“A guy.”
Her eyes narrow. “Does this guy have a name?”
My heart beats harder, but I’m relieved she asked about the guy and not where the party was. “His name is Ryden Sherlock.”
Faint surprise flashes across her face. “Oh. Sherlock. I don’t know that name. I mean, I do, but assuming he is not a fictional British detective, I’m thinking of a different one. Have I met his mom?”
I shrug. “I have no idea.”
“Not a PTO mom?”
“I really don’t know. I don’t know him that well. He’s a friend of—” I stop, horrified, and try to backpedal. “Sherlock’s on the football team. He reads. He likes turkey sandwiches and bottled water. This is the extent of my knowledge about him.”
She smiles teasingly. “Is he cute?”
“He is,” I say with a nod.
Her gaze drops and she checks out my mostly bare legs. “Is that my skirt?”
“It is. I borrowed it. Is that okay?”
Her gaze returns to my face. “I’m not sure. Do we trust this turkey sandwich eater enough to wear such a skimpy skirt around him?”
I crack a smile, but my face warms. “Yes. He’s fine.”
“You’ll have your phone on you at all times?”
“Of course.”
“And you remember that move I showed you? Make a scene if you need to, break his nose, run away?”
“I will never forget,” I assure her.
She nods, but still looks a bit worried. “I should’ve been more prepared for you wanting to go to a party. I should’ve bought pepper spray.” She looks over at Ray. “Do you have pepper spray?”
“I do not need pepper spray,” I say before he can answer.
“I can show you a couple of moves, too,” Ray offers. “I do teach a women’s self-defense class.”
“Oh my God, guys. I don’t need self-defense. It’s just a party. There will be plenty of people around.”
“Get your own drinks,” Mom says. “If a guy wants to be all chivalrous and grab one for you when you’re not looking, tell him no thanks. And if this Sherlock guy drinks alcohol, do not get into a car with him. Call me, I will come and get you.”
“I’m not even riding there with him. The party is in walking distance, but I’m already late and I need to go,” I say, inching toward the door.
Mom sighs. “Why couldn’t you be deeply religious and interested in life as a nun?”
“Goodbye,” I say, turning around and heading for the door. If I let her, she’ll keep me here all night.
“You’d never have to buy makeup, and you could wear the same outfit every day. Think of all the money you’d save,” she calls after me. When I don’t stop walking, she adds, “Be safe. Have fun. I love you!”
“I love you, too,” I call back as I step outside the door and pull it closed behind me.
I nearly jump out of my skin as a deep voice says, “So soon? Usually it takes a few dates. I must’ve made quite an impression.”
I clutch my heart, jumping and bumping into the closed door behind me as I look up into the mischievous gaze of Ryden Sherlock.
“What the hell?” I demand, shooting him a dirty look. “Why are you on my front porch?”
He points to his wrist and I see he’s actually wearing a watch. “You didn’t show up. I thought you might be blowing me off.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, bracing my palm against my racing heart. “You can’t just show up on people’s porches like that. How did you even know where I live?”
“I have my ways.” He turns and nods in the direction of his car. “Ready?”
I look, raising my eyebrows at the classic black Camaro sitting in my driveway. “That’s your car?”
“That, or I stole it,” he says, walking down the steps. “Might as well roll the dice, right? Hunter’s house isn’t far, I’m sure we won’t get caught.”
“Wow.” My gaze drifts back to the shiny black automobile as I descend my porch steps. “I am not at all a car person, but this is a sexy car. When Chuck Whitehouse was bragging about his dumb car at the party at Valerie’s house when school first started, you should’ve rolled up in this and made him feel like an idiot.”
Sherlock tosses a smirk over his shoulder as he walks around to the driver’s side. “I wasn’t at that party. I’m not a big fan of Valerie. A little too Regina George for my tastes.”
I sigh, carefully opening the car door and sliding in. “You get better by the second.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Rachel McAdams is hot,” he says.
I pull the door closed. “Without question.”
“But the whole bitchy, ‘I have to cut other people down to feel better about myself’ bit? Hard pass.”
“I think I do love you, Ryden Sherlock. Maybe we shouldn’t go to this party and make Hunter jealous. I want to be your friend for real.”
Sherlock smirks. “Wouldn’t being my friend require hanging out with me? So he’d still see us together.”
“Well, yeah, but not in this skirt.”
I shouldn’t have said that. It draws his gaze to my bare legs. When his gaze travels all the way up my body and lands back on my face, there’s a glint in his eye that makes my heart jump into my throat.
“That is a nice skirt.”
I swallow, clear my throat, and train my gaze ahead of me. “Well, you said to wear something sexy.”
“And you listen very well,” he says, a hint of honeyed amusement in his tone.
My chest tightens. My stomach twists up with a strange sense of guilt.
“We should go,” I say quickly, before I chicken out. “I’m like… really close to jumping out of the car and going back in the house, so if you want to make an appearance at this party… Let’s get going.”
He doesn’t ask if he made me uncomfortable. He knows he did and he doesn’t mind, but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, either. Instead, he puts the car in reverse and slowly eases back out of my driveway.
Nerves make me restless. I’m still a little tempted to escape. He hasn’t done anything wrong, but there’s something troubling about him. Something that makes me second guess how quickly I agreed to his plan, how carelessly I believed him—like he was someone I knew to be trustworthy.
I don’t really know Ryden Sherlock at all. The only thing I can even recall Hunter saying to me about him was something along the lines of, “Sherlock bites, but I wouldn’t let him bite you,” and now here I am, in his car in the shortest skirt that has ever been on my body. What the hell was I thinking?
Well, I was thinking Hunter was in some kind of trouble and he needed my help. That’s what Sherlock told me.
I feel insane and somewhat influenced by my crazy mother, but I grip the door until my knuckles turn white and pay careful attention to the road to make sure he really is taking me to Hunter’s house.
Surely he can feel my tension, but it must not bother him because he does nothing to ease it.
When we pull into Hunter’s driveway, the tension in my chest eases. I tell myself I was being silly to let Mom’s overprotective concerns about a boy get in my head, but… well, it probably wasn’t all that wise to assume Sherlock was on the up and up just because he’s a friend of Hunter’s. Hunter has several terrible friends—it’s no guarantee of a person’s goodness to be Hunter’s friend.