I leaned back in the driver's seat. Earlier, I'd input her home address into my GPS. According to the screen, we had nineteen minutes until we arrived at her destination.
Something buzzed in her purse – her cell phone, obviously. She gave a little jump, but made no move to answer it.
I said, "Hey, don't let me stop you."
I wasn't being polite. I was curious to see how she interacted with other people.
Maybe she was only crazy with me.
Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time.
She shook her head. "Nah, that's okay. But thanks."
I gave the GPS another glance. Eighteen minutes. This should have been a good thing. And yet, my foot wasn't seeing it the same way. It eased off the gas, and the car slowed accordingly.
This wasn't like me. And it was her doing.
Ever since our first encounter, she'd been on my mind more than made sense.
Even what I was doing now – giving her a ride home – it wasn't something I'd normally do. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have insisted on it.
Normally, if I were feeling nice and wanted to get someone where they needed to go, I'd pay for a service.
But with Mina, I hadn't.
Instead, I was driving her personally.
And Mina? She was driving me nuts.
I couldn’t even say why.
Our first meeting had been a total shit-show. I'd been rude as fuck. And if I were the kind of guy to apologize, I might've told her by now that I was sorry for being such a dick.
But she hadn't asked for an apology, and I saw no reason to offer one now, after she'd let it slide.
When the phone buzzed again, I asked, "You want me to get it?"
"Sure," she laughed. "As long as you tell her what she wants to hear."
It was an obvious joke. And yet, I sensed a note of worry under the surface.
I didn't like it. "Her?"
She sighed. "My mom."
I recalled her mom from the pictures. She'd looked friendly enough. "Oh yeah? And what does she want to hear?"
In the passenger's seat, Mina bit her lip but said nothing. Her lips were full, and her long blonde hair fell loose around her face. After a long moment, she said with a shaky laugh, "Trust me. You don't want to hear it."
She was wrong.
I did.
And I would.
Chapter 22
Mina
I meant what I said. Chase wouldn’t want to hear it, even if I was dying to tell him.
For all of his flaws – and heaven knows there were many – he was doing me a favor. Instead of loaning me a hammer, he'd insisted on driving me home, personally.
And earlier, on the walk back to his office, he'd even offered to carry my things, like he was a high school boyfriend instead of the biggest jackass I'd ever met.
Except, he wasn't acting like a jackass now. He was being surprisingly civil, which only made me more determined to keep my thoughts to myself.
In the driver's seat, he said, "Go ahead. Tell me anyway."
Tell him what my mom wanted to hear? If he were anyone else, I might've. But he wasn't anyone else. He was the guy who could make or break the festival.
And that wasn't all.
For all of his current civility, he was also the asshat who'd gotten me fired from my barista job.
Did he even know? Or had he complained to the owner, thinking she'd give me a quick reprimand and be done with it?
Judging from his current demeanor, he'd already forgotten the whole thing. And was it any wonder? I mean, hey, I was just a barista, right?
If Chase Blastoviak were any other guy, I would've already read him the riot act. It would've been so satisfying, too. But at what price?
The sad truth was, he held all the cards, which meant I'd be smart to keep my mouth firmly shut, and not only about getting fired.
With this in mind, I kept my reply as vague as possible. "Well, you know how moms are."
In the driver's seat, Chase made a sound. I might've called it a scoff, except something about it was terribly wrong – as if it contained no humor, only bitterness borne of a wound so deep, it was still festering.
Coming from him, this surprised me.
For years, I'd been watching Blast on my TV screen. Chase was the funny one, the jokester, the one who let everything roll off his back, even as he dished out smart-ass remarks the way lunch ladies dished out fish sticks on Fridays.
But Chase Blastoviak was no lunch lady.
In fact, he couldn’t be more opposite.
From the passenger's seat, I studied him from the corner of my eye. He was pure male, all lean and hard with sex appeal oozing from his pores, even now, when he was only driving me home.
Now, I almost scoffed.
He wasn't only driving me home. He was driving me home in an orange sports car that probably cost more than a house, maybe multiple houses in this neck of the woods.
As far as the car's make and model, I had no idea what it was. I just knew that it looked terrific, felt great, and smelled brand new, like it had just come straight from the factory.
And even though the engine was purring like a contented cat, I just knew that if Chase hit the gas, we'd roar forward like a cheetah chasing its next meal.
But we weren't roaring. Far from it. Unless I was mistaken, he was driving below the speed limit.
Weird.
The thought had barely crossed my mind when a family sedan slowly passed us in the neighboring lane. As it did, everyone in the sedan – two kids in the back, a mom in the front and even the dad who was supposed to be driving – turned their heads to stare.
I couldn’t exactly blame them. It was still daylight, which gave them not only a clear view of the car, but also of Chase
