“I’m not so positive that what he feels for me is love,” I replied, feeling too exposed.
I watched her eyes spark in annoyance. “I’ve never met two more clueless people. It is obvious to everyone that you guys are absolutely gaga over each other. So why don’t the two of you see it? I know you feel it.”
I wanted to deny, but I couldn’t. But I also wasn’t ready to admit it to myself, and I surely wasn’t ready to say it out loud. “Maybe.”
“I get that bearing your heart is scary. Giving your heart to someone like Chase is probably terrifying. Rejection sucks. But the reward is so much greater. It just has to be. Love is power, not that he needs anymore power, but you get what I am trying to say. When he takes a step back, you take two forward. Eventually he will have nowhere to go but to you.”
“Did you ever think about writing poetry, because that was some seriously beautiful stuff? It brought a tear to my eye.” I pretended to wipe at my eyes.
She bumped me playfully with her hip. “You’re so lame.”
“You aren’t the first Winters to say so.”
Her face softened. “But I am the one that matters.”
It had been a long and exhausting day when Lexi finally called it quits, but I had expected nothing less. I sunk into the cushiony fabric seat of her car with every inch of my body aching. How did she do this? I felt like I just finished boot camp.
While I looked like I had been wrung through the trenches, Lexi looked fabulous. “Thanks for coming with me. It wouldn’t have been the same alone. I’m really glad we’re friends.”
“Best friends,” I supplied.
She gave me a smile bright enough to light the galaxy. I met hers with one of my own. We might not share the same taste in clothes, hobbies, or dating expectations, but somehow it worked.
Split-seconds passed from the time I looked from Lexi to the road. Literally seconds, but here in Spring Valley, seconds was all it took for trouble to find you. When I glanced back up my eyes clashed with a black and furry something, a highly unwelcomed sight. There smack dab in the middle of the road, was a hound. I couldn’t suppress the gulp or the fear that quaked through me.
On the brink of my seat I waited, breath held, poised to see those horrible blood-red eyes. All I could think of was that I didn’t want to die on Black Friday. It was too ominous. Lexi hit the brakes in a knee-jerk response, bucking us against our seatbelts. Her brakes protested against the asphalt in an ear-piercing scream.
The dog, at the shattering sound of her car coming to a screeching halt, turned its head. All I saw was crimson. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. My eyes locked on the black dog, frozen in terror.
“It’s not a hellhound,” Lexi said, but the roaring of pure panic in my head made it impossible for me to comprehend her words. In my book, hellhounds only ever meant more evil and dangerous things from the underworld were close on its heels.
My mind was clouded, living my own private nightmare. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, trying to coax myself from going into a full-freak-out. It took many deep breaths before I saw the chocolate eyes, innocent and lost staring at me through the glass shield.
Just a dog. A normal dog. Nothing demonic in its eyes.
Fido gave one short bark and then paddled off the road, its tongue lolled to one side. I slumped all 125 pounds of me into the seat, shaken. “Christ, I think I just shaved a decade off my life,” I said as Lexi regained her composure much faster than me and hit the gas.
“You don’t have to tell me. I think I just got my first gray hair,” she stated.
Just when my heart rate was almost normal and I could breathe sweet air again, I heard the roar of a powerful engine, like one of those monster truck sounds. I half expected to see a giant truck with teeth painted on the grill behind us.
If only.
God, now what?
Lexi’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror, her knuckles tightening on the steering wheel. A SUV pulled up beside us driving like a bat out of hell. What a maniac. It was people like this guy who caused accidents. The SUV rumbled its engine as it rode alongside us on the wrong side of the tracks. At first I thought they were just going to pass us by obviously in a hurry, but they didn’t. Steadily, the SUV kept pace with Lexi’s little car. Every now and then it gave a roar of the engine.
My blood pressure went through the sunroof as the knowledge that this SUV wasn’t friendly sunk in. I watched as Lexi’s eyes melded in gold, making every hair on my body stand up. Normally Lexi was the epitome of control. If she lost it, then we were in some serious dog poo.
“Oh shit,” I said under my breath.