Nice Guys Don't Win (The Boys #2) - Micalea Smeltzer Page 0,16
Auto Shop.”
“Thank you. I appreciate the help.”
I jerk my head in a nod. “You might want to get changed.”
Her eyes narrow on mine. “Why?”
“Bonfire tonight. There’s always a party out in a field near the old football field to celebrate the start of the year.”
“There’s an old football field, implying there’s a new one?”
I laugh. “Yeah, they put a brand new arena in about fifteen years ago, so the old field is just sort of there.”
She takes a couple of sips of root beer, a frown marring her lips. “What if I don’t want to go? I’m not that great at socializing.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that. But you should come. It’ll be fun.”
She toys her bottom lip with her teeth. “Fine,” she agrees. “Let me shower first.”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of time.”
8
Zoey
“You’re riding with me,” Cole says, walking over to his pickup.
“I can drive myself.”
He levels me with a look. “No reason we can’t go together, Roomie.”
I don’t feel like arguing with him, so I agree. I cross over to his truck, the door creaking and screaming when I open it and then close it behind me. His truck smells of cinnamon and I find the reason for it when he reaches down and grabs a pack of Trident cinnamon gum, popping a piece into his mouth.
“You like gum,” I remark, noting all the empty packs littering the floor.
He laughs, cranking the engine. “Yeah, I chew it mostly when I’m nervous. It distracts me.”
“Are you nervous now?”
“Nah, just want some gum.” He grins over at me, his teeth blindingly white in the darkness as he pulls out of the apartment complex. “You look nice.”
I look at my ripped jean shorts and my white ratty high-top Converse. I put on a white crop top and my favorite gold necklace. It was my mother’s, and she gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. The flower charm with her birthstone in the center is one of my most cherished possessions. Ironically enough it was my dad who gave it to her on their one-year-dating-anniversary.
“I’m not dressed up.”
He shrugs, checking both ways before making a left turn at the stop sign. “Doesn’t mean you can’t look nice. Surely you know you’re beautiful, Zoey.”
My treacherous stomach dances with the flutters of a million butterflies. “You’re not allowed to say that.”
“Why not? I’m not hitting on you, just stating fact.”
A flush steals over my body, a fire building inside me. I need to douse it before it gets out of control. “Do you mind if I put the window down?”
“Nope.” He turns the radio up, That’s My Kind of Night by Luke Bryan playing. I roll the window down with the hand crank and lean out, letting my arms loose in the window. “What the fuck? Get back in here.”
He grabs onto the back of my shirt with one hand, trying to yank me backwards. He manages it easily since he’s a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than me.
I shove his hand off me. “Stop, I’m fine. I want to feel the air.”
“You’re crazy,” he grumbles.
“Ten seconds, that’s all I ask.”
He mutters reluctant agreement but holds onto my belt loop when I lean out this time.
I count down my seconds and settle back into the seat, leaving the window down. My curly hair swirls around my shoulders and I revel in the sting of the air on my cheeks.
After my mom died, I had my best friend drive me around while I leaned out the car window just like I did tonight. It was a reminder that was I alive, that I could still feel the air on my face and let it fill my lungs, while my mom couldn’t—it was my way of telling myself I had to keep going.
Little did I know a few short years later I’d be losing that friend too, but for very different reasons. It doesn’t make the loss any easier to bear.
“What are you thinking about?” Cole gives me a speculative glance.
I inhale that stinging crisp nightly air into my lungs. “Friendships,” I reply.
How they form. How they grow. How they fall apart.
I can tell he wants to ask more, but he doesn’t. He turns onto a backroad near the university, and soon we’re bumping over the land. Lanterns hang from some of the trees, lighting the way. Eventually we come to an open area where lots of cars are parked, and he pulls off at the first empty spot.