Page 19 of Jett in Jeopardy

I shook my head. “I’m not, actually. I gotta go.”

Brody sighed loudly. Whether from annoyance or disappointment, I couldn’t tell. I had already turned away from him to where I had left my clothes in a heap in the corner of his room.

“I knew I should have waited until tomorrow to have this conversation,” Brody said.

Pulling on my jeans, I stiffened and looked back at Brody over my shoulder. I shot him what I hoped was a withering stare. “No, it’s better you say something now. I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“That’s not what I meant. Would you just get into bed?”

By instinct, I shook my head. “I’m going home. And what exactly did you mean when you said your favorite thing about me is that I’m here for a good time, not a long time?”

“That’snotwhat I said,” he growled. “You asked what made me change my mind about us together, and I told you I didn’t want a serious relationship and neither did you. Atnopoint did I say that’s what I liked best about you.”

“Same thing,” I muttered, pulling on my t-shirt. Damn, it was too late—early?—for a rideshare. I really wished I’d worn a jacket. It was going to be a cold walk home.

“It’s really not.”

“Look, don’t worry about it. It was a fungame, and now it’s done.”

“Enough. It’s past four. Get into bed. We’ll figure this out when we get up.”

Normally, when Brody got impatient and bossy, it made me hot, but not then. Instead, his words fed the anger swelling inside me, eclipsing anything else. I flipped him off and stormed out of the room to where I had left my shoes by the front door.

As I pulled them on, Brody emerged from the bedroom with a heavy fisherman’s knit sweater in his hand. “It’sfreezingout there, and you don’t have a coat. Will you, at least, wear this so you don’t freeze to death?”

I had a nearly twenty-minute walk ahead of me with a damp, December wind blowing in off water and turning my bones brittle with the cold.

“Fine. Thanks,” I said ungraciously, snatching the sweater out of his hand and pulling it over my head. His clean pine scent clung to the worn, cream-colored wool. The hem was fraying, but the sweater was warm and a hell of a lot better than nothing. “Thanks,” I repeated, but less churlishly. “You’ll get it back tomorrow—or later today, I guess.”

“I could drive you,” he offered. “If you wanted.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m fine. See you around.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond and left Brody’s apartment, taking the metal stairs down to the parking lot behind The Dunes. After following the alley out onto the main road, I walked home.

It was close to five a.m., but it would be a few hours before the sun was up. The streets were dark and empty and eerily silent. Only the sounds of my own footsteps could I hear on the concrete sidewalk and the distant hush of the surf crashing into the beach behind me.

The wind off the water was sharp and frigid, stinging my face and hands. I was grateful for the sweater Brody had given me, even though I was too angry to admit it. God damn it, I should have known better. Of course, he didn’t want anythingseriouswith me. For the past three years, he’d barely given me the time of day.This, whatever we were doing, was probably a lapse in judgment on his part. He was probably just bored or horny, or maybe some combination of the two, and I was available and willing.

My anger slowly drained, as if the cold, fresh air had withered it away, leaving me sad and feeling sorry for myself instead. I was probably just overtired and needed to sleep. Once I woke up, I had no doubt I’d be back to my old self.

Besides sex—incredible sex—what the hell did I want from him, anyway? He was grouchy, bossy and hot —Nope, thinking about what I didn’t like about him, not listing what I did. We had nothing in common, anyway.

As I drew closer to the intersection where Shore Drive cut across Oceanwind Lane, I looked over at the property where our old house had once stood. The worn-down, yellow two-story was gone. What remained after the fire had been razed and a chain-linked fence put up around the perimeter.

Greyson McKenzie was apparently going to build some kind of art gallery for local artists to showcase their work. The fact that Alistair was an artist and his boyfriend, Finn, worked for Mackenzie and was one of his best friends was just a coincidence, I was sure of it.

Construction hadn’t started yet. Sawyer mentioned the permits hadn’t been approved yet, but construction would probably start in the spring. Sawyer was a journalism major and always seemed to know about what was going on at the university and in Saltwater Cove.

I liked Sawyer, and our new house was way nicer than the old place, but I missed the old house, the dynamic of me, Grier and Alistair. Things were different now, and I wasn’t sure where I fit anymore—or even if I did.

A car engine rumbled to life behind me, bright yellow headlights flooding the road next to me. I jumped from the suddenness, my heart lodging in my throat. I glanced back over my shoulder. A car was creeping slowly up Oceanwind behind me. I frowned. Where the hell had that car come from? Had it been parked at the side of the road? I didn’t hear anyone leaving the buildings on either side of the street or footsteps besides my own.

I slowed my pace, waiting for the car to pass me, but it didn’t increase its speed. If anything, it slowed down even more. What the hell were they doing? The blinding headlights made it impossible to see the car or who was driving. My heart thudded hard against my chest, and cold sweat sprung to my skin.

I didn’t know what game the driver was playing, but I wasn’t interested in engaging. I turned and hurried across the intersection, climbing the steep hill toward home.

Maybe I was making a bigger deal about this than I needed to. So there was a car driving creepily slowly behind me—almost like it was following me. That didn’t mean it was. There could be any reason for the driver to be out before the sun was up—work, the gym, or any other place that had nothing to do with me. And maybe they were driving slowly because they were texting or checking social media.

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