take forever. I seriously don’t have time for that nor the desire to freeze to death.
Nibbling at my lip, I stop at the contact, the only logical choice. I don’t like doing it, I hate depending on others, but it’s not like I have many options. Letting my lip pop out, I press call, and wait. Callie picks up after a few rings, laughing.
“Hey, Cals.”
“Hey, stop it!” she yells, followed by more laughter.
Confused, I look around.
“Umm… Okay?” I frown. This is obviously a bad time. I guess walking it is.
“No, not you,” she squeals, and I can hear Hayden mutter something in the background. “Hayden!”
I cringe at her high-pitched voice. “Did I catch you in a bad moment? I seriously don’t need to hear you having sex. Have mercy on my poor lonesome self.”
I don’t even want to think about when the last time was that I had sex. When you’re trying to graduate college early while at the same time juggling work and volunteering, partying and sex are definitely not on the top of your to-do list.
“We’re not having sex. Hayden, will you stop tickling me?” She inhales a deep breath as if collecting herself. “Hey, Yas, what’s up?”
“It’s seriously okay. You don’t have to…”
“Yas.” There is a note of warning in her tone that makes me pause.
I close my eyes and murmur into the speaker. “Do you think you could pick me up?”
“What happened?” Callie asks immediately, the worry in her voice clear.
“I’m fine,” I rush to reassure her. “Just my stupid car decided to die on me. I was tutoring at Bright Haven. You know I wouldn’t…”
“Stop it,” she interrupts me mid-sentence. “We’ll be there. Wait in the car, you hear me?”
“Thanks, Callie,” I say quietly as relief spreads through me.
“Anytime. I’m serious, Yas. Wait in the car. We’ll be there in no time,” she repeats, before disconnecting the call.
The car’s headlights blind me as it pulls to a stop behind me. Grabbing my things from the passenger seat, I open the door and get out, only to stop in my tracks.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
The familiar black BMW is parked behind my piece of shit car. There are a dozen possible scenarios as to why Hayden and Callie would take Nixon’s car to come and pick me up—maybe Zane took Hayden’s truck, or Nixon’s car was the easiest to access—but for some reason, I don’t believe any of them are true.
Nope, Nixon is the one sitting inside that car, waiting for me. I just know it.
The driver’s door opens, and Nixon gets out, that smirk of his firmly plastered on his lips. He leans against the door and cocks an eyebrow at me. “You coming or what?”
Since I’ve been freezing while waiting for him for the past twenty minutes I should jump inside and relish the warmth, but my body doesn’t move.
“What? You don’t even wanna peek underneath the hood to try and pretend like you know what might be wrong with the car? Isn’t that a typical guy move in this situation?” The words come out before I can stop them, way snarkier than I intended them to be. I cross my arms over my chest, and tuck my frozen fingers underneath my upper arms in hopes of keeping them warm.
He gives me a knowing look but doesn’t bite back. “You wound me, babe. You should know by now that I have better moves than that. Besides, it’s cold as fuck and darker than a rat’s nest out here.” He tilts his head to the side. “C’mon. I’ll take you home, and tomorrow we can come and see what’s going on under the hood.”
Slowly, I move toward his car. “So what you’re trying to say is that you know something about cars, but you’re too lazy to look now?”
He narrows his eyes at me, but there is a tick in the corner of his mouth, saying he’s fighting a laugh. “Do you want to walk back to campus?”
“You wouldn’t.” I stop in front of the passenger door and look over the hood at him.
He’s casually dressed, which should look lazy and take away some of his appeal, but it doesn’t. Of course, it doesn’t. Jeans and a hoodie fit him perfectly, and with his hair mussed like he just woke up and a few days of stubble covering his jaw, he looks like sex on a stick.
Seriously, Yas? Get a grip.
As if he can read my mind, Nixon lifts his brows, that smirk of his