Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,58

right hand, unlocking the screen with my thumb. The phone lit up my place by the window, rain pummeling the bus as we drove through the dark night.

“Let me take you home,” it read.

I clicked my music off, glancing over and seeing his phone in his hand, too—the same text visible.

“No,” I typed back.

I couldn’t let him take me home. Not ever. I tried to pull away from his hand, but he clasped it tightly.

“Let me take you home,” he typed again.

I clenched my teeth and turned my eyes out the window. I tried to pull my hand away once more, but he grasped it, forcing it instead onto my thigh, his fingers grazing my skin there.

A bolt of lightning shot through me, but instead of being angry, butterflies swarmed in my stomach and I squeezed my eyes shut. Leaving him there.

My phone beeped, and it took a moment to look at it. “I want to hold you like that,” it said.

I glanced up at Miller and Desi again, his arms wrapped around her, and I pictured myself in Will’s lap, parked off some dark road in the rain, and it took everything I had not to look at him, because if I did, he’d know…

He would know that I didn’t always hate him. A sliver of my brain was starting to believe there was more to him.

But I shoved his hand off, biting the corner of my mouth to keep the emotions away.

“Cops came to the warehouse and took all the tappers,” someone said loud enough to pierce my earbuds.

I turned my head enough to see a cheerleader, Lynlee Hoffman, across the aisle, looking back at Will.

He sat there, his hand still under the hoodie, acting like everything was completely normal. “Oh, yeah?” he said.

But he didn’t give a shit.

Lynlee shot me a look, narrowing her eyes and lifting her chin, because if they found out there was a party, it was because I had told my brother, right? As if the cops had to be geniuses to figure out a win always equaled a kegger at the warehouse. Duh.

I turned up the volume on my music again, drowning out any other sounds and tapped my thumbs, typing out a message. “Take her home. She’ll drool all over your dumb haircut and extensive knowledge of micro-brews and penis jokes.”

I mean, he was a jock.

I felt him shake with a laugh next to me.

He typed, letters flashing on his screen. “I take you home, or I take you in my lap right here. Decide.”

I ground my teeth together.

Everyone would see that. If my brother heard about it, I’d…

Jesus.

Damon leaned up from behind us, squeezing Will’s shoulders and talking in his ear. Will laughed at whatever he said, no one the wiser.

My phone beeped again. “Almost there,” he warned.

I shook my head. “People will see,” I typed out.

“Then make sure they don’t.”

He pulled the hoodie off us and slipped it over his head, covering his white, sleeveless T-shirt and his tan, toned, beautiful arms that always made my mouth hang open like an imbecile.

We entered Thunder Bay, heading back to our campus where everyone would pick up their cars and head to parties, but I’d be walking and heading straight home, as always.

I stared out the window, seeing the village breeze past, the twinkle lights of the park, and my neighborhood before we got up into the cliffs where Will and the wealthy resided. Part of me wanted it. Part of me loved how good his attention felt, because he was cocky and confident and good-looking and smooth. He was popular, looked great in everything he wore, and I liked his smile.

He was untouchable, and he wanted to touch me.

Tonight, anyway.

My eyes dropped to my lap. Even if I wanted to, though, my brother would never tolerate it.

The phone vibrated in my hand once, and then again and again, but I just bobbed my head to the music like I didn’t notice. The school came into view, and liquid heat rushed my chest, but I ignored it. I was almost out of here, and he could spend the rest of the night taking whomever he wanted home, for all I cared.

We were nothing.

Another text came in, and I finally looked.

“When the bus stops, get in my fucking truck.”

I breathed out a bitter laugh. Aw, someone’s lost his temper.

“Why?” I asked.

And the next thing I know, the bus stopped, he yanked the earbuds out of my ears, and I sucked in a