Page 42 of Love Collided

Her eyes went wide, and she looked down, trying not to meet my eye when I crouched down next to her. With my height I was almost at eye level with her, but she still didn’t look my way.

Jesse did, though.

From everything she told me earlier, he was trying to make it all out to be her fault, and I hoped she wasn’t falling for it now.

“Here, Hellcat. I picked this up. Consider it a belated birthday present you never got, and congratulations for today.”

She glanced over at me from the corner of her eye, and I knew she wanted to ask about the nickname. Her attention moved back to the box, slowly opening it, but Jesse groaned.

“Why are you calling her that? And why are you gettingmygirlfriend gifts?”

“Because she mentioned it’s her favorite car, and she proved how fast she was today. A Hellcat in her own right today, but I guess you wouldn’t know that,” I said, not taking my eyes off Scout. “And the gift is because it seemed you missed out on dessert the other day, and you killed it today. Overall, pretty well deserved.”

“A cake?” Scout said, all eyes turning back to her.

“I thought you might like one tonight since you didn’t get one the other day.” It was a jab. No, not just a jab. It was a full on knife to the chest aimed right at Jesse. The guy had run out on her birthday dinner, and now everybody knew it.

A smile broke across her face as she looked at the box filled with a huge chocolate cake.

Finally, she looked over, the smile staying there. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“Trying to buy her presents to get in her pants?” He mumbled, quiet enough that only I could hear him over the noise of the restaurant. The crew’s eyes were on us, but I stopped.

“Excuse me?”

He looked past me to Scout. “You’re seriously going to take a bribe from him?”

“What exactly is he bribing me for, Jesse?” Scout asked, and I tried not to feel a little pride in the edge to her tone.

“He’s trying to buy you, Scout. He thinks he can buy you a few stupid things and get in your pants.”

This time, it was loud enough for the table to hear.

“What did you say?” she asked, a sharp edge to her tone.

“I said he’s trying to fucking buy you. He wants in your fucking pants and thinks he can flaunt some money and get everything he wants. You think he cares? He cares about one damn thing, and every guy at this table knows what that is.”

The room went silent before Scout’s chair screeched back, and I stepped a little closer to her as she stood.

“You thinkhedoesn’t care? The guy who showed up today is the one who doesn’t care? He sat with us all damn day while I raced and you were nowhere to be found until the free booze was involved,” she yelled. He scowled, and stood up, towering over her, but it didn’t matter. Everyone else in the room stood up, too. This girl had her own army, and Jesse knew it.

“Oh, did you think nobody noticed you weren’t around until now? You think you care about me because you showed up to the party after all the hard work? Fuck you, Jesse,” she said.

Scout pushed past him, stomping out the door. I thought Jesse was going to immediately run after her, maybe fall to his knees begging for forgiveness, but he only turned to me.

“You fucking asshole. You’ve been in her head, telling her I’m no good, all because you want her. Fuck you,” he said, turning and heading out after her.

The crew went to move, but I stopped them.

“I think this one might be on me since I knew I was going to piss him off. I’ll take care of it.”

“Fine, he’s just going to run off, and she’s going to be upset. We will wait here, but bring her back inside,” Fox said.

“Got it,” I nodded, heading out.

I pushed open the door, hearing Jesse yelling something. It wasn’t until I was closer before I could finally hear what he was ranting about.

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