Page 92 of False Start

Kit grit her teeth but shuffled to the box. Her eyes stayed glued on Petey Junior’s head. Petey Junior flicked out her tongue in greeting.

“So, big guy, you want the weight and little lady, you holding her head?” Pete asked.

Kit winced. “Absolutely not.”

Her terrified whisper made me feel a little bad about dragging her in here. Slightly.

“Fair enough,” Pete shrugged and turned to me. “Big guy, can you handle all this snake?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered with enough confidence for the two of us.

“I’m carrying this team,” I whispered to Kit, bumping into her shoulder. The sudden movement displaced Petey Junior from my neck, and her body fell into Kit’s arms just as Pete snapped the picture.

THIRTY

KIT

The radio hissedas the FM station we’d found only thirty minutes before faded away. Trent seemed unperturbed by the static, fixated on the back of the guidebook.

“Can you please not leave that there?” I asked, unpeeling the snake picture off the dashboard and sticking it to Trent’s chest. I didn’t need another reminder of that slimy, giant snake plopping on my lap.

He unpeeled the picture and stuck it on his side of the dashboard, out of my reach. “I like it there. It’s a great picture.”

“You think all our pictures are great,” I muttered, pressing the search button on the radio to find a new station. A preacher screamed about fire and brimstone, and I pressed it again. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

He scribbled a number at the bottom of the page. The radio squawked, stopping on a station playing…bird sounds? Trent barely noticed.

“Do you want me to play a podcast?”

I let my hand fall from the radio. “Maybe just some music.”

“Sure.” He pulled out his phone, but a half mile down the road, still hadn’t switched the radio to Bluetooth.

“Are you finding us music or what?”

His head jerked up. “Oh, shit. Sorry.”

I caught a glimpse of his screen. He had navigated away from our team social media account to the rally account. “Are you tallying up points?”

He pressed the input button on the stereo, changing it to Bluetooth, and angled his screen toward the window. “Maybe.”

“You’re relentless,” I grumbled. But then curiosity piqued my interest. “How’s it looking?”

“Fine,” he lied through gritted teeth. “I’ll try to find another stop before we get to the finish line.”

Lo-Fi piped through the car, and Trent folded into the book, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I inhaled, regulating my breathing and trying not to obsess over the million questions bouncing around my head. Hell, maybe I should have asked for a podcast.

I’d slept with guys before, no strings attached. I’d had the very occasional one-night stand where I’d enjoyed myself and said goodbye forever the next day. What I hadn’t done was spend the entire night in the guy’s arms. I hadn’t woken up the next morning to a kiss.

But Trent blurred the lines of “no strings attached.” There were strings. I liked Trent, as a friend, at least. And as much as I wished I didn’t, I had a little crush. How could I not after a night of mind-blowing sex? But in the early morning hours, well after he’d fallen asleep, I’d felt something else too. Something I couldn’t quite place and something that scared me.

The faint clunking noise from the hood suddenly intensified, jostling me out of my thoughts.

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