Chapter 22
Briar
He had been waiting just around the corner from my building.
I got into the car, and he simply nodded when I said, “Hi.”
“Tell me again how you have the bust eye, and Dustin still looks like a movie star when he was the one who swung the first punch?”
I’d watched Dustin grab the center this afternoon, got a great shot of it too. He’d punched him, the center had swung for Dustin, missed, and then got laid out flat by Noah.
Noah had turned to check on Dustin, missed the center getting to his feet, and hadn’t blocked the punch in time. Noah didn’t hold back, and it took Dustin and Dante to pull him off.
“He threw a coward’s punch,” Noah grumbled.
“Yeah, well, you got benched, and he didn’t.”
He said nothing, his fingers drumming off the steering wheel angrily.
“You lose your temper quickly,” I commented softly.
“I really don’t,” Noah scoffed. “That was nothing.” He shifted in his seat as if he were uncomfortable.
I wanted to lecture. I’d prepared a lecture. A really good lecture. But he looked . . . vulnerable and pissed off, and I knew it was with himself. I didn’t know how I knew it, or what to do with it.
“Are you okay?” I asked him instead.
“He benched me for the spring game.”
I knew that; the whole stadium knew that. Sutherland had not been quiet. “Why’d Dustin hit him?”
“He beat Whittaker up at the beginning of the week.”
“Oh.” Whittaker was the guy they’d taken to Diana. Which led them to realize she was here for more than just being a PT.
“Was that just this week?” I looked out the window. “That’s crazy.”
“This whole shitshow is crazy.”
I turned back to him and saw his broody expression.
He looked sexy. He looked hot as sin even doing nothing, which was completely unfair.
Even sitting there, driving, scowling at the car in front as if it had personally insulted him by being on the road at the same time, he looked hot as sin instead of looking like a petulant toddler.
I needed to speak with my body about its priorities.
“You’re staring at me.”
“Yeah.”
Noah glanced at me. “Yeah?”
That slow, sexy smirk was going to be my undoing. I needed a change of subject. “I saw Hadley today.”
“Why?”
I laughed out loud at his surprise.
“Yeah, it wasn’t by choice.” I moved in my seat to look at him better. “I was out early this morning, and so was she. We ran into each other.”
“Why were you out early?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “How early? She kicked Slater out last night so she could sleep in, he’s going to be pissed if she was up anyway.”
She hadn’t been lying. Interesting. “Yeah, she mentioned something about a cat waking her up.”
He nodded as if that made sense. “So what was your excuse?”
“Huh?”
“For being up early? And how early is early?”
“Around seven.”
He looked over at me. “That’s not early.”
“Only psycho sports people think that.”
“My dad’s already at work by seven. He sells AC units.”
“You live in Vegas, pretty sure selling AC in the desert is a twenty-four-hour job.”
He gave me a smug smile. “Been looking into me, Briar?”
“I read your stats profile. Everyone knows where you come from, Noah.”
The smile was gone, and he looked pissed off again. “I doubt it.”
I’d touched something he was sensitive about again. I didn’t know what. What was that look? “What just happened?”
“Nothing, tell me about Hadley.”
I wanted to keep asking questions, but I opted not to. Not like me, but I could be patient. “She’s trying to find out what angle the picture of her and Dustin was taken from.”
He grunted but said nothing. When I didn’t elaborate, he nudged me. “And what were you doing?”
I nearly made up some nonsense, but he had a cut over his eye, his coach had benched him, and he’d fought like someone possessed. I wanted to give him something else to think about.
“I got a text from Diana who had an . . . argument, I think, with her boyfriend.”
He squinted. “I thought Hembry was her guy?”
I snorted. “Yeah. So did she.”
“Tell me.”
So I recounted this morning, and the more I told him, the darker his glower became.
“Disposable?” he asked when I finished.
“Yeah.”
“Like get rid of, or like, get rid of?”
We’d arrived in Halston and were stopped at traffic lights.
“I don’t think he was threatening her life.” I knew I was mocking him, but Jesus, he went dark fast.
“I no longer know what to think about any of them.” He moved the car forward when the lights changed to green, and pretty soon we were pulling up outside a garage.
I recognized my car instantly.
“Bluey!”
“You named the car Bluey?”
“No one’s asking your opinion.” I got out of the car and went inside, looking for someone to help me. I knew he followed me, but he didn’t say anything.
“Hi.” I walked up to a guy in overalls with a grease smear across his forehead. “My car got towed here this morning — dead battery.”
“Oh, yeah. You have the car key?”
I handed it over, and he told me he’d be back in a minute.
I rocked back on my heels and felt the closeness of the linebacker behind me. I stepped forward. His hand caught my hip, pulling me back.
“You’re fine here.”
Was I, though?
I didn’t argue, and I also didn’t move away. The heat coming off his body was delicious. When the mechanic came back and told me to drive my car into the space at the end of the workshop, I felt like sighing in disappointment when I had to put distance between Noah and me.
The engine turned over, and I gave a cry of delight. I followed the instructions and parked where I’d been told. I got out of the car to see Noah and the guy talking.
“Yeah, it happens if the lights get left on.” The mechanic was saying. “An easy side of the road fix, but when she wasn’t there, they couldn’t get into the engine to boost it. We did what we could, but another blast won’t hurt.”
“I didn’t leave the lights on.”
They both looked like they didn’t believe me. I decided not to argue. Especially as I was lying anyway. “So what happens now?”
He told me he would give the engine another boost, and then said the more I drove it, the more the battery would recharge itself.
“So I can drive it home?”
“When it’s finished, sure.” He was hooking things up that I didn’t understand. I looked at Noah. “You could go?”
He watched me with that dark stare of his, his arms folding casually across his chest. “I could.”
The mechanic popped his head out of the side of the hood. “Best have someone follow you just in case. You heading back to Wrighton?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a short journey,” he reasoned. “Need more miles before you turn the engine off.”
Noah wasn’t hiding the wickedness in his smirk.
“So I just drive around aimlessly?”
“Yeah, take your boyfriend out to somewhere deserted and—”
“Leave him there,” I snapped.
The guy squinted at me. “I was going to say drive around in circles if you had to, but hey, you do you.” He went back to the engine, and I stood there like an idiot, refusing to look at Noah Matthews, who looked far too entertained with the whole conversation.
The mechanic poked his head out again. “You can settle up at the counter. Almost done.”
“Thanks.”
I didn’t balk at the bill; it was more than I wanted to pay, but I knew it was my own fault. I swiped my credit card and then went back out to my car, which had the door open and the engine running, while Noah and his new best friend talked about the defense of the Alabama Lions.
Ugh. Football. It’s all anyone in this place talked about.
“I’m ready.”
The mechanic tapped my door. “She’s ready too. Be more careful with those on-off switches in the future.”
I bit my tongue and said nothing, getting in my car.
“I’ll follow you.”
I looked up at Noah. “Erm . . .”
“See you soon.” He closed the door before I could comment. I had no choice but to wave goodbye to the mechanic and reverse out of the shop.
I was barely on the road before the phone rang. I answered through the car’s Bluetooth.
“Where do you want to go?”
His voice was like molten chocolate. I knew he was always soft-spoken, slightly gruff, but over the phone, inside my car? He was a romance audiobook narrator on steroids.
“Briar?”
Nope. He was absolutely not allowed to say my name like that, and I was going to need him to stop immediately.
“You can just head home. I’ll be fine.”
“You heard the guy at the garage, I should stay with you.”
No. You stay with me and I’m going to make a fool of myself.
“Honestly. You’re injured, go home.”
“I’m injured?” His laugh was dark and decadent. I almost wept at the unfairness. “Are you trying to run from me, Briar?”
Yes.
“No. You’ve got a big head, Matthews.”
“Uh-huh. Turn left up ahead.”
I did as I was told without thinking. Then immediately resented it. “Don’t boss me about.”
“Not bossy,” he murmured. “Leadership skills.”
I did laugh at that. Sarcastic fucker.
“What now?” I asked as I drove along a road that I had no recollection of being on before.
“Why did you call me for a ride to the garage?”
I glanced at the dashboard. “Um . . .”
“No one else?” he guessed.
I could lie. But it was just me in the car, and it felt . . . safe. “You were right, the other day, when you said I hadn’t made any friends. I don’t want to lie to them. I don’t want to feel like I . . . Like I—”
“Belong here?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah. The idea of liking it here, it’s . . . ugh. I’d hate that.” I brushed my hair off my face. “So yeah, it can be a bit lonely,” I admitted softly. “Does that sound really selfish?”
“No. Up ahead, turn right.”
I did.
“Keep going.”
I did. Trees lined the road, and it got narrower. I saw the sign for a park, and I glanced in the rearview to the car behind me.
“Is there a turnaround?”
“No.”
“Then why are we out here? He said drive in a circle if I have to.”
“Mmhmm. Pull up.” I used my turn signal and switched it off when he spoke again. “Not there. Next one.”
I drove past the car lot that looked like it could house about twenty cars, but there was no one there.
“This one.”
I saw the four spaces, overshadowed by surrounding trees, and with another glance at the man behind me, I turned in.
“Top space.”