What fear did you want to conquer tonight?”

Her teeth pull at the inside of her lip, and she tugs at the end of her paint-stained ponytail. “Will you take me for a ride on Gertrude?”

Candace

Zach asked me out.

Sort of.

The words “take a ride sometime” were said, and then I blacked out. Thank heavens I have the Zombie Theater prep memorized; my brain started pinging and popping like a broken down car on the freeway.

Pete is pretty quiet through the rest of our shift… either that or it’s me and my pinging brain not hearing anything. He flips the lights off at 9:30, and I grab our coats and hand his over. He doesn’t take his blue Troublemakers shirt off like he usually does.

The theater is the fastest clean up, since there is no food allowed in our area, and I’m strict about it. Tanner, however, is still mopping up in the Wheel Zone as we pass. He gives me a big grin and waves.

“See you tomorrow, Candace.”

“I’m actually off,” I call back to him, and the disappointment on his face matches the sad state of his disheveled black Troublemakers shirt—wrinkled and droopy on his lean frame. I was supposed to work with him twice this past week, but I messed with my schedule.

“You’re gonna break that boy’s heart one day,” Pete teases, pushing the exit door open with his butt and stepping back for me to walk through.

I roll my eyes, nerves gluing my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Tanner may act like he’s into me, but he isn’t. He hardly knows me.

Then again, I like a guy I’ve spoken maybe five sentences to.

Pete and I walk in near silence to the employee parking lot. I say near silence, because he’s humming some random tune. I wonder if he hates silence as much as I hate motorcycles.

I stop dead in my tracks when we get within arm’s reach of his bike.

“Change your mind?” he asks with a smirk.

“Do you have an extra helmet?” I’m not getting on the death machine without one, and I realize that my plans to nip this fear in the bud might be dead on arrival.

“You can use mine.” He holds it out, but I don’t take it.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well, we can borrow a helmet from the Wheel Zone if you’re really worried about it.”

I glance over my shoulder to the doors to Troublemakers and nibble on the inside of my bottom lip. Would those helmets even do anything in a motorcycle accident? I mean, what’s the line in the sand between giving a bird to the rules and being safe?

Safe and sound has gotten me nowhere and given me nothing; that’s why I’m changing isn’t it?

Pete’s hyena laugh pulls me from my head, and I narrow my eyes. “What?”

“Your face.”

“Always laughing at my face.”

“You just seem to be struggling with something there.” He closes the six foot gap between us and gently pulls my Troublemaker’s cap from my head. My ponytail flips out and hits my upper back. “Look, I’ll drive slow