He jumped and whipped around as I backed away and then he smiled that lopsided grin. “You little sneak! You think that was funny, don’t you?”
I couldn’t control my laughter. “Yep, I sure do and you would too if you could have seen the way you jumped.”
He came down the front steps and stood in front of me with his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans as he looked at my purse on my shoulder. “Leavin’ so soon?”
“I haven’t decided. I was kicking the idea around when I got your text.”
“You should definitely leave this party. With me, that is.”
This guy was a piece of work. He really expected me to take off with him. “I just met you last night and I don’t recall getting to know you all that well so why would I do that?”
“First of all, you owe me two more wishes according to your own admission, Genie. Second, you could use the time to get to know me better.”
“Why do I need to know you better?”
There they were; those dimples I adored and I wondered what provoked them to make their appearance. “So our first date won’t be so awkward.”
He was hot, but I wasn’t falling for his routine. “There’s no way I could fool myself into thinking you might be a good idea.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and reached for mine. “Many great ideas have happened by mistake.”
I looked down at his hands grasping mine. That might be true, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance because my last mistake was still fresh on my mind. “I don’t need more mistakes in my life.”
He let go of one of my hands and put two of his fingers under my chin to lift it. He had the dreamiest brown eyes and I was jealous of his long lashes. “Payton, we’re gonna happen. You should know that up front.”
No! I would not be fooled by the likes of a Playah like Nick Hawke. “Is bullshit one word or two?”
“You have one smart ass mouth on you and I’m not gonna lie about it; I really want to kiss it, but I won’t because you’re not ready.”
“What makes you think I’ll ever be ready?”
“I’m choosing to use my second wish on you leaving this party with me, so that means I only have one wish left and I’ll be saving it for our first kiss. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to redeem it. So, do you need to let Claire and Jessie know that you’re leaving with me?”
Geez, he was presumptuous. I should have told him I wouldn’t go anywhere with him, but that wasn’t what I did at all.
“No, I’ll text Claire.” I didn’t want to have that discussion right now. I mean the one where I had to explain how I had lost my mind when I decided to leave with the Sex Tricks Jedi.
“Leaving w/ Nick. Call U Later.”
My thumb hesitated over the send button. Gah! She and Jessie were going to go apeshit about me leaving with him and that’s why I waited to hit the send button until Nick and I were getting into his car.
He pulled the big heavy door open for me and I felt like I ungracefully fell into the seat when I got in because it was so much lower than my Lexus. “Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that kind of drop.”
“What? You mean my car being low profile?”
“Low profile?” I laughed. “Sure, we’ll say low profile if that’s what you want to call it.”
“What would you call it?”
I definitely wasn’t a short, little petite girl like Claire. “Ass dragging on the ground is what I’d call it.” I stretched out one of my long legs toward Nick. “Have you seen how long my legs are? I’m five-seven and most of that is in these legs.”
His eyes darted down to my ankle and slowly followed my leg up to where my shorts started, making me decide that my move might not have been such a great idea.
“Are you kiddin’ me? There’s no way I could miss these legs, Doll Face,” he laughed and I quickly pulled my leg back into the car. My face immediately felt like throbbing fire. I was blushing, by gosh, actually blushing for the first time in my life.
Nick shut my door and then he walked around and got in on the driver’s side. He started the car and it roared loudly the way I always imagined a NASCAR would.
“There’s no sneaking in or out at night for you in this loud bad boy, is there?”
“No, there’s no way I would be able to pull that one off so I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have to sneak around. There’s not a lot of rules at my house.”
Geez, I hoped he didn’t have parents like Jessie’s mom and grandmother.
He backed out of the spot where he was parked and did a U-turn in the street in front of Dane’s. I had no idea where we were going but I didn’t care because I needed some distance between me and my most recent mistake.
I got a text and I reached for my phone to silence it because I knew Claire and Jessie were about to blow it up. “Your parents don’t have rules for you, huh?”
“Not really. I live with my dad and he doesn’t really care what we do as long as it doesn’t involve causing him trouble. Do your parents still have a curfew for you or something?”
“My parents’ control isn’t really about a curfew. They are much more concerned with appearances so they like to control who I’m with and what I do because it reflects upon them.”
Speak of the devil and he shall appear. The text was from my Mom and I shoved my phone back into my purse without replying to her. “That makes my parents sound like total Class A ass**les, doesn't it?
“I guess it depends on their limitations. Let me guess...they would not approve of their perfect little girl being with someone like me. Am I right?”
The thought of my parents thinking I was perfect made me laugh, but he had the disapproval part down perfectly. “My parents aren’t afflicted with the misconception of thinking I’m perfect. They’re not delusional.”
He turned to look at me briefly. “But they wouldn’t approve of me, would they?”
I looked out the window and watched the street lights quickly passing. “No, they would not approve of me being with you and that’s putting it mildly.”
He was quiet for a few seconds and I wondered what he was thinking. “What do your parents think of Jessie?”
I had heard them voice their feelings over and over but I was going to leave off the part about how they thought he was trash and would never amount to anything. “They commend the Deverauxs for helping Jessie, but they believe it’s a mistake for them to take him in their home. They’re pretty much outraged that they would allow their daughter to be in a relationship with him.”