Page 45 of You Belong With Me

It seemed like hours passed with us sitting there, kissing and catching our breath, then kissing again. By the time we pulled away fully, I thought we should be able to circle off a few more boxes on the bingo card.

I thought we might have stayed there forever, if a car hadn’t gone racing by, flashing its high-beams at us and totally ruining the moment. I laughed a little as I blinked the stars out of my eyes and said, “Maybe we should find a better place to do this than the shoulder of the highway.”

Sebastian chuckled softly. “Probably not a bad idea.”

He kissed me softly one more time before sliding his way back over onto his seat. I straightened up as well, pulling the varsity jacket on better since he’d practically shoved it off my shoulders. He was just about to turn the engine on when he paused, squinting at something in front of us. I followed his gaze and realized there was another car pulled over, much like we were a little ways up.

“That’s Lavender’s car,” Sebastian said, more to himself than me. I hadn’t seen Lavender around enough to recognize her car or the license plate, but I trusted that Sebastian probably did, so I followed him as he got out and started walking toward it to see if she needed help.

Which meant that I got a full view through the driver’s side window of what exactly was going on inside her car as we walked up: Lavender, lips locked with a boy.

And not just any boy—my brother.

twenty-two

Sebastian’s hand was out,slamming on the door before I even had time to process what was going on inside. Dean and Lavender. Of course, I suspected something was going on between them after the way she asked about him when I went by their house, but still—this?

Lavender broke away from Dean, rubbing her lip like he had bitten her, and her eyes widened as she saw Sebastian standing outside the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled through the glass.

Lavender held up a finger like she was saying “one second,” then moved to sit up better and rolled down her window. She used one hand to fix her hair because Dean had been running his hands through it as he kissed her(ew) as she gave Sebastian a shaky smile.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was driving by and saw your car. I thought you had a flat tire or something.” His gaze turned toDean and his face hardened, which I thought was a bit of an overreaction since we had just been doing the same thing ourselves, but I chose not to comment. I wasn’t getting in the middle of this. “Maybe if I realized you were on a date with my best friend, I wouldn’t have bothered to pull over.”

“We’re not on a date!” Lavender said quickly, even though it was very obvious that they were. I wasn’t sure why she would bother trying to deny it. “Dean was just helping me out with something.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “What, teaching you how to kiss?”

Lavender groaned and threw her head back against the headrest. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

“Well, you should have,” Sebastian said, crossing his arms. Dean leaned forward, so he was practically lying across Lavender and he opened his mouth to say something, but froze when he saw me standing there. I guess I’d been standing far enough back that he couldn’t see me from the passenger seat.

“Like you should have told me you were out withmysister?” Dean asked flatly. Sebastian’s gaze slid over to me like he’d completely forgotten I was here.

“We were out driving,” Sebastian said, as if that answered anything. “You know, since you’re too busy to ever pick up your sister’s calls.”

He wasn’t wrong that I’d started calling him more and more because Dean never answered, but I hoped he didn’t think that was the only reason I’d called him tonight. Even if my other options had been available, I still would have called him. He was safe for me.

Dean got out of the car, slamming the door behind himand came around to our side. He looked at my dress, still visible under the unbuttoned letterman jacket, and his lip curled in disgust. “What happened to you?”

I picked at the front of the dress. It had mostly dried now, but it was visibly stained and looked disgusting. “My waitress spilled Coke all over me.”

Dean’s eyes darted to Sebastian as if it was somehow his fault, but he didn’t comment on it because Lavender chose that moment to get out of the car, almost hitting Dean with the door in the process. He immediately went to stand in front of her as if she needed protection from Sebastian, and if Sebastian’s clouded face was anything to go off of, he noticed the move too and wasn’t happy with it. Knowing how protective Sebastian was over his sisters, I couldn’t blame him.

“I wanted to tell you, Seb,” Lavender said. She grabbed Dean’s arm, pushing it down a little so that she could see over him. “I promise I wanted to tell you, but?—”

“But what? What could be so important that you couldn’t tell me about this?”

“That,” Lavender said, waving a hand at him. “You’ve been so angry and distant ever since Dad left. How was I supposed to tell you anything?”

“Well, excuse me for trying to keep our family together! Something you haven’t bothered trying to do at all.”

Lavender recoiled. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe we should talk about this at home,” I suggested, looking down the dark stretch of highway we were standing on. Nobody was around, but that didn’t stopmy instincts of feeling like we shouldn’t have this argument in public. I felt like my mom, making sure that nobody saw the dark side of what was going on in our family. And since I knew how Sebastian felt about Lavender confronting their Dad about his cheating, I had a feeling this conversation was going to get very ugly.

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