Page 133 of Live for Me

“Come on, angel,” I said and went back to the truck. Indy opted to stay behind to try to monitor the situations with Salem, Nevada, and Akron.

I could feel New Jersey’s eyes burning into the back of my head while I held my hand out for Memphis to use to climb into the passenger’s side. I couldn’t help but laugh once I was in the truck with her and I could hear Jersey light up the back tires of his car while it squealed halfway down the driveway toward the road. I stopped the truck at the end of the driveway to watch the Challenger disappear in the distance.

“What are you doing?” Memphis asked. “I thought you wanted to silence the man? Oh, my God. We’re not going at all, are we? That was just to get him to leave, wasn’t it?”

I laughed at that shit, because it really wasn’t a bad idea.

“Hold onto something, angel. I very much intend to silence him.”

I drove the truck straight over the road and into the field across from Jersey’s house, while Memphis promptly began to freak out beside me.

“I have no doubt that car is faster, but I’d bet anything that he wouldn’t sacrifice the car to win this. Not even for the sake of his earth-sized pride. He’ll stick to the roads to save his precious paint. Ariel can go anywhere.”

I had a good laugh at the expense of my adorable little panic-stricken passenger. After a good four million gasps, at least seventeen attempts to slam her foot down on an imaginary brake, and a white knuckled hold that shifted between the seatbelt across her chest and the handle over her head, I parked the truck in the grass lot at the entrance of the corn maze.

Jersey’s car wasn’t anywhere in sight, but I could hear it coming. I went around to the other side of the truck when Memphis hadn’t managed to get out on her own, and found myself laughing again when she still hadn’t released the handle or even taken her seatbelt off. I climbed up on the running boards to lean across her to undo the buckle.

“You sure you’re up for this?” I asked while I tried to drag her from the seat. “Haunted corn maze where the goal of everyone here will be to scare you, when you freaked out that hard over adrivethrough a regular cornfield?”

“I know they’re trying to scare me. That’s what they’resupposedto do.Youare not supposed to just drive through a cornfield.Youaren’t supposed to scare me,” she snapped.

“Oh, please. You’ll never convince me that you don’t also love it that you’re afraid of me.”

I definitely shouldn’t have said that out loud.

But I wasn’t wrong.

She knew it, too. It was painfully obvious while she froze to stare straight up at me for a second as Jersey’s car pulled in next to the other side of the truck. She glanced in that direction for just a fraction of a second before she looked right back at me.

“You cheated,” Jersey said from the other side of the truck.

I smirked. “We can finish this conversation later, angel,” I whispered to her before I took a step back to be ready to face the madman.

“I don’t think we set any rules?” I asked and looked between Jersey and where Trista stood at the front of the car laughing uncontrollably.

“He beat you here, J,” Triss added. “That was the only requirement.”

“This won’t end well for you if you take his side, baby.”

“It’s not taking a side,” she said, still laughing. “He got here first. He was parked here when we pulled in. That means he was first.”

“Triss,” he hissed and turned right back for her.

I tried to ignore whatever he was about to do to her. Their relationship was weird as fuck and watching them interact usually just made me want to hit him all the more. I turned and held my hand out to Memphis. She stared at it for a couple seconds, like she was somehow confused about what I was expecting her to do.

The smartest human I’d ever met in real life, and shestilldidn’t know what it meant to just hold hands.

“You ready?” I asked. She finally just fucking smiled at me before she took that whole extra step closer to be able to slip her hand into mine. I watched her while we walked toward the entrance, because I couldn’t stop myself. She was looking down at where our hands were connected; the slightest hint of that smile still present in the way that the corners of her mouth were just slightly tipped upward. She still watched our hands while she shifted her fingers from just sitting in my hand to being laced in mine. She looked up at me in an instant when I squeezed her hand, and I had the most beautiful few seconds of watching her cheeks turn pink before she looked away again.

“They have food trucks?” Triss asked. “Are those games? What is this place? I thought we were just coming here to be scared by some corn creatures.”

“It’s a Fall Festival,” Jersey laughed. “Haunted shit, fried food, carnival games. You haven’t done anything like this before?”

“No,” she said quietly.

“Me either,” Memphis added. I squeezed her hand another time.

“Are we really supposed to eat first?” Triss asked. “Because there’s a good chance I’ll throw up everywhere if it’s actually scary in there.”

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