Page 17 of Fortuity

ChapterSeven

Faith

After a killer popquiz during my Integrative Practice Seminar class, the last thing I wanted to do was spend the next two to three hours with a rich guy who had some kind of a chip on his shoulder, even if he was Elaine’s son. But a promise was a promise, and I liked to keep mine. So when he finally showed up in his Porsche Cayenne SUV, almost ten minutes later than we’d arranged, I waspissed.

I barely waited for the vehicle to come to a complete stop before I flung the passenger side door open and climbed in. I dropped my backpack on the floor near my feet and fastened my seat belt before turning to look at him. Unlike when I’d gotten a ride from his mom the day I met her, I didn’t take the time to enjoy the luxurious surroundings because I barely even noticed them. Instead, I glared at him like I was getting paid to do it. And I had to work hard to keep the scowl on my face. Although it was easy to ignore how awesome his car was, it was impossible to miss all of the hotness that was DillonMontgomery.

His dark brown hair still looked like it needed a trim. His brown eyes weren’t laughing at the moment, but I remembered exactly what they looked like when they did. And I knew right where his dimple popped in his cheek when he smiled. There was no mistaking it—Elaine’s son was the football hottie I’d drooled over my first day oncampus.

Holyshit.

“You’d better be Faith, or else my mom is going to be even more pissed at me than she already is if I’m not only late but picked up some random chick bymistake.”

“I’mFaith.”

“And I’m Dillon.” He shot me an unhappy look as he pulled away from the curb. “Something you should have confirmed before you climbed into my car. I could’ve been a totalstranger.”

I forced myself to ignore the little thrill the flash of heat in his dark eyes gave me and flicked up my index finger to count off all the reasons he was completely wrong. “There are very few Porsche SUVs on campus.” My first point was made, and I moved on to the second. “Let alone silver ones that would pull up in the exact place where I was supposed to meet you.” His hold on the steering wheel tightened as I added a third finger to my count. “And your mother told me what kind of car youdrive.”

“Still.”

“Still nothing.” I dropped my hand into my lap, curling it into a fist. “I might be smaller than you and a girl, but I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I’d be willing to bet that I have a lot more experience at judging people and situations thanyoudo.”

“Shit,” he groaned. “I really put my foot in it,didn’tI?”

“Maybe a little bit.” I glanced down at his shoes, which had to at least be a size twelve, and tried not to think about exactly how big those feet were. And how they might correlate to the size of other, more interesting, parts of his anatomy. My cheeks heated, and I quickly jerked my gaze up tohisface.

“I’m sorry. My mom told me you were a foster kid, and that’s why you work with high school students in the foster system to get them intocollege.”

I hadn’t expected him to be the kind of guy who apologized for something small like that, and it melted away most of my irritation from earlier. But it came right back when his attention shifted to the screen on the dash after there was a quick dingingsound.

“Hold on a second, I have a new textmessage.”

“Aren’t you in enough trouble already? Texting while driving is dangerous and illegal,” I huffed inirritation.

“Only if you’re looking at your phone while doing it,” he disagreed as he pressed a button on the screen and a voice came through the speaker system to ask if he wanted it to read his messages or compose a new one. Dillon told it to read his messages, and the text message Elaine had just sent wasplayed.

I turned my head and stared at the screen on the dash, surprised to see it looked so much like the one on an iPhone. Once the message was complete, the system asked if Dillon wanted toreply.

“Yes,” heanswered.

“Goahead.”

Dillon rattled off a response to Elaine’s text, the car read it back to him, and he confirmed the message could be sent. Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of experience with luxury cars, but the system in Dillon’s SUV seemed excessive. And impressive. I’d never seen anything like it before and didn’t even realize it waspossible.

“You have Siri inyourcar?”

“It has an Apple CarPlay system that connects through my iPhone. It was a selling point that helped convince my parents to buy it.” He paused, and a muscle in his jaw jumped before he continued, “They’re big on car safetyfeatures.”

“It’sprettycool.”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t sure why, but the conversation fizzled out from there and we rode in silence the rest of the way to the high school. When we got there, I pointed out where he should park and we headed inside together. We were only a few minutes late, and the group of students I was meeting with were gathered in the classroom waiting for us. I hadn’t thought about what they’d read into me bringing Dillon along until I saw the speculation in the eyes of the students I’d gotten to know a bit over the past few months. A few of the girls were looking him up and down like he was a male stripper about to start a performance. And the guys sitting closest to them puffed up like a bunch of pissed off peacocks because they’d lost the attention of the girls to a bigger, hotter,olderguy.

“Okay, everybody. I can see that you’ve already noticed we have a visitor today.” Dillon followed me to the front of the room. “This is Dillon Montgomery. He’s going to be helping me out from time to time so you might see him aroundagain.”

“How’d you guys meet?” one of the girls asked, eyeing him upanddown.

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