A car parks just at the bottom of the steps where I’m sitting and honks a couple of times.
Is it my car?
I frown, trying to see the person inside, and my phone pings in my hand.
Unknown: Get in the car, Prudence.
Prudence: Who is this?
“It can’t be the car you ordered,” Raph says with an annoyed voice.
I don’t answer, focused on the car and my phone.
Unknown: Nate. Jack asked me to pick you up.
“For fuck sake,” I mutter, standing up from the step I was sitting on.
“What is it?” Raph asks, taking a step to stand next to me, his eyes narrowed on the dark SUV.
The only reason I’m actually taking the steps towards it is that, after a—really—quick deliberation, I’m absolutely certain that being stuck in a car with Raph would be worse than being stuck with Nate.
Raph, a guy I’ve slept with the day we met and never saw again before that awkward encounter at the bar yesterday and the meeting atworktoday.
Nate, my brother’s ex-best friend who posed for me a few times before my brother snapped, and whom I haven’t really talked to in 9 years.
The one who did not try to make me quit my job because he’s afraid his actions have consequences wins.
“Prue, I’m telling you, it’s not your—” he insists as I reach the bottom of the stairs.
“It is. See you next week,” I say through gritted teeth.
Raph doesn’t move though, as I make my way towards the passenger side of Nate’s SUV.
I peer through the window before opening the door—I’m not crazy, thank you—and my gaze meets Nate’s inscrutable azur eyes.
And now, I can’t say whether I’m relieved or even more anxious.
Relieved. Definitely relieved that it’s actually someone here to pick me up and take me back to the house and not someone here to abduct me.
Not at all anxious about spending the next twenty to thirty minutes in a car with Nate.Alone.
Why would I be anxious about that? We’ve been alone together before. The few times he stepped in to pose for me after my models stood me up, for example. Well, the couple of times. One and a half times… Whatever.
Why can’t I remember any other time? Was it the only two times we were ever alone together?
Oh god, it was… All the other times, Jack or Nuri were here, or it was in the Anatomy class I crashed—his teacher was the only one kind enough to allow me to join in on occasion, after I bribed her with a portrait of her and her husband.
But still, I don’t have any reason to be anxious, right? We’ve never beenfriendsbut we got along just fine during the one year I shared with them—minus that comment I’ve overheard—and Jack and him were stillbuddies. And it’s not like…
“Will you get in the damn car, Prudence?”
I jolt, and realize that I’ve been standing frozen next to the passenger door, under the pouring rain, my hand on the handle. Didn’t even notice that Nate had opened the window a bit at some point.
Must be that stupid brain tumor acting up.
I clear my throat and climb inside, wincing at the feel of the leatherunder the back of my thighs. I mutter an apology for potentially ruining his seat with my wet clothes and buckle my seatbelt, sliding my shopping bag in the leg room between my feet.
A minute passes, and the silence stretches. The car doesn’t move.
