Page 26 of My Best Friend's Sister

F O U R T E E N

- Quinn -

“This better be good,” she said, shifting in the passenger seat of my BMW X5, a company car I only got to pick the color of. “I thought you were going to take me somewhere for eight-dollar cocktails.”

“Who says I’m not?” I asked, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. She’d initially put on a little cocktail dress that she looked like a million bucks in, but I told her to change into something more casual the moment I saw her. She was visibly disappointed, and I regretted the decision as I paced near the front door. But when she came out of her bedroom a few minutes later in frayed jean shorts and a sheer flower print top, I knew I’d made the right call. She looked like a sexy sixties groupie, complete with a thick braid wrapped around her head like a halo.

She pointed a thumb behind her. “That sign back there that said Welcome to Gurnee. You got my hopes up when you got off at the Six Flags exit, but now I’m convinced you brought me out here because no one will ever find my body.”

I laughed. “First of all, if I were going to murder you, I wouldn’t have left that trail of damning Tinder messages.” I smiled as I recalled the notes we’d exchanged that week, which were mostly her failed attempts to guess where I might take her. It was easy to drive her crazy with ambiguity, since I didn’t decide until the last minute. All I knew for sure was that I had no intention of being just another asshole who took her somewhere dark where I couldn’t hear her over a shit DJ.

“Are you embarrassed by me?” she asked. “Is that it?”

“The only thing I’m embarrassed by is the fact that you don’t trust me.”

She bit her tongue for a few minutes, but I could tell she was about to explode from the suspense. “At least tell me if I’m going to like it.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

“You drove me over an hour outside the city, and you don’t know if I’m going to like your plan?”

“I figured worst-case scenario you’d enjoy my company in the car.” I offered her a smug smile, and her brown eyes scowled in response. “How about this,” I said. “If you don’t like what I’ve planned, we’ll go on another date, so I have a chance to make things right.”

She shook her head. “That’s not how you earn a second date. You can’t risk a bogus first date in this fast-paced Tinder world we live in. Do you have any idea how many other guys wanted to take me out tonight?”

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and prayed to God she wouldn’t tell me.

“And I thought this wasn’t a date,” she said, her eyes tracking some healthy-looking cows as we passed by a small farm. “I thought it was an outing.”

“Yeah, well, those shorts made me reconsider.” I dropped my eyes to her smooth thighs and swallowed when my tongue soaked itself.

“I looked hotter in the dress,” she said, like it was a well-known fact.

“You can wear the dress on our next date. We’ll do a movie night in.”

“That is not a movie night in dress.”

“Says you.” I flicked my turn signal on and slowed down to make the next left, the car sinking slightly when the wheels crunched onto the skinny gravel driveway. “If I were you, I’d make people earn the right to see me in that dress. I wouldn’t just gallivant around town, letting anyone and everyone enjoy eyefuls of my every curve.”

“Are you saying it’s too tight?”

“I’m saying you look tight in it.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re a beautiful girl, and you don’t have to try so hard to make people notice.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “The competition is fierce out there.”

I dropped my head towards her, my heart skipping a beat when I saw she was looking at me, her long lashes framing her round eyes. “Maddy.”

“What?” she asked, her pink lips so glossy the sight of them made me anxious.

“You have no competition.”

She opened her mouth like she was about to object before closing it to graciously accept—or at least consider—the compliment. “You’re taking me shooting?!” she asked a second later, shock widening her expression when she saw the sign welcoming us to the range.

“Good surprised or bad surprised?” I asked, pulling into a parking spot.

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