“You’re the rebel and I’m at home,” Jax said quietly in Russian.
Yeah, they were kinda screwed.
Claire shrugged. There were plenty of ways to pretend to drink, not that she had to in an apartment that had several eyes watching them. The concern of something being slipped into the drink wasn’t there, and there was backup in case that did happen.
“Elsie, did you drive here?” Jax asked.
“Yeah, but I can call Kyle to pick me up and tell my parents I had car trouble.”
“You sure?” Claire asked.
Jax sighed with relief.
The girls walked into the living room and handed out the drinks. “To new friends,” Elsie said.
Claire could smell the liquor before she put the glass to her lips. “Wow, that’s strong.”
Ally nodded several times. “Yeah!” she said with a smile.
Jax looked at Ally. “What about algebra?”
Ally knocked back a pretty good size swallow. “Mr. Cummings looks at my tits, I’m sure I can sweet-talk my way into a C.”
And with comments like that, Claire knew their study date was the right choice. “Cheers.” She took a sip of her drink.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cooper waited outside a bar in Valley Village, where Claire and Jax had taken an Uber. Since Cooper was the one watching the monitors, he was put in charge of getting them home.
He kept an eye on the parking lot while they went into the bar. After ten minutes, he was certain no one had followed them, and he sent Claire a text.
Once they were in his car, they both started to giggle.
The sound was infectious.
“That was highly entertaining,” Cooper said as he pulled out of the parking space.
He’d never eavesdropped on a teenage girls’ party without actually being there.
“Ally can seriously drink,” Claire said from the passenger seat.
“I noticed.”
“One drink and Elsie was done.” Jax sat in the back seat and leaned forward. “Do you know the guy Kyle came with to pick her up?” she asked Cooper.
“He was too far outside of range of the front-door cameras.” Cooper merged onto the freeway leading to their place.
“We need to fix that, then.”
Cooper had thought the same thing. “I already scheduled an adjustment.”
Claire smiled at him before turning around in her seat to include Jax in the conversation. “Not a lot on Kyle tonight, but Ally sure paid off. And that thing she has for Sean Fisher. I bet we can learn more about him through her, too.”
Cooper looked in the rearview mirror at Jax. “Do you know this Mr. Cummings?”
“No. But I’ll make a point to run into him tomorrow.” Jax sounded half-asleep.
“It’s hard to say how much of what Ally says is sensationalized for drama, or truth,” Claire said. “She has a hard shell.”
“I knew she lived with her grandmother, and assumed it wasn’t a great parent relationship, but after tonight, it sounds worse than I thought. She has an attitude at school, but isn’t at all like we saw tonight.”
“Lots of kids her age drink like that to get attention,” Claire said.
“That drinking gets them into trouble.” Cooper switched lanes.
“We’re all guilty of teenage drinking, and sometimes the purpose was the trouble.” Claire swiveled back around. “God, I’m tired.”
“Me too.”
Cooper glanced between the two of them. “It didn’t look like you guys drank that much.”
“Just enough to not drive,” Claire said. With her eyes closed, she reached over and placed a hand on his arm. “Thanks for picking us up.”
They’d put the plan in place to Uber to a drop-off or pick-up place away from the Tarzana home to avoid any tails. Not that it was clearly needed yet, but there was no reason to take chances this early in the game. Two girls Ubering to a bar with fake IDs was easier to explain than the assistant track coach picking up two teenage girls.
“No problem.”
Claire didn’t pull her hand back immediately, instead it kind of slid off and onto the center console. Cooper glanced over to see her eyes unfocused on the road in front of them. “We scored a party invite for Saturday.”
Jax groaned. “Lewis is gonna be ticked.”
“If he doesn’t understand your work, you might wanna get rid of the guy.”
Cooper felt a bit like a chauffeur listening in on the paying clients who were both half-asleep and half-drunk.
“He’s getting clingy. I didn’t think that would happen until he finished law school.”
“Your boyfriend is a lawyer?” Cooper asked.
Jax lifted a hand, eyes still closed, and yawned. “Almost a lawyer.”
“He’s not the guy for you, Jax. We’ve talked about this.” Claire took that moment to open her eyes. When she did, she pulled her hand away from his side of the car as if she didn’t realize it was there.
Cooper turned off at their exit and drove through the dark streets to their home. One look in the rearview mirror suggested Jax had fallen asleep.
With Claire quiet at his side, he didn’t think she was far behind.
He lowered his voice. “I take it you don’t like the boyfriend.”
Claire leaned her head against the window. “He’s fine. Just not the right guy. Jax has adventure inside of her, and he has an agenda.”
“What agenda?”
“My family has money and connections,” Jax said from the back seat.
Claire laughed, pointed a thumb toward her friend. “What she said.”
“And he wants those things?” Cooper asked.
“According to Claire.”
Cooper met Claire’s eyes.
She nodded.
“What do you think?” Cooper asked Jax.
Jax sighed. “Claire’s right.”
Okay, now he was confused. “Then why are you with him?”
Both Claire and Jax offered tired laughs.
“The sex is good,” Jax confessed.
Ooookay then.
Cooper pulled into their driveway, and Jax pushed out of the back seat. “’Night, Cooper. Thanks again.”
“No problem.”
When Claire didn’t follow her friend’s lead, his nerves started to fire. He watched as Jax walked up the path to the front door, and Claire twisted in her seat and looked straight at him.
Getting the hint, Cooper turned off the engine.
“You’ve been different since you’ve been back,” Claire started.
Was he ready for this conversation?
“Well, I’ve put on a good five pounds.” He smiled and patted his stomach.
Claire reached out and stopped his hand.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
Did she understand how warm her fingertips felt on his skin?
He took a deep breath, blew it out slowly. “Damn it, Claire.”
“See, right there. That’s different. Where’s ‘Yearling,’ or ‘Sasha wannabe’? You never say my name, and now you have to take a massive breath before you talk.”
They were sitting in a car, in the dark . . . in a driveway. “Maybe we should go inside.”