Page 84 of The Invite
Ugh… Augustus has put me in another pickle.
Seriously, that boy is a walking, talking dark cloud over me. The biggest red flag to ever exist in the history of red flags.
My mood is ruined. I swiftly finish the rest of my coffee and grab my purse. I don’t want to miss the bus and the stop is a fifteen-minute walk from my house. I better hurry.
I double-check I have everything before I throw open the door and step onto my porch. I’m forced to a halt when there’s a figure waiting outside my house at the end of my driveway.
Maverick Sinclair.
The last person I expected to see on my doorstep, especially in broad daylight.
He’s leaning against an expensive black SUV with his arms crossed in a simple white tee, faded distressed jeans, and aviator glasses covering his blue eyes.
The casual appearance is alarmingly opposite to his other personality. No one would suspect he acts out women’s primal fantasies with a chain in his hand.
His presence is so unexpected, considering how it went last time, that it takes several moments to gather my wits.
I’m ready to bolt back inside my house when a cocky smirk lights up his face.
My hackles rise.
Is he in on Augustus’s torment? Or is he here to make me pay like his best friend is? I blink when he starts speaking.
“Good morning, Miss Davenport,” he drawls in the same cockiness I’ve come to know from him. Since it’s just us on the quiet street, his voice travels without a hitch to where I’m standing. “Leaving for work?”
I stay put and demand coldly, “What are you doing here, Mr. Sinclair?”
“Well, I should be on my way to school, but since you’ve made that impossible, I’m here to deliver your new ride.”
“My what?” I blurt out.
“Your new car.” He slaps the car’s door and dangles the keys from his index finger. “A gift from Augustus.”
Did I hear him correctly? Augustus bought me a freaking car?
More importantly, he told his best friend about us, who isn’t stupid to believe there’s something platonic going on between Augustus and me.
If it ever gets out that I’m sleeping with a student, much less one I had suspended in the first place, it’ll destroy my career. My reputation. My life.
How could Augustus risk that?
“I hope you know how to drive.”
He unknowingly gives me a way out. “No, I don’t. So, take the car back.”
Straightening from his perch, Maverick struts my way intimidatingly. He’s bulkier than Augustus and makes me feel infinitely smaller.
“Don’t lie and take the keys.”
“I’m not accepting the car,” I say without a second thought. “Return it to him.”
Besides, I can’t show up in an expensive-looking car that is way above my pay grade. It’ll make my colleagues curious to learn more about me.
“Augustus said you might say that. His reply is, and I quote, ‘If you’re going to school in anything but the car, I will escort you there myself on the back of my bike for everyone to see.’”
My mouth opens and closes for a comeback, but nothing comes.
Smirking, Maverick adds, “Since I don’t have to tell you the repercussions of showing up on his arm, I wouldn’t disobey him if I were you, Miss Davenport.”
