Such a Rush(39)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“So you’ve always been a heartbreaker,” Alec said at my shoulder, low enough that Grayson and Molly couldn’t hear, and close enough that I felt his breath across my skin. I turned to him. He watched me with that half-smile on his lips, looking into my eyes.

For the first time that night, I got the feeling that we were more than friends. Grayson might have put a halt on being paired with Molly, but Alec wasn’t putting a halt on him and me. I held his gaze, gave him my sexiest smile, and tried my best not to panic.

By order of Grayson for everyone to get a good night’s sleep, we left not long after. First we drove through gates draped with flowering tropical vines and dropped Molly off at her parents’ beachside villa. If there’d been any question remaining about whether Grayson wanted to be more than friends with her, it was answered here. Alec waited until she went in the front door to drive away, but Grayson stayed in the car.

Next they drove me home. Alec explained that Grayson was still in tow because he had some work left to do at the hangar. Alec would drop him off. Grayson would drive his truck back to his beach shack later. I wondered whether this was really why, or whether Grayson had engineered this excuse to watch Alec and me from the backseat and make sure I held up my end of our dark bargain.

Alec was handsome and so sweet, a super-nice guy. I kept reminding myself of this as he drove closer to the trailer park. The pain in my stomach grew worse, even though I had a belly full of bar food and wasn’t hungry for once. There was no way out of what was coming, but I gave it a try anyway. As he turned onto the gravel road and dust billowed into the headlight beams, I said, “You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

He didn’t answer. The silence stretched into awkwardness, without even a noise from Grayson’s phone in the backseat to break it.

Finally Alec asked, “Why not?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. I made up one. “It’s not much of a door.”

“Of course it’s a door, and I’m walking you to it.” He parked the car, cut the engine and the lights, and got out.

He was walking around the car to open my door for me. I didn’t have much time. I turned around, looking past the seat’s headrest, and said, “Good night, Grayson.”

He was already looking straight at me when I turned around. “Good night,” he said with absolutely no expression on his shadowed face or in his voice.

I didn’t know exactly what I’d wanted from him. Jealousy? Maybe a declaration of No, Leah, don’t do it! I’m calling the whole thing off! Whatever I’d wanted, this wasn’t it.

“I like your hair better curly,” he said in the same flat tone.

Before I could ask him what he meant—he liked my curly hair, or he thought Alec liked it better?—Alec opened the door.

Heart racing, I got out of the car and stepped into a thick cloud of barking from the pit bull. Alec followed me across the yard and up the cement-block stairs. I didn’t want to kiss him, but there didn’t seem to be any way around this now. I met his gaze and tried to telegraph to him that, sure, I did want to kiss him, but his brother was watching us, and moreover, hello, was he horny with that pit bull barking his head off?

Alec didn’t seem to get my meaning, though. I was afraid I’d screwed things up by accidentally implying that I didn’t want to kiss him at all. I almost explained the whole thing to him: I don’t want to kiss you outside my trailer with a pit bull barking in my ear. It’s too much like my nightmares about my marriage someday.

But he did understand. He half-smiled down at me. “Tomorrow night I’ll make sure we’re alone.”

There would be a tomorrow night? This was good—Grayson couldn’t complain that I wasn’t holding up my end of the deal—yet my face burned with the possibilities. I was frightened that Alec would want to do more than I was willing to do.

He bent toward me. I went rigid, anticipating his kiss, and tried to relax. Maybe he felt me go stiff, or maybe he didn’t really want to kiss me either. For whatever reason, he hesitated, and swallowed.

Then he came in the rest of the way, pushing both his hands back into my hair. His lips met mine.

He was kissing me. But not very dynamically. The kiss was awfully chaste for a couple of legal adults on spring break. I didn’t want him to think I was a prude, but I didn’t want to encourage him, either. Or, I did, but just enough for Grayson to see I was encouraging him.

And for Grayson to eat his heart out.

So I slid my hand into Alec’s hair and pulled him closer.

He broke the kiss and started again. I felt his tongue against my lips, but he didn’t press inside. It was like kissing a middle school boy who’d heard about kissing but had never done it himself.

I didn’t correct him.

He pulled back and slid his hands out of my hair, or tried. One finger got caught in a layer underneath that had kinked in the night humidity, defying the flat-iron.

“Ow!” I squeaked.

We both laughed.

“Sorry. Hold on just a sec.” He squinted at my hair in the moonlight and used his other hand to extricate the finger that had gotten caught. As he released me, I glimpsed the hand that had been snagged and saw he was wearing Mr. Hall’s Air Force ring.

“Good night,” I said too quickly. “Thanks. I had fun.” I turned my key in the lock, escaped through the door, and closed it behind me before we could get into another scrape. And before I could gaze into the yard, checking to see how closely Grayson had been watching.

The odor of mildew hit me in the face and made me breathe shallowly. I never noticed it unless I’d been away for a while. The trailer was rotting underneath, where I couldn’t reach it, and there was nothing I could do.

Standing there with my back to the door, listening to the pit bull barking and Alec’s car starting through the thin aluminum, I was overcome with fatigue. I wasn’t sure I could negotiate another night of Alec kissing me and Grayson looking on.

But Molly would be at the airport tomorrow. Molly made things easier for me, just by talking out her ass.

And I would get to fly again. Whenever this farce didn’t seem worth it over the next few days, I had to remember I was doing it to keep my wings and fly.

ten

As I walked over to the airport in the morning, I kept an eye on Mr. Simon’s hangar. I didn’t want to resolve anything with Mark. If I could just avoid him for the rest of my life, that would be perfect. I was in luck for once. His plane wasn’t visible through the tall open doors of the hangar. He’d arrived a lot earlier today than he had yesterday—possibly because he’d gotten in trouble with his uncle the day before—and he was already up.