Seph was none the wiser, though, pulling her door shut and buckling her belt as she rushed to introduce us.
"Lucas, this is my sister. She's not a very good ‘people’ person, though, so, like, just ignore her if she says anything rude or mean or generally threatening, okay? She'll just be joking. Right, Dare?" Seph gave me a hard glare like she wanted me to nod and smile, but I was too busy freaking right the fuck out.
Lucas was quicker than me to recover, breaking eye contact and clearing his throat before closing his own door.
"Really nice to meet you," he murmured, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror once more. This time his green gaze was full of apology and guilt, silently begging me for a chance to explain. "Dare, was it?"
I had fucking nothing to say. What the hell could I even say? Less than twenty-four hours ago he'd fucked me on just about every surface of my bedroom and bathroom. Now he sat in the back seat of my Range Rover wearing a Shadow Prep school uniform.
What the actual fuck?
"Dare," Seph hissed, poking me in the leg and damn near cutting her finger off on one of my blades. "Stop acting weird."
My attention snapped back to her, but still couldn’t think of anything to say. So I just shook my head and started the car. I couldn't exactly kick Lucas out without telling Seph that he'd spent the weekend with his dick buried between my legs.
Fuck. Fuck.
I’d known he was too good to be true. Now I was wishing he really had been a spy for a rival gang... That would have been infinitely better than this. Anything would have.
Seph chatted away, clearly trying to cover for my awkward silence as we drove back to town. Lucas responded to her in one-word answers, and every time I glanced at him in the mirror, he was staring at me. Just fucking staring like he didn't care if Seph found out.
Then again, she was sitting directly in front of him, making it hard for her to see him. She probably hadn't even noticed.
"Where am I taking you, Lucas?" I managed to grind out from behind clenched teeth as we got closer to the edge of town. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and it was taking all my willpower not to drop Seph at home and take Lucas somewhere to shoot him.
Actually, that was a lie. Even in a goddamn Shadow Prep uniform, he looked so gorgeous it hurt. I was too damn scared of what I'd do if I was alone with him... because chances were I wouldn't shoot him at all. Just like I'd failed to shoot Cass earlier.
Oh fucking hell. Cass. What was Cass going to say when he found out? Or Zed for that matter?
I cringed internally, already anticipating their mockery.
Lucas gave me directions to his house, his voice low and soothing, like he was trying to apologize with every word. That wasn't going to fucking cut it, though.
The neighborhood he directed me to was an upper-middle class area, and the house he pointed out was cute, in a slightly run-down way.
I stopped the car in the driveway and still had nothing to say, so I just waited for him to get the fuck out and let me erase the past three days from my brain permanently.
"So, did you want to call me later, and we can plan out our project?" Seph asked, spinning in her seat to beam at Lucas. Fuck me, she was totally crushing on him. Not that I could blame her; she had good taste. But this was one hell of a disaster just waiting to happen.
"Um." Lucas met my gaze in the mirror again, and I quickly looked away. I wanted nothing to do with this mess. "Yeah, sure."
Seph beamed even brighter. "Great! Pass me your phone; I'll put my number in."
He handed his phone to her, and I jerked. What if he'd left our message thread open? Oh, fuck.
Seph didn't say anything though, just typed her info in and handed the device back to him with a smile. "I sent myself a text so I’d have your number," she told him. "I hope that's okay."
Lucas's eyes widened—I was fucking watching him in the mirror again—but he nodded and gave my sister a tight smile. "Cool. I'll, uh, see you. Thank you for the ride home, Dare." His lips twitched with mischief as he said that, and I shook my head at him in the mirror.
Fuck right off with that shit, Lucas.
"Goodbye, Lucas," I told him in a hard voice, meaning it.
His responding grin as he climbed out of the car was the same one he'd given yesterday after he’d kissed me in front of Zed like he was staking claim.
I pulled out of his driveway quickly, before I could change my mind and confront him right there. Seph didn't say anything for the longest time, too, then finally let out a long and very dramatic sigh.
"What?" I asked, side-eyeing her. "I didn't even try to kill him." Even though I should have.
"No, I know," she groaned, then gave me the worst kind of pouty face. "I think I know why Lucas hasn't really paid attention to the girls at school."
Shit. "You do?"
She nodded, the picture of unhappiness. "I think he's got a girlfriend."
I blinked a couple of times, refocusing on the road ahead as I swallowed. "Why do you say that?"
She huffed again. "When I sent myself a text from his phone, I saw the most recent message thread in his inbox."
Oh fucking hell.
"What? Seph, that's an invasion of privacy! You can't just read his messages!" Yeah, I had a vested interest in my little sister not being that rude. Please let her not have read them.
She just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I didn't open it. Jesus, Dare, what do you take me for? But she's clearly his girlfriend. Her contact was saved as just H and a love-heart emoji."
What?
"Well..." I searched for something to say to that. Anything. "Maybe he has a boyfriend."
Wow. That was the best I could come up with to deflect attention? Hopeless. Something about lying to my sister got me all twisted up in knots, and I definitely didn't use my best material.
Seph huffed again. "Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it's just an ex or something. I dunno. Argh, why am I even telling you this? You're probably already planning on sending one of your guys over with a gun and a threat later tonight. I'm doomed to graduate a virgin."
I smiled at her, not totally faking it this time. "Seph, if any guy lets me intimidate them away from you, then he’s clearly not worth your time or attention. Think of it like that."
She didn't though. She glared daggers at me the whole way home and jumped out of the car the second we parked. Her timing was impeccable, too, because a split second later my phone lit up with a new message.
Lucas: We probably need to talk...
14
Considering there was quite literally nothing Lucas could say that would adequately explain why he was a student at Shadow Prep not Shadow Grove University like he'd led me to believe, I ignored his message.
I helped Seph with her homework like normal, cooked sweet chili chicken breasts with garden vegetables for dinner, watched three episodes of Gossip Girl with her, then made an excuse not to go into 7th Circle.
The next morning I had a half dozen missed calls from Lucas, all of which I cleared from my call history. I dropped Seph off to school way earlier than she needed to go—paranoid I would see him—then drove over to Rainybanks to meet with the Timberwolves accountant.