Page 8 of Ominous: Part 1
“I didn’t want to ruin it.”
Lines from a poem. Words he can’t possibly mean. Where did he find them? What does he want from me?
He straightens, and the moment of tension in my veins is snapped too soon. He even takes a step back, letting me breathe deeper, and nods his head toward the parking lot.He is very good at this.“Do you need a ride?”
I blink, disoriented at all the things he knows. All the things he shouldn’t.
I have a car, a ten-year-old Sentra Mom put her Christmas cleaning bonuses together for. I hold out on the hope that is one thing he doesnotknow, because it would be too much. It would take observation to the level of stalking. I need to stay away from those things, for my own good. Away from…obsessions.
Either way, what Idon’thave is a parking spot.
A single one is an additional thousand dollars, on top of tuition and books and uniforms. The grants and aid wouldn’t cover it. It was stretched too tight as it was, like hide over a too-big drum, the circumference too wide, my dreams tumbled inside, and Mom is too proud to ask her brother-in-law for more than he’s given us.
I realize I’m staring at Eli’s mouth again when I shake my head and look at my phone screen. I need to leave. It takes fifteen comfortable minutes for me to get home from here, and I have exactly that many. We aren’t even at the parking lot yet and Sebastian isn’t on his way.Shit.
I unlock my phone and start typing out a text to Sebastian, all one-handed,The Canterbury Talesin my other.
I’ve gotCan youtyped out on my screen when Eli clears his throat. Again.
I pause, my thumb hovering over the keyboard as I lift and narrow my eyes on his.
“I don’t mind.” He says this as if it’s all I need. The permission I’d been waiting for. Like if he doesn’t mind, nothing else matters. Another slip in his mask.
An emotion aside from embarrassment wells up inside me.Hostility.“Well, I do.” I snap the words out and I don’t really mean to, but he’s thrown me off balance. Knocked me sideways. I can barely stay upright with his hurricane. “I don’t know you, and my parents wouldn’t want a stranger to take me home.” The last part is a lie because I would tell them it was only a friend.
Still, I hold his gaze in a challenge. I expect him to cut me down for being rude.
But he doesn’t bite back.
“Ride with me, Eden.” He turns away from me, angling himself toward the parking lot.Come closer. I don’t bite.“I’ll just wait here for someone to pick you up otherwise, and that would be a waste of both of our time.”
“That’s your problem.” I drop my gaze to my phone again. “I don’t need a—”
I sense him turn back to stare at me. Lifting my eyes slowly, they lock with his. “I get it. You don’tneeda ride.” He smiles, the dark green of his irises morphing to something more like emeralds. “Indulge me, just this once?”
“I think you’re probablyindulgedevery day of your life.” But I don’t keep typing out my message to my brother.
His smile widens. “Maybe,” he agrees. “But not by you.”
* * *
His hand ison the shifter, all four blacked-out windows of the matte black G35 cracked to let the warm summer air in. My dream car is Italian, something Sebastian pointed out to me in a magazine one day, but I find it a relief Eli drives this instead of one of the many BMWs or Mercedes in the lot.
I clutch my bag close to my chest, arms wrapped around it, and I try not to stare at the way his veins ridge against his olive skin. How his palm covers the entire shifter knob, his fingers curled over it. The skill with which he doesn’t miss a gear, no danger of stalling out as he drives.
Glycerineby Bush is loud through the speakers, and it might seem rude to some people, the volume turned up enough to drown out any hope of a conversation, but it is exactly what I want. And I love this song.
He glances my way, dash lights glowing across his cheekbones and the straight ridge of his nose. A smile curls his mouth, and I don’t want to return it out of some misplaced spite—you have everything I want, including me in your passenger seat. I’ve given in, and now I’m not sure how I could climb out—but I can’t help it. I try to bite back my own grin, but it’s impossible. He might be deceptively charming, but there’s no denying the allure.
And just as he looks at the road again, his lips hitch higher, and mine mirror the movement. I’m kind of annoyed with myself by how easily he won me over.
But only for tonight. Just this once.
And yet… who am I kidding?
I’m in a car with a boy I have stared at for nearly three weeks of class, thinking he never even glanced at me. Never once saw me out of the corner of his eye. Heard me speak up in class.
Turns out, he knows my nameandmy financial status—and he’s going to find out more, unfortunately, when he follows the directions I gave him when we first got into the car.
