One-Eighty (Westover Prep 1)

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I grumble when he cranks the car.

“Home is only a few miles away,” he says as he latches his seat belt across his chest.

If only he’d worn it that night.

But even as I think it, I can’t regret what happened. Even as horrible as it is and as much as I want to think differently, I know Dalton has changed. He hasn’t shown one hint of being the same guy he was before his car went off the ravine. Knowing this is my main cause for concern because as much as I can admit to tolerating, maybe even liking this new guy, it won’t last. The second he finds out I was driving the car or when his memories come back, it’s only going to make things worse.

“Did you follow me?”

Why else would he happen to show up during the single hour I had to spend with Dillon before he was due at the funeral home for his granddad’s viewing? The coincidence is just too much.

“Oh, shit,” he snaps, putting the car back in park before we even rolled back an inch. “Mom’s pie. Be right back.”

Like a kid hopped up on candy, he throws the door open and runs back into the diner. Instead of texting Mom, who’s at the funeral home anyway, I gawk at the door he just disappeared through. Am I so wrapped up in myself that I thought I was the only reason he’d show up here? What a joke.

He emerges a few minutes later with two pie boxes stacked on top of each other. He climbs back inside after placing them in the back seat.

“I can’t remember if she said apple and blueberry if they didn’t have it or the other way around.” He grins over at me. “So, I got one of each.”

“Is that…” I snap my jaw shut before finishing. I shouldn’t ask him things about the accident, but I’m dying to know if he has short-term memory loss as well.

“Is that, what?” he says as he pulls on his seat belt again.

“I shouldn’t ask you things about the accident. It’s rude, and I know I hate it when people ask me about it.” Mainly, because I don’t want to slip up and confess my role in it.

“What’s rude,” he begins, turning back in my direction with a pointed stare rather than making a move to reverse out of the parking spot, “is kissing me when you have a boyfriend.”

“You stole that kiss,” I remind him.

“You whimpered like you enjoyed it.”

Just the reminder makes my thigh muscles clench. My palms grow sweaty, and my lips tingle with the need for it to happen again.

“I was appalled. You stole my first kiss.”

My mouth snaps shut again, and I know I’ve given too much away. There’s no way he’ll believe that I’m dating a tattooed-covered hottie like Dillon and never kissed him.

But it’s the truth. That kiss last night with Dalton was my very first. My second came moments ago when Dillon pressed his lips to mine in the diner. That one was awkward beyond belief for me, and I’ll get back at my friend for putting me on the spot like that, but I have bigger things to worry about right now—namely, the handsome bully sitting in the car with me.

“It was my first kiss, too,” he whispers, instead of making fun of me for not having any experience.

“What?” My head snaps in his direction. “Dalton, you’ve kissed most of the girls in Westover and half the girls in Wise County from what I’ve heard.”

“And yet, all I can remember is your kiss. Your lips. The sound of that little moan that escaped when my tongue touched yours for the first time. It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Are charisma and charm innate gifts? Because this boy is oozing with both.

“We sh-shouldn’t talk about that kiss.”

I focus on my hands in my lap because I know by the tone of his voice that if I turn in his direction, he’s going to press his mouth against mine just like he did last night, and I’d be unable to resist him.

“That kiss is all I want to talk about. Or we could kiss again and talk about that instead.”

“No more kissing,” I tell him with as much bravado as I can manage.

“Why?” he asks, genuinely sounding confused. “Because I thought it was a great kiss.”

I can agree with him on that, but since I have nothing to compare it to, I keep my mouth sealed shut. Plus, continuing to talk about what happened last night will only lead to me wanting to do it more, and that’s the worst idea in the history of ideas.

“Is it because you have a boyfriend?”

That would be a great reason if it were true, but I have a feeling Dalton knows that I don’t have a boyfriend. The situation in the diner was awkward at best, and the boy sitting next to me is many things, but an idiot isn’t one of them.