Page 36 of Female Fantasy
Nico gives me another one of his looks. This one says,I don’t like this one bit. Stop talking right now before I make you.
I shoot back one of my own:Don’t tell me what to do, jackass.
Thomas scratches his chin, then interrupts our silent conversation. “Tell you what: Why don’t we give you a lift? Get you two a little closer to your destination? It’s getting dark, and all kinds of dangerous things can happen to a pretty girl like you under the cover of nightfall. Monsters lurking in the dark and all that.”
His words are delivered in a sugar-sweet fashion but leave a bitter aftertaste.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Nico says firmly. “We’re waiting for a tow. Should be here any second.”
Thomas lets out a dark chuckle. “Fella, the odds of a towgetting here before sunrise feel as low as the Jets winning the Super Bowl. And I wasn’t talking to you and only you. Why don’t we let the lady decide for herself, huh?”
I smiled warmly, liking that I am being given a choice.
“Thanks, Thomas,” I say, hopping out of the truck and grabbing my overnight bag. “A ride would be wonderful. Nico, you don’t mind waiting with the truck, do you?”
Nico’s answering glare is sharp and cutting. I can feel it all the way down to my toes.
I gulp, preparing for a verbal lashing.
Instead, his next words come out lethally soft, a killer’s caress.
“Joonie, if you think I’m about to let you hitchhike to New York alone with a couple of strangers who picked you up off the side of the road, then you don’t know me at all.”
He surprises me by grabbing his own backpack and following me to the car.
I raise a brow. “What about the truck?”
“It’s headed to the shop anyway. We can pick it up on our way back to Mystic. Tey will probably have my head, but better me dead than you.”
Better me dead than you.
He settles into a protective stance, putting his towering frame between the car and me. I swallow my surprise, then try to slap on a happy face. No need to trouble our new travel companions with our antics just yet.
“Great!” I shout. “Shall we hit the road?”
Thomas and Clarisse cheer as a grumpy-as-fuck Nico and Icram into the back seat. We have so little room that our arms and legs are pressed together, every inch of his side touching every inch of mine. When our hands graze each other, we both jerk them back.
I scoot as far over as possible and lean against the door. Neither of us is too keen on acknowledging the Great Nap Incident of 2025.
Clarisse and Thomas start chatting in hushed tones in the front seats, giggling like lovestruck teenagers. The former removes her vape from her mouth just long enough to blow a big pink bubble with her gum, allowing it to explode all over her plumped lips with a loudpop.
She turns to face us but addresses only me. “So, what takes you down to the Big Apple? Business or pleasure or pleasurable business? A dead rich aunt? Fancy job opportunity? Collecting lottery winnings?”
Her eyes glow in the dark, bright and serpentine.
“Love,” I announce. “We’re both going to attend to matters of the heart.”
“I wouldn’t really say my heart’s the organ I’m following,” Nico mutters under his breath.
Clarisse draws her hands to her chest and sighs. “How romantic! Ain’t that romantic, Tom?”
Thomas grunts in agreement.
“So, you two are able to just up and go like this? With nothing and no one back home missing you, worrying about you, wondering where you’ve gone? Not, say, your brother, Joonie? Your friend, Nico?”
Next to me, Nico’s nails dig into the leather seat.
I puzzle over that question. “Guess not? I have my own business. And most of my friends are online.”
