minutes later, both drenched in water. “Do you mind giving me a ride home?” I ask.
“Oh, so now you want to go home? Not when I told you to earlier?” he asks, opening the driver side door.
I nod. “You should know when you demand I do things it makes me want to do the opposite.”
“Duly noted.”
“So, since you offered earlier, I assume you’re cool with giving me a ride home now?”
“Hell no,” he replies, and the moment of sweetness I thought I saw from him is instantly ruined.
“Well, thanks,” I reply, turning around and getting ready to make the trek up the hill to my friends… or the people I came to this party with. I don’t know that I should call them friends anymore as they didn’t even check to see if I was still alive.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
I turn to face him. “Well, I gotta get home somehow and you refuse to drive me there.”
“Your mom is an elementary school principal. Your dad is the football coach at Bragan High. I think both of them would kill me if I dropped their naked daughter off at their doorstep.”
I laugh at the fear in his eyes. My dad would kill him though, he’s right.
“You may be right. So what do I do?” I ask, standing there.
“You can stay with me.”
“Err…um,” I struggle to put words together. Mostly because a proposal to spend the night at his house is something I never expected from him.
“Just tell your parents you’re staying at a friend’s house or something. We can figure out your clothes in the morning.”
I shiver when a gust of wind whips across my exposed body. I don’t get why spring break is in March when it’s still freaking cold out.
“Get in the car, we can make a plan there while it’s warm,” he tells me and for once I don’t fight him on it. I round the corner to the passenger side and hop in.
“Sorry your seat will be wet,” I tell him. It’s the least I can do.
“It’s just water. A little water never killed anybody,” he jokes, using my earlier words.
I smile. “So, I just stay the night at your place and we worry about clothes tomorrow?” I ask.
He nods. “Then I can drop you off at whatever friend’s house you lied about staying at.”
“I could also just sleep at my friend’s house instead of lying,” I tell him.
“I’m sure your friends aren’t going to want to leave the party early. They’re probably drunk out of their minds right now too, that’s the only reason a real friend wouldn’t check in to make sure you were okay.”
“No one checked to make sure you were okay either,” I tell him, feeling like he’s trying to make me feel bad and wanting to do the same to him.
“Those people aren’t my friends.”
“No?” I ask. With how much time they spend together, I figured they were the best of friends.
“They’re my teammates. They’ve got my back on the field, and I have theirs. But we’re not friends.”
“Ahhh, got it. You have no friends.”
“So, I can take you up there and you can chill in your underwear until you can convince your friends to go home, which they probably shouldn’t anyway, since they’d be driving drunk. Or, you could just come to my house where it’ll be warm. I’ll even let you borrow some of my clothes,” he says, ignoring my comment.
“Aren’t you drunk?” I ask. I mean, he must be because Kayden being nice to me isn’t a thing that I expect to happen while he’s sober.
“I had one beer in the last two hours. Not many before then.”
“How come?”
“I guess part of me knew you were going to do something stupid the moment you started betting you could jump.”
“I call bull,” I tell him.
He puts the car in drive and pulls out of the parking lot. “Really? Why’d you think I took my time getting to the top of the rock? I know you realized I wasn’t there when the others were.”
“I don’t pay attention to your whereabouts,” I tell him as he starts driving in the direction of his house. That’s a lie though. The moment I felt him on my right earlier, I looked in his direction. The air always changes. I can always tell.
“Remember when I said I think ahead?” he asks.
“Are you telling me you thought I was going to jump off the rock and you’d jump after me and then you’d be