Page 41 of Just Friends

I nod, and after a beat, he lets go of me.

We’re both drenched as we shut ourselves into the truck, the wet heat of our clothes making the windows fog in a way that is sure to attract patrolling police officers at this time of night. I crank the engine, turning the AC on low so our sopping clothes don’t freeze to our skin.

I glance over at Alex, and my lips stretch into a smile. “You look like a drowned rat.”

One of his eyebrows quirks. “You’re one to talk.”

A laugh bursts from my chest when I pull down the sun visor and catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. Idolook like a drowned rat. My hair is plastered to my forehead and shoulders in thick clumps, and my once beautifully winged eyeliner is smudged down my cheeks.

Alex is chewing on his bottom lip, humor etched in every line of his face as he watches me under the harsh overhead lights in the ancient truck. His hand finds my face, smoothing a thumb with gentle pressure against my cheek.

My skin burns beneath his touch, no longer cold and damp from the rain but zinging and heating.

When he’s satisfied with the state of one cheek, he moves to the other, his full bottom lip trapped between his teeth in concentration. I don’t understand the feelings roiling through my body, but it’s obvious I’m not affecting him the same way he’s affecting me. And thank God for that.

“There,” he murmurs, his breath dancing across my face. He grins at me, one corner of his mouth twitching up before the other. “Good as new.”

His eyes focus on the goose bumps prickling my exposed skin. “Cold?” He fidgets with the heat settings, making warm air push through the vents a moment later. “Let’s get back and get you out of those wet clothes.”

“Yeah,” I mumble through my lips, hooking my hand around the gearshift. But when I press the gas, the tires only spin, the truck staying firmly in place.

Alex’s eyes are wide and glinting in the darkness as they meet mine. “Oh, no.”

I press the pedal again, and the tires spin once more. I can just imagine mud spraying against the trees behind us, splashing in big heaps into the river.

“Stop!” Alex yells, and I immediately lift my foot off the gas. “We’ll just get deeper in the mud.”

“Oh.”

A chagrined smile cracks his mouth, making his cheeks light up in a faint pink. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.”

I shrug off his apology since it’s not even necessary. “What do we do?”

Large hands slide down his face, the long fingers tipped with clean, short nails. “I need to think.”

“Okay,” I say, and for a moment, there’s only the sound of the AC and the pelting rain filling the cab.

“Okay,” he repeats, breaking the sound machine tropical storm playlist. He clicks on the overhead light, searching the floorboards.

“I don’t think you’re going to find AAA down there.”

The look he gives me is equally playful and scathing, still bent over feeling the floor. “Does this town evenhaveAAA?”

“Not a chance.”

His grin is roguish, a zap to my system, and I feel like I’m looking at one of the men on the worn covers of the paperbacks lining the shelves in Lucy’s apartment. I’m struck with the strong urge to close the space between us and press my lips to the smile, see if it feels as dangerous as it looks.

I shut the thought down as quickly as it flits through my head.Thatabsolutely cannot happen, no matter what kind of romantic comedy Upside Down I’ve landed in withAlex, my best friend, trapped in the mud with rain sluicing down the fogged-up windshield.

“That’s what I thought,” Alex says, completely missing the thread of tension pulling taut between us, and I’m entirely grateful for that. I think.

Alex sits up, pulling up one of the mud-stained floor mats. “I need to put these under the tires to gain some traction.”

“Okay,” I say, reaching for the one below my own seat. I don’t know whether this solution actually works, but itsoundslegitimate, and that’s enough for me.

“Be right back,” Alex says, and he hops from the passenger seat. The headlights illuminate his frame as he walks around the front of the truck, bending down to shimmy one of the mats under a tire. Rain is sluicing across his shoulders, making his linen shirt stick to every curve of hard, unyielding muscle. Until recently, I hadn’t noticed how much he looks like a piece of art, a statue cut from marble and painstakingly shaped to perfection. His hair is an inky sheet across his forehead, and the harsh headlights make his skin appear even paler, his stubble that much darker.

When his hand pounds against the hood, I jump, snapping out of my trance and hoping he didn’t catch me staring. I don’t know what’s gotten into me on this trip. It’s like I visited my hometown and reverted back to the hormone-ridden teenager I was in high school, lusting after any guy who’d give me the time of day. And Alex gives me much more than that. Sometimes his focus is so intense it’s like he’s cracking my head open and peering inside.

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