“Smooth,” I chuckled.
“Made you smile though. And something tells me, you haven’t done much of that lately.” Wow, I was either very transparent, or he was good at reading people.
“Oh, you’re good.”
His eyes scanned my features. “And you’re incredibly sweet. How old are you?”
I paused, wondering whether to ask him to guess. “Sixteen.”
“Damn,” he responded with a click of his fingers.
“Nearly seventeen,” I added quickly. I didn’t like the fact that I might have put him off.
He paused, his lips twisting before he said. “Now that I can work with.”
“What do you mean?” I suddenly felt like a silly schoolgirl. The creases at the corners of his eyes suggested he was much more street-wise than I. Like he’d lived longer than his years.
Xander shrugged. “You’re south of jail bait, so that’ll do me. My heart couldn’t take it if I had to walk away.
“Well, at least it means you have some moral compass,” I added, casting a glance towards Harper, who had just smacked Nick on the arm for teasing her.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Before I could question him, he carried out. “So, what brought you here? And I don’t mean the shitty parking lot of Lang’s, I mean to the States.”
He was clearly a bad boy, and we had just met, but I felt so comfortable that I just blurted the words. “My mother passed away a few weeks ago, and so I now live here with my dad.” I caught Harper glance towards me, having heard. She didn’t say anything, though, as she was in the middle of a conversation with Nick.
Sympathy shone through his eyes. A genuine reaction, I would say. “Shit. I’m sorry. That blows. It also answers that sadness I see in your eyes.”
It was odd, I felt like I’d known him ages. “You seemed to have a talent for reading people.”
Xander dragged a hand through his messy hair. “Not really. I just recognise that look, Molly. I lost my mother, too. In a pile-up on the freeway. They had to cut her out of the car, but she didn’t make it. It’s been a few years now but it still stings like a motherfucker.”
A silence followed, and my tongue felt dry. To think that this boy had similarly lost his mother made me feel a slight connection. But were we sharing too much too soon?
Xander took a step towards me and pushed a lock of hair behind my ear with his fingers. “And now I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
Shaking my hair back, I pursed my lips before responding. “No, sorry, it’s just… I haven’t really spoken about it to anyone, and with all due respect, you’re a stranger. And it’s getting late.”
“Then stay a while and hang out with me. Then we won’t be strangers.”
“My dad’s making tea, er, sorry, dinner.”
He gave me the toothiest smile. “That’s fine. You can say tea. I spent some time in the UK, although on the North side. Yorkshire, I think it was, dodgy accent that I couldn’t understand.”
“Yes. We have friends who live in Sheffield. Well, at least, my mum did.” At the mention of my mother, a twinge of sadness gripped my chest.
“Hey, chin up,” he soothed, threading a finger under my chin and raising my face to his.
He was so good-looking. Xander reminded me of the T-birds in the musical Grease. Talk about an American cliché. His shoulders filled out his leather jacket, and he wore a black T-shirt and black ripped jeans. Although his shoulders were broad, he was lean, like Nick’s build, and I guessed they might be brothers.
The others chipped in here and there, but the banter flowed well. The conversation switched to the year ahead and what parties were happening.
I found out Xander was twenty and so younger than I had thought, and he was Nick’s older brother (as I suspected). Nick was a senior at St Andrew’s.
I asked Xander if he went to college, and he said that he worked for his father. I didn’t ask too many details so as not to seem nosy, but it must have been a lucrative job if he drove such a fancy car.
It wasn’t until my phone beeped in my pocket that I lifted it and saw the time.
As I explained that I had to go, Xander said. “Well, I enjoyed hanging with you, Molly Miller. We should do it again sometime.”
