Page 15 of Uncharted Desires
Sawyer sighs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. I’m ready to give up when he says, “Good morning,” his voice surprisingly soft. “I didn’t mean to blow you off.” I cross my arms over my chest and lift a brow. Sawyer rolls his eyes. “Okay, I did mean to blow you off. That was shitty of me. But as you’ve already noticed, I’m a shitty person.”
He walks away and then turns around and asks, “Coming?”
And once again, I find myself following.
We walk through the college hallway, mute. But somehow, the silence isn’t awkward until we step outside the building into the parking lot.
“Where are we going?”
“You look like you need to clear your head.”
Condescending, as always.
We stop in front of a sketchy-looking motorcycle, and Sawyer pulls out two helmets from the trunk before handing one to me. I look at the helmet, the motorcycle, and the helmet again. “There’sno wayI’m getting on that thing with you.”
Sawyer puts on his helmet and lifts the screen before shrugging. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t offer.”
He moves to put the other helmet away. I slam my hand over the trunk, closing it, and against my better judgment, I snatch it from his hand. I fumble to put it on, Sawyer watching me with amusement. I shiver when he reaches out and touches something around my neck to adjust it. Once he decides I’m ready, he straddles the bike before turning to me. “I don’t have all day.”
I say a little prayer to whatever god’s responsible for looking over idiots jumping on motorcycles with irresponsible assholes. I sit behind him.
What the fuck should I do with my hands?
Reluctantly, I grab the sides of Sawyer’s leather jacket, hoping that’ll do. Hoping that’s not too intimate.
Sawyer looks over his shoulder. “Do you have a death wish?”
He doesn’t leave me time to figure out what he means by that, grabbing my hands and wrapping them tight around his waist.
He puts down both of our screens.
“Don’t drive too fast,” I say before I realize my words are now lost in the helmet.
The engine roars. The second the bike moves, the momentum pulls me back, so I tighten my grip around Sawyer’s middle. The moment we’re on the main street, I know it was a terrible idea.
Sawyer is slaloming between cars. At the intersection, he treats the traffic lights like a suggestion he’s free to ignore.
Finally, the bike slows, although it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes' drive, and Sawyer parks in front of a tall, abandoned-looking building.
He dismounts gracefully while I stumble and almost fall over, my legs weak and trembling as I struggle to take the helmet off.
“I’m never getting on that thing again,” I say the second my head is free
Sawyer arches a brow as he takes it from me. “We’ll see about that.”
Once he puts the helmets away and secures the bike, he marches toward the abandoned building.
I guess we’re going, then.
I take a few long strides to catch up. I’ll be damned if I end up following him around all day. “Seriously, where are we going?” I ask once we enter through the unlocked door to thelobby-ish-looking area. I can safely say the building hasn’t seen life in years.
“Seriously, you need to chill for once. That neurosis can’t be good for your health.”
I huff and don’t say another word as we climb the stairs, floor after floor, wondering what I’m even doing, following Sawyer through shady corridors to some unknown location, all the while tolerating him being an utter dick.
I should tell him to fuck off and call it a day. But for some reason, I follow him all the way up the stairs until there’s no moreupleft. Sawyer opens yet another unlocked door, and we step out on a roof.
He walks first with me in tow.
