Because Francie would expect it from me, even a thousand miles from home. Even if Adair doesn’t deserve it.
The map finally loads, and I mutter a curse when it tells me we’re half an hour away. This is going to be a long night.
Adair stays quiet as we make our way off campus into the sleepy college town. Porch lights and street lamps illuminate pristine streets dotted by well-kept houses and picket fences. Flowers blossom in every yard. I’d bet money there’s a goddamn chicken in every pot. Even the smaller homes whisper privilege. Or maybe it’s so far outside my comfort zone that I can’t wrap my mind around it. In Queens, people live on top of one another. If you want to see grass you better head to Central Park. Even at this hour, New York is alive with people rushing to parties and jobs and home. Here? It feels like we’re the only two people in the world. We don’t see another car until we hit the highway.
She continues to watch out her window as I watch the clock. The benefit of the Jaguar is that it’s fast. In town, I felt like I’d put it on a leash and it was tugging for freedom. As soon as we hit the freeway, I press the gas and let it loose. I don’t have much experience driving. Hell, I don’t even have a license, but I’m pretty sure this is the vehicular equivalent of sex.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks so quietly that I almost don’t hear her over the beast of an engine.
“Your friends were drunk.” She can’t argue with that.
Still, she looks puzzled like this isn’t the answer she expected. A pained expression crosses her face, her freckled nose scrunching a little as she spits out two words. “Thank you.”
Forced gratitude. I don’t want it. She doesn’t want to give it. I grunt—an acknowledgment of our shared, if obligatory, social niceties. I hope she knows I’m not her knight in shining armor. Just like I know she’s no damsel in distress. Help is not salvation. I’m not saving her.
I keep my hands tight on the wheel. “I wasn’t drinking.”
I’m surprised when she doesn’t ask why.
“Neither was I,” she murmurs. She doesn’t volunteer more information.
Now I find myself wanting to ask her why. It feels like I’m trapped in a maze and every path I take is a dead end. We’re strangers. I can’t even call her a friend. I’d planned to talk to her. She’s the reason I’d gone to the party when Cyrus invited me. But my skin started crawling the second I walked inside the frat house. Someone pressed a Solo cup full of beer into my hand and…I’d lost it. I should have walked out the front door. Instead, I headed to the second floor.
Everything went to hell so fast that I still don’t know what happened. I don’t know why she’d gone upstairs, either. A girl like her probably doesn’t hate crowds. I imagine they part for her—that people bow down as she passes. There had been hundreds of people stuffed into that house, drinking and dancing and being generally stupid. That’s not my scene.
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” It’s out of my mouth before I even know I’m going to say it.
She turns vacant eyes on me. “What?”
Why do I have to bring this up now? “Upstairs. Tonight. I got lost.”
It’s a stupid lie, but it sounds less dumb than telling her the truth.
“I didn’t say you were.” She’s already lost interest, returning her focus to the view from the window.
“You implied it.” All I need is one uppity bitch to decide I’m up to no good. Yeah, I have a scholarship but good things are rarely permanent, in my experience. One wrong move and it’s back to New York for me. I wouldn’t mind, but it would kill Francie.
“You aren’t a member.” She says it like this explains her behavior.
“Neither are you.”
“You made that point earlier,” she says dryly. She squirms in her seat until she’s facing me. She relaxes against the door. Her hair fans out over the window glass, glinting red like little sparks in the light of passing cars. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“I thought Southerners were supposed to be polite,” I mutter. If she’s going to be rude, I can dish it right back. I might not have much experience with her type or college frats or small-town America, but I’m all stocked up on surliness.
“Where are my manners?” she scoffs with a hollow laugh. “I’m Adair MacLaine and you are?”
“Like the journalism school?” I ask, caught off-guard by her last name.
“And the senator and the media conglomerate,” she says sourly.
“Cheer up…” I stop before adding princess again. She’s got enough going on. “You’re lucky. You’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
Does she even know how easy she has it? Apparently not if she’s going to sulk about having a last name that’s so important it’s carved into stone on a two-hundred-year old university building.
“And you think I want that?” Anger flashes in her face, her cheeks flaming as brightly as her hair. It’s the second time tonight that I’ve made her blush. Now I know two ways to get a rise out of her.
I like it a little too much, so I egg her on. “A little.”
“You don’t know me at all.” The ferocity in her tone says she means it.
“No, I don’t,” I admit, deciding that given the circumstances I should play nice. “I’m Sterling.”
She doesn’t respond.
“Sterling Ford,” I add.
No response.
So now we’re back to not speaking to each other. I’m being punished. At least I’ve taken her mind off where we’re heading, even if
