Page 83 of Rush

“What? No! We’re not an item! That’s just…crazy! We’re friends. Good friends. He’s just being overprotective.” Then, I punch Ares in the arm, like we’re best buddies, not lovers. Yep, I really did that. God, I’m a total dick. But I can’t seem to stop. “I’m actually really good friends with his sister, Missy, and here she is now. Missy!” I grab her arm and yank her toward me.

Missy is now looking at me, confused.

Leo is running a journalistic eye over me.

And Ares…I daren’t look at him. But I can feel his anger pulsating next to me, like it’s a living, breathing entity.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I don’t want to lie—I really don’t—but this guy is a journalist, and I can’t have him printing things about me and Ares. At least not until I’ve talked to my dad.

And I’m not ready yet. I just need time.

Because I know what my dad will say when he finds out Ares and I are together. I saw how he reacted to me taking a ride with him, for God’s sake.

I know where my dad’s priority lies, and it isn’t with me.

He will do what’s best for the team, and Ares not being with me is that.

I know exactly what he’ll say to Ares.

And I’m scared that Ares will listen…and finally see sense and realize that my dad is right.

That I’m not the person he should be with.

And then he’ll leave me.

The tension in Ares’s truck is killing me.

It’s so thick, you could cut the air with a knife and take a slice away with you.

Missy is quietly sitting in the back, tapping away on her phone. And Missy is never quiet.

Ares is a huge, raging hot flame next to me.

And me…I’m burning under the heat.

He’s angry. No, he’s furious.

Not that he’s said a word to confirm this. He hasn’t said a thing to me since we left the stadium, apart to bark at me that we were leaving, but honestly, that could have been directed at Missy.

And I’m going to take a not-so-wild shot in the dark here and say he’s pissed because of what I said to Leo.

And I get it. Of course I wasn’t going to tell Leo that Ares and I were together. But I didn’t have to act like a complete dick about it. I made it sound ludicrous—the notion of us being together. In a way, it is because what is a great guy like him doing with a loser like me?

But, from the angry fumes billowing from Ares, he’s taken it the totally wrong way, and I’m in for it.

I handled it badly, and I will apologize but not in front of Missy. Because it’s not fair on her to make her feel uncomfortable while Ares and I hash our shit out, not that, I can guess, she’s feeling at all comfortable now.

I notice that, instead of going into his building’s parking garage, he pulls up outside.

My confused eyes swing to him, but his eyes are fixed ahead. Jaw working angrily.

“I’ll be home later,” he grinds out to Missy.

She takes that as her cue and practically jumps out of the car. I actually envy her. I wish I could leave, too.

“See you tomorrow,” she says to me, giving me a look of sympathy.