Stay With Me (She's With Me #2) - Jessica Cunsolo Page 0,25
one mentions anything about which car I’ll be riding in. I guess it’s just known that I’ll be with Aiden, and even I just sort of gravitate toward him. Aiden’s always had a pull on everyone, always drawn the attention of everyone in a room without even trying. But the way I feel about him is stronger; I feel pulled toward him, like magnets.
Aiden also expects that I’ll ride in his car. He leans on the passenger-side door of his Challenger as I lock my front door, waiting for me, and opens the door for me once I come down the steps. But I don’t miss the way Mason frowns at us as Aiden closes my door for me. Bundled up in my scarf and mittens, I press the button to turn on my seat warmer. It’s just the two of us.
“Are you nervous?” I ask.
“Why would I be nervous?”
“Because we’re meeting Luke, who may help us piece together why your stepfather was murdered on your front porch?”
“Shouldn’t you be the nervous one?” Aiden answers.
“Why would I be nervous?”
He stops at a red light and looks at me, his expression serious. “Because you haven’t seen him since that day at the Tracks, when he saved you from Dave and you decided not to tell anyone about that part of the attack. Not even Anna.”
My face heats up from his correct assumption about what happened that night. “What—I—how?—No. How did you know it was Luke who saved me? Did Dave tell you when you found out what happened and went all Rambo on his face?”
“It wasn’t that hard to connect the dots, Thea.”
Pleasant shivers run down my spine at hearing him say my real name. The light turns green and the car speeds up again.
“I couldn’t tell you how I really met Luke. Then you’d have found out about Dave and his friend, who held me while Dave punched me, and I didn’t want you to do the exact thing that you ended up doing.”
“Dammit, Thea!” He hits the steering wheel. “You expect me to find out that the bastard was too cowardly to fight me so he targeted and cornered my girl, and then not make sure that he was shitting his own teeth for weeks? I absolutely had to go fight him and anyone else who was involved.” He stops at a red light. “I’d do it again too.”
Feeling bold and high off of his words, I quickly unbuckle my seat belt and kneel on the seat, put my hand on his strong jaw, and kiss him deeply and passionately, my heart beating erratically in my chest, threatening to explode.
He kisses me back, his hands feeling right at home on my waist. But all too soon I’m pulling away and sitting back in my seat, a stupid smile on my face as I buckle up again, and Aiden takes off when the light turns green.
“Just try not to get into any more fights on my behalf, okay?”
“I make no promises,” Aiden says.
I huff out loud, but deep down, his words thrill me, and I can’t fight the smile tugging at my lips.
At Sweetie’s we find a booth in the back for some privacy and sit down. Only Aiden doesn’t have an ice-cream cone or cup in his hands, which, according to Noah, is a big no-no. Apparently, you can never say no to ice cream, even in highly tense situations, using the cones he’s holding in each hand as evidence. I offer Aiden some of mine, but he shakes his head.
The booth is a little tight but we all fit. The red seat padding is well worn, with a few random patches covering older tears, but it’s still comfortable. Considering it’s winter, Sweetie’s is pretty busy, and the loud chatter around us fills in the silence as we eat our ice cream.
Julian’s the first to spot Luke, but he doesn’t call out to him. Annalisa’s brother looks a little worse for wear, sporting a black eye and a gash in his lip, his clothing covering any other injuries he might have. He heads straight over to us in a no-nonsense kind of way, managing to seem confident even though it looks like he’s limping. He grabs a chair from an empty table and sits at the end of our table instead of in the booth with us. Aiden’s the closest to him on one side, and at the other end of the booth closest to Luke is Chase, with