Page 37 of Hide and Sneak
Lila’s body is shaking as she wipes tears from her eyes. “You have to love Waffle Place. Dinner and a show.”
Louise returns with the frightened bird wrapped in a towel and held against her chest. Things calm down after that. Animal control shows up for all the animals and the guy is arrested but his girlfriend is released. She sits in the booth with Louise, talking.
Cara, Row, Maren, and Cooper have already left by the time Louise slides out of the other booth. “I’m going to give Vicky a ride home on our way. They towed her boyfriend’s truck.”
Louise doesn’t have a spacious car. Vicky climbs into the front seat while Holly, Jarrett, and Lila get in the back. We almost fit but I can’t slide over far enough to close the door.
“What are you doing?” Lila demands when I lift her onto my lap and scoot over.
“There wasn’t enough room.”
“Get in the trunk then.”
Laughter fills the little car, and Lila sets back, resigned to ride on my lap as Louise pulls out of the parking lot.
Vicky unzips her purse and pulls out a fat guinea pig. Lila cracks up as Holly asks, “What else do you have in there?”
“Oh don’t worry, I have two. Guinea pigs always need a mate.”
“Just tell me you don’t have a tarantula or a snake or something,” Holly replies.
“No, only these little guys.”
Everyone is distracted by Vicky and her new stolen pets, but all I can focus on is Lila’s warm body on mine. Call me an asshole and the worst friend in the world because Amos would be furious but I can’t help teasing her. I move a strand of hair from her neck, letting my fingertip brush her soft skin, then rest my chin on her shoulder.
She shifts on my lap. I splay my hand over her stomach, letting my pinky slip under the hem of her shirt to caress her bare skin. Instead of stopping me, she grinds her ass against me. The side eye she gives me is evil. And now I’m getting hard.
She feels it too, judging by her satisfied smirk.
“Just let me off right here, please,” Vicky says, and Louise pulls to the side of the road.
Lila rubs against me one more time, then pops the door open to take Vicky’s place in the front seat. We aren’t far from home, and when Louise pulls into our trailer park, a group of teenagers run from the playground, cutting through the Kent’s backyard.
“Fern. That little brat. She was supposed to be inside by ten,” Holly says. “That was your boy too, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was.” Jarrett says. “And his curfew is definitely not past one a.m.”
Holly sighs as we turn into Louise’s driveway. “At least I’m not the only one about to get gaslit by a teenager.”
“It wasn’t meis his favorite excuse. They really think we’re dumb.”
Holly leaps out of the car as soon as it stops and rushes to catch up with her little sister. After thanking Louise for the ride, Lila and I start our walk around the block to get home. Thestorms have long passed, leaving a slight breeze in their wake. Lila lifts her hair from her neck, letting it cool her nape.
Such a simple movement shouldn’t be so damn sexy. Now that we’re alone, the tension between us grows. I wonder if she’s thinking about the kiss because I sure as hell am. I need to stop thinking about it. And the way she felt in my lap, her ass grinding against me. She’s Amos’s sister. I shouldn’t even be considering the thoughts running through my head right now. God help me if I hear that buzzing coming from her room tonight.
Dusty attacks us at the door for attention. “I’ll take him out,” I volunteer. I could use another minute to cool off. The five minutes or so we spend outside before I bring him back in isn’t enough. Especially when I catch her eyes on me as I lock her front door.
“You can’t look at me like that, Lila.”
Her eyebrows rise as she gets up from the kitchen table. “I can look at whoever I want.”
Fuck it. I can’t take it anymore. She takes a step back into the wall when I walk toward her. Her hands land on my chest, not pushing me away, but keeping a few inches between us. “You’ve been teasing me. It’s okay. You can tell me what you want.”
“That’s ridiculous. I don’t want anything from you.”
I lean in to murmur in her ear. “Liar. You sound so sexy when you come. Did you like knowing I was listening?”
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t respond. I press a kiss to the soft skin under her ear. “I think you did. Were you thinking about me stroking my cock on the other side of that wall?”
