Chapter 17 Lewis
You wanna grab food with us?” Don asks as he wanders into the living room, frowning when he spots me pulling on my sneakers. “Don’t tell me you’re going running again?”
“Nope. Heading over to Firebird’s.”
“Tell her I say Happy New Year.”
Makes sense. She did ditch us before midnight, after all.
Today’s training session involves zero driving—I’ve seen more than enough to know she’s amazing behind the wheel.
From now on, I’ll do the driving, but I plan on waiting until next semester, so she can sit in on some actual real-life trips.
Give her a chance to see how it feels for herself.
Something tells me it’s going to be intense.
Considering how our New Year’s Eve party panned out, the girl definitely needs to work on her personal skills—and I’m not even talking about the whole Amber showdown.
First, though, I want to show her how the app works.
I snatch up my bag and keys and fire off a message to let her know I’m on my way.
LEWIS: Gonna swing by the mall, be with you soon. I’ll grab us food—what are you in the mood for?
FIREBIRD: Anything chickeny!
LEWIS: OK. See you at the garage in an hour.
FIREBIRD: Go around the back, up the stairs. Back door.
LEWIS: Sounds sketchy…
FIREBIRD: Dude, if I wanted to fuck with you, I’d tell you to come through the main door. That way you’d run into my sister, pick up a few scars for life.
LEWIS: Why does that feel kinda sexy?
FIREBIRD: If you die, can I have the Dodge?
LEWIS: Back door it is.
FIREBIRD: Why does that feel kinda sexy?
Damn. There’s a stirring between my legs, and I still can’t put my finger on what exactly it is about her that gets me all worked up like this. I tug on my jeans. It’s probably just the fact that she’s off-limits.
I WRAP UP MY MORNING routine, pick us up some lunch, and head straight for the shop.
The roads are busy today, people streaming back into town, the near-zero temperatures messing with their judgment.
I end up losing my shit with two drivers and crank up the stereo to stop myself spiraling into a road rage meltdown.
What is going on with me today? I’m normally so relaxed, I’m horizontal.
I pull into RJ’s garage and park on the drive before hitting the stairs Amy mentioned, hammering against the iron door, silently begging her to hurry. It feels even colder in this part of town.
A minute ticks by, and I knock again, balancing our food in one hand, itching to fish for my phone with the other, when suddenly I hear a lock turn.
“Fuck, I’m freezing my ass off here!”
The door swings open, and I swallow hard. Her skin is glistening with sweat; her curves poured into a sports bra and cycle shorts.
“You go for a run?”
“Yeah, sorry—I just got back.”
“You go for a run dressed like that?”
She pauses, blinking slowly. “Uh—yeah?” She rests her fists on her hips. “Are you body-shaming me?”
“No! I just mean because it’s so cold, that’s all.”
A slow smile spreads across her face as she steps aside and ushers me into her room. I glance around. The space is small, but everything is neat and tidy.
“I’m gonna jump in the shower. Make yourself comfy.”
I drop the plastic bags on her desk. “I got us Chinese. That okay?”
“Perfect, I’m starving! Get settled in, I’ll be right back.”
She slips into the bathroom, and just before the door shuts behind her, she sticks her head through the crack and flashes me a grin.
“There’s no lock on this door, by the way. Hope you don’t need to pee, or anything.”
I swear there’s a glint in her eye as she says it, and for just a second, my breath catches in my throat.
The door swings shut behind her, and I’m alone in the room. The bed, the sound of running water… Memories of our night at the motel come flooding back, including the part where her ass filled my hands. Don’t go there, dude!
I haven’t slept with anyone since then, and that’s a problem.
It means my freshest sex memory is Amy—the exact girl I need to forget, unless I want Don on my case.
I knew I should’ve chosen a guy to mentor.
I fucking knew it! This would never have happened with Amir, obviously—too bad my plan B is playing dead.
Instead of perching on the stool by the wall, I wander across the room and stand with my back to the bathroom door. It’s ajar, I realize, and I want so badly to just push it open and head on in there, but I hold back.
“So, you left before midnight…”
The sound of the shower curtain being whipped back.
I’m guessing she’s double-checking I’m not standing there waiting for her like a pervert.
“What’s up with that, Cinderella?” I continue.
Now that I think about it, it’s insane—she left with twenty minutes to go until the countdown. I ducked out of the living room for no more than five minutes… and she slipped away unseen. The only person she told was Malcolm.
I listen as she squirts something into her hands.
“I feel like I did a good job with your friends, but doing the whole ‘Happy New Year!’ thing was a step too far. You never know how things might spiral out of control.”
The worst part is she’s not even joking. She really is that unhinged.
A handful of seconds drift by in silence, and I spend them picturing her lathering up, the urge to dive in there and join her floating to the surface of my mind.
“We had a deal, and I stuck to it,” she says. “I showed you I have great people skills. Right?”
You? People skills?
“Oh, sure,” I agree. “Except for the whole baseball situation.”
“Hey, she deserved that! You’re just mad I cockblocked you.”
“You did more than cockblock me, Amy. I literally heard that ball crack against her skull.”
“For real?” She laughs. “Damn. I should’ve stepped back a little more. Now that would’ve done some damage.”
She’s not even kidding. The worst part is that this is making me smile—and worse still, I’m as stiff as a board.
While Firebird clambers out of the shower, I try to talk myself down, and when she slips back into the bedroom, I straighten and turn to find her standing there in a Washington State tee and blue yoga pants.
We stare at each other for a beat too long.
“Okay,” she sighs. “Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“Upholding standards… Reputation… Yada yada yada.”
She makes circles in the air, and I hate how she’s insinuating I’m some kind of square.
“Let’s eat,” I say, and I can tell she’s taken aback.
She nods slowly, before climbing onto the bed and patting the space beside her.
As we chow down on the takeout, I look around her room. I hadn’t spotted this when I arrived, but now that I’ve got my bearings, I can’t believe I didn’t notice the furniture the moment I stepped through the door.
“Who made all this?”
She looks up, chopsticks hovering midair.
“That’d be me.”
Amy is full of surprises. Her desk is a cluster of engine parts topped by a piece of wood, her chair an ingenious assembly of upcycled shocks supporting a faded tan leather car seat she must’ve sniffed out down at the scrapyard.
I like her bedside lamp the best—a headlight nestled in a chrome exhaust.
“It’s not exactly beautiful, but it’s useful, at least.”
“Are you kidding me? These are great! People love this kind of thing,” I add. “I bet you could make good money selling them. I should tell my dad—it’s giving me a few ideas for a cabin.”
“A cabin?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “You know—like, a cabin.”
“Still not getting it.”
I frown to myself. Didn’t I ever tell her about this? Now that I think about it, I realize she makes me feel so relaxed and at ease, it’s like hanging with an old friend. Except ultimately, she doesn’t know much about my life at all.
I scrape my tub clean and toss it onto the floor, and over the next few minutes, I talk her through my parents’ business and what I plan on doing with my life.
I tell her all about West Virginia, how I love heading over there to get a little hands-on practice and clear away the cobwebs.
Usually, when I tell people about the tree house cabin, their knee-jerk reaction is to ask to see it, which pisses me off.
Like, nobody would ask an athlete to strip so they can check how good a shape they’re in.
I feel the same way about my cabin. It’s a little piece of my soul; something just for me.
My happy place. Amy is different, though.
She doesn’t say anything at all. Instead, she keeps her eyes on her crossed legs, nodding from time to time.
“How do you choose the tree?” she asks after a while.
“What do you mean?”
“How do you decide which one is strong enough to spend a whole lifetime holding things up?”
Something about the way she just said that moves me. I stare into her face for a few seconds.
“There are a few things you need to look for,” I start. “Circumference, terrain, what the trees beside it are doing. Finding the right one is almost as fun as working on it.”
“It really does sound fun. And I like how it’s something your mom and dad do together,” she adds.
“Yeah, I’m lucky. They’re really good together.”
“It was the opposite with my parents.” She laughs.
“She was a good girl, and he was a rebel without a cause, I guess you could say. They were really in love, though.” She shrugs.
“I guess opposites can attract. Now she’s married to a guy just like her, but seeing them together is kinda heartbreaking. ”
Her voice has hardened, and I can sense there’s something more to this.
“So, your dad has…”
I pause. I’ve been wanting to hear more about the man since Brooklyn. Everyone up there called him El Mago, and I’m curious. She stares at the clock on the wall, and a whole minute trickles by before she speaks.
“Brown hair, brown eyes.”
Classic Firebird.
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, Amy Hitman?”
“Thanks, Lewis Conley.”
It’s funny—most people love nothing more than to talk about themselves. They love questions. But again… Amy is different. She only ever reveals what she wants to reveal.
“What’s your favorite color?” I try.
“Chicken.”
I roll my eyes. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Chicken.”
I guess that’s something, at least.
“So, telling me your favorite food is okay, but talking colors is crossing some kind of boundary?”
“Something like that. You ask questions; I’ll answer the ones I want to answer.”
“There’s got to be a name for your disorder. I tried looking online, but nada.”
She smiles. “That’s a good sign, though, right?”
“What? That you’re too much of a weirdo for Google to return any hits? No, Amy. That’s not a good sign. At all.”
“Takes one to know one…”
“Do you want to know me?”
“Yes.”
One little word… But the way she says it, it rings out clear and true, like full consent, and before I know it, I’m hard again.
How does she do that with a single syllable?
I want so badly to just throw her down on the bed right now—it’s almost too strong to resist. I need to circle back to why I came here in the first place, before I do something I regret.
“Okay, so now would be a good time to show you the app, like we talked about.”
“Sure.”
I jump off the bed, throw the trays in the trash, and flop back on my stomach, hoping that might kill off my raging hard-on. She shimmies over to lie next to me and peers down at my screen.
“This is the driver dashboard,” I start, launching the app. “This is where you manage your profile and your slots. You’ve got the passenger version of the app, right?”
She nods.
“Okay, so try booking a ride with me now. I’ll show you what it looks like from the other side.”
Once she’s scheduled a trip, my phone buzzes.
“Hitman666?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s definitely the right number for you.” I nod thoughtfully. “See that notification, there? You can choose to accept or reject it. You can also pass it on to any other Campus Driver who’s free.”
I talk Amy through the rest of the workflow, and I can tell she’s listening closely. The questions she asks are smart, and she’s a fast learner—getting her up to speed isn’t hard. The tricky part is being so damn close to her.
“You guys work nights, right?”
“Adam and Lane do, mostly. Don and I have basketball stuff, so when we do nights, it’s in the offseason. That’s something you’ll need to figure out with your new team.”
“I could do nights, except when I’m babysitting Joey.”
“Joey?”
“My nephew,” she explains.
“I didn’t know your sister had a kid. How old is he?”
“Six.”
Now we’re making progress. That’s the first time she’s actually answered a question straight, and it dawns on her at the exact same time—I can see it on her face.
“How do the payments work?” she asks quickly.
“The money for the trip gets wired to a business account before it’s paid out to the driver. Minus taxes, obviously. Tips are all yours to keep.”
“So, does this gig pay well? How much are you guys bringing in a month?”
I think for a moment. “Well, it depends how busy you are. Personally, I do about four hundred a week.”
“Four hundred?” Her head yanks up. “That’s insane!”
“That involves a lot of driving, though,” I warn.
“And a lot of tending to your reputation…”
“Now you’re getting it!”
Our eyes meet.
“I’m really trying, here.” She sounds so serious—it’s sweet.
“Think of it as a way of getting your life on track. That was the plan, back when you left New York. Right?”
“Right.”
Her eyes are shining. I can tell there’s a battle raging between her innate fieriness and the new-and-improved Amy she’ll need to become if she wants to join us, and I like seeing her rattled.
I should focus back on my screen, but she’s just so intense, with her lips parted in concentration like that, her breath hot against my skin—it’s like I’m being drawn into her mouth. All I want to do is lean into her for a taste, and the way she’s looking at me says she wants me to, but…
Don said not to go there.
And he’s right.
Campus is teeming with other girls. Easier girls. But they aren’t Amy.
Everything about her is one giant walking red flag, but that just makes me want her even more. I’m squeaky clean—a grade-A kind of guy. She embodies everything I don’t want to be, and that’s exactly why I’m so drawn to her.
Enough.
I need to wrap this thing up and get the hell out of here.
Before I seriously mess things up.
Her room is like a vortex, and if I’m not careful, I’m about to get sucked into something I’ll never escape.