Page 41 of I Would Stay Forever
“I told you, you won’t need it. I’m paying.” He looked way too smug and self-satisfied. It made me want to knock him down for fun, even though I had no idea how I could do that.
“And what if I need my student ID or…” I faltered, trying to come up with something else I might need my wallet for. Why was it that whenever I was in an argument with Dean, my brain seemed to go out the window? “Or my bus ticket?”
“You don’t take the bus.”
Okay, yeah, that had been a bad example but I’d been silent for too long so I had to say something.
“I could take the bus,” I said, apparently deciding to dig my heels in further. Once again, something that only Dean brought out of me. “You don’t know anything about me or my transportation methods.”
Dean looked like he wanted to laugh at my use oftransportation methodsin a sentence, and yeah, I couldn’t blame him for that one. Deciding not to give him the chance, I barrelled on.
“Anyway, it’s not just about the bus ticket. How am I supposed to drive? My license is in there.”
Dean shrugged, looking unconcerned. “I’ll drive. And if you haven’t found your wallet by the end of the day, I’ll help you find it, okay?”
“Well, I…” That took some of the wind out of my sails. It was a reasonable compromise and he clearly wasn’t entertaining the idea of leaving me here to find the wallet. I turned my gaze back to my locker, trying to think of another excuse. “Well, I can’t leave Zoey. I promised her I would eat in the cafeteria, and what kind of friend would I be to back out?”
Once again not my best excuse since Zoey was the one pushing me to go out with Dean right now.
“I think I’ll be fine,” Zoey said. She was giving me a weird look, like she couldn’t comprehend why I was trying so hard to get out of this. Despite all the times we’d butted heads over what guys were cute, she still didn’t understand why I didn’t want to go out with Dean. Not that it was so much a matter ofnot wanting toanymore, and more that I knew I couldn’t. Letting him take me out for lunch would only blur the lines between us further, when we really should be keeping our boundaries up.
“But Molly and Paige?—”
“Will be great company for me,” Zoey interrupted. She slammed my locker shut and made a shoo’ing motion with her hands. “Now go, before you run out of time to even get food and end up starving for the rest of the day.”
As if on cue, my stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. Luckily, Dean didn’t notice because he was already walking down the hall toward the parking lot. When I didn’t follow, he spun around to face me but continued walking backward.
“Coming, Novak?” he asked, raising a brow. He looked ridiculously hot, and despite my earlier annoyance for his little tricks, I found my knees going a little wobbly. It was still a terrible idea to go with him—it would be ridiculously easy for somebody to see us and tell Sebastian, which would dig us into a hole I wasn’t sure we could get out of. But what were the chances this opportunity would come around again?
I glanced at Zoey, as if she was going to give me any good advice, and she gave me an encouraging nod. Big surprise there. I sighed and jogged to catch up with Dean. We’d already been talking in the hallway long enough for someone to take notice, so it was possible Sebastian was going to find out anyway—I might as well have some fun with it, right?
“So, where are you taking me for lunch?” I asked as we stepped outside. We went out the doors that led directly to the parking lot, so not many people were out here. I’d stalled long enough that anyone else who was driving for food had already left, and the people who stuck around the school were all either inside or out back by the fields since that was a nicer place to sit.
“Figured I’d leave it up to you,” he said. He shot me a sideways glance that made me a little wary until he added, “But I think it’s probably best that we eat in my car. Just so…”
He trailed off like he wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence, but I knew where he was going with it. I couldn’t help but teasehim, though, so I said, “It’s because you’re ashamed of me, isn’t it?”
I expected him to go along with the bit or tease me back, but instead, he swallowed. “I don’t think anybody could ever be ashamed of spending time with you, Lavender Novak.”
We were at his car before I could even begin to process the words, so I pushed them to the back of my mind to deal with later. Dean opened the passenger door for me and waited until I climbed in to close it and circle around to his own. I had a sense of deja vu going back to the day of Sebastian’s breakup party and Dean driving me home from the mall, only this time I didn’t have the excuse of catching a ride instead of biking to fall back on for why I was hanging out with him. This was happening solely because I wanted it to. It went entirely against my better instincts and yet I found myself settling into the seat.
“Just so you know, this does count as a second kidnapping,” I told him.
“The first being?”
“At the mall.”
He smirked. “Well, much like that time, you’ll be released unharmed. And maybe even better off because you’ll get a free meal.”
“I’m paying you back.”
“I’m sure you will,” he said in a tone that told me I would be doing no such thing.
He pulled into the McDonald’s drive-thru, which was where most of our class went to get food off-campus. It was the closest and most convenient place, although there were some other takeout places closer to the mall if you were willing to risk being late coming back. I assumed I’d have to do the awkward lean over him to say my order into the intercom, but Dean surprised me by ordering for me. I would have been annoyed but he gotme exactly what I wanted—a happy meal and a strawberry milkshake.
“How did you know?” I asked as we waited for the food. “What to get me, I mean. Did Zoey tell you before I walked up?”
He blinked in surprise. “You always order the same thing. It didn’t seem like a risky gamble.”
