He doesn’t say anything else as he climbs into the passenger seat. The ceiling of my sedan is so low he has to bend his neck to fit, but he doesn’t complain. I toss him my phone to plug his address into my GPS and shift the car into drive.
“Do you walk everywhere?” I ask once we get onto the main road.
“Feels like it right now. My car is fucked, and I haven’t had a chance to fix it.”
“You’re good with cars?”
“Nope. Karis is, though. She told me what’s wrong with it, but it all sounded like gibberish to me. Once she finds a good deal on the parts she needs, she will try her best to repair it. We just haven’t had luck there.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, but I can’t do much about it now but wait.”
Guilt claws at my throat. How much time did he spend walking here this morning to help me? We didn’t even do anything. I just yelled at him for hours. The lump in my throat makes it too hard to speak. I turn up the radio, letting the cheerful pop hits fill the silence instead.
He doesn’t move as I put the car into park outside his unit. The air between us practically vibrates in anticipation—the question is, anticipation of what? His stare locks on my face again, sharpening with that same intensity from earlier. My mouth waters as a flash of heat sparks in my core.
This is when he kisses me, right?
That’s what always happens in the movies in situations like this.
My tongue darts out, wetting my lips, and he pinches his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath, and when his lashes open, his gaze is fixed on something on the other side of the windshield.
“Thank you for the ride,” he says before climbing out of the car, and he doesn’t look back as he limps up the old wooden steps to his door.
Bitter disappointment washes through me, followed by a wave of embarrassment. He isn’t into me like that, and he never will be. I need to make peace with the fact all I’ll ever get from him is friendship. It’s what I wanted to begin with, and it will have to be enough. It’s for the best anyway. Relationships kill friend groups. I’m not sure it would be worth the risk to pressure something with Gage, only to lose this new group of friends if it doesn’t work out.
Resolve fills me as I pull out of his complex. No matter what happens, things between us will stay platonic, even if my heart is begging for more.
Chapter 14
Kori
Loud shouts and intense banter bleed into the hallway. If I wasn’t sure which unit was James and Morgan’s, I would be now. The words are muffled, but it’s clear things are getting heated. It’s probably nonsense anyway; from what I saw the other night, I think bickering is their love language. At least that diverts attention away from me.
I swallow against my growing nerves and knock before I can back out. The bickering inside stops, and after a few seconds of silence, the door opens.
“Kori, glad you could make it.” Morgan’s face is flushed, and his frazzled eyes dart between me and the scene behind him even as he greets me.
It’s a Renaissance painting come to life. Karis and Nathan are frozen in place in a heap on the floor. His head is trapped between her legs, and she’s reaching for something he’s holding in the air above her. James watches it all from a perch on the back of the couch, and Evelyn is sprawled on the cushions, cuddling with a huge German shepherd.
The only person not actively involved in their chaos is Gage, which isn’t surprising, considering he seems to be the referee for their shenanigans. He’s a few feet behind our host, leaning against the kitchen island, and unlike his friend, his attention is fully locked on me. A ball of glowing heat forms under the intensity of his gaze. Dragging my eyes away from him takes physical effort, leaving me with the same type of breathlessness I felt after the brutal warm-up he inflicted on me this morning.
“Looks like I missed out on the fun,” I say, ignoring the pounding in my chest.
Nathan glances in my direction, and Karis takes advantage of his distraction to roll him to his back and yank whatever he’s holding out of his hand.
“New girl, you made it,” Karis cheers as she pops up off the floor with the grace of a cat.
With that, the room comes to life again. James shoos the dog off the couch and drops onto one of the plush seats beside her friend, Karis claims the spot on Evelyn’s other side, and Morgan moves to join his girlfriend, leaving me standing uncomfortably in the doorway.
Gage gives me a half smile and beckons me inside with a tilt of his head. That look sends my heart into a fluttering tailspin. That bitch is out of control. Wejustdecided we weren’t going to do this anymore.
“Welcome to the nuthouse,” he says as I join him near the kitchen. “If at any point you decide you’ve had enough, blink twice and I’ll get you out of here.”
“Stop trying to scare her away. We promised we would be on our best behavior,” Nathan says as he pulls himself off the floor and heads in our direction.
“If what I walked in on is your best behavior, I’m scared to see what bad looks like,” I tease.
