Page 203 of Only With You

I question nothing because Jagger’s a satyriasis. The less I know about his debaucheries, the better. I’ve nothing against it, but while I could go without sex, Jagger needs it like he needs air.

The laugh on the other side of the door pulls me out of my thoughts, and I slip into my room and grab what I need.

Just like I knew he would, Cole stands in front of my car, fingers grazing the hood, and a can of beer in the other hand.

I’ve seen him admiring my car a few times, sometimes at school, and here when there’s been a party.

Anger wells in my chest and almost overpowers all my senses. I have to take a step back, loosen my fisted hands, and take in a deep breath because the sudden urge to bash his head has become too strong. My jaw aches from how hard my teeth are grinding, and again I have to remind myself to breathe because the fury running inside is suffocating me.

Clearing my throat, he takes a step back and barely glances at me but then does a double take.

“Hey, Landon.” He lazily smiles, taking a swig of his beer. “I was just looking at your car. This is fucking beautiful. Is that carbon fibre?”

Julianna’s words echo in my head, grounding and reminding me why I’m doing this.

“Yeah, that’s carbon fibre.”

“This is clean as fuck. Did you buy it like that or get it custom?”

For the next few minutes, he asks me questions and I answer all of them, and then asks the one I was waiting for the most.

“This may be asking for a lot, but can I drive it? Even if it’s for five minutes or two?”

“You know how to drive stick?”

He eagerly nods. “I do.”

“All right,” I reply, opening the driver’s side and tossing my overnight bag in the back seat. “You can drive it longer than that if you’d like. I know a place.”

His eyes light up and he chugs the remainder of his beer, then tosses the can on the lawn. He sees me eye it. “I swear I’ve only had one.”

“Get in. I’ll drive first.”

Cole doesn’t waste a second to get into the passenger side and spends the next thirty minutes asking me the most mindless questions. It started with my car, but then shifted to basketball and now random shit.

“We’re driving pretty far out.” He looks out the window. There’s nothing but miles of road and cornfield to the right and left of us.

“You won’t be able to drive it well around campus. There’s too much going on and you won’t get a feel for it.”

He nods, buying into my bullshit lie, and proceeds to talk about more random shit before he stalls. It’s like he’s contemplating whether or not he wants to say what he’s thinking.

I side-eye him. “What?”

“What’s up with you and Julianna?”

I grab my phone and press record. Thankfully, North Carolina happens to be one of the states where we can record someone without their consent. I did my research.

Shrugging, I hum disinterestedly. “Nothing, she lives with my best friends.”

From the corner of my eye, I see him smirk. “Oh.”

“Why? Are you interested?”

He shifts in his seat, tapping his fingers on the door. “So, nothing’s going on?”

My hands tighten around the steering wheel. “She’s hot but no, go for it.”

“I doubt she’ll give me a chance. We had an issue that she can’t seem to let go of.” He scoffs. “It happened two years ago and she’s still crying over it. It was an accident.”

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