Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
So the questions are; who was driving then, and who’s driving now?
My voice comes out as a whisper, “What do you think the rider was looking for?”
Aro is quiet as she slowly chews. “Whatever it was, he must’ve found it.”
Because he—or she—stopped.
To us, the legend was always just that. No one we know has ever come into contact with the rider. If it ever really happened.
A knock rattles the back door, and I jump, watching Lucas enter from the alleyway.
Aro laughs under her breath at me, but she’d jump, too, if she was alone here late at night with a secret hideout just feet away.
Lucas steps in, dressed in a suit, and I stop breathing for a moment. His crisp white shirt stands out against his dark suit, and our eyes meet, the memory of last night making me almost shiver. His dark blond hair is pushed over to one side as if he raked through it with his fingers, and I can’t help but linger on his sun-kissed skin that’s the same tone as I now know his naked chest and back are.
He glances to Aro and then back to me, lingering and hiding a smile, and I try not to be obvious when I strip off my baker’s jacket. Laying it across the table, I turn back to him, seeing his attention drawn low to my tank top before he inhales a heavy breath and eyes me as if he knows exactly what I’m doing. “Ready?” he taunts back.
I stare at him. Are my panties still in his bed, I wonder?
“Yeah.” And I look to Aro. “I’m not allowed to ride my bike to Weston.”
She chuckles. “Hi,” she tells Lucas.
He nods back to her.
I need a change of clothes, so he’s taking me home before we head back to the gym. Will we talk at all? Will my brothers be there to make him nervous? What will he do if Farrow is there and offers me a ride home instead? We’re neighbors, after all.
Aro dusts off her hands and tosses the empty cupcake wrappers into the garbage. “Can I join you?” she asks both of us. “I wanted to check in on some friends. Hawke will come grab me after lights out.”
Lucas’s eyes dart to me as if I might have a problem with it, but I pop up off my chair. “Sure.”
We tuck in our chairs, and I double-check the front doors, throwing a glance at the closed mirror before I take my bag and phone. We drift into the alley, and I lock the back door, jogging around the passenger side.
“You can get in front,” I blurt out to Aro.
But she pushes the front seat forward and climbs into the back. “Nah, that’s okay.”
Great. Lucas and I are going to look like a thing, sitting in the front together, and if she doesn’t allude to that with Hawke, she’ll tell Dylan.
I put my seatbelt on as Lucas turns the key and starts the car. I avoid his eyes but glance at his hand fisting the stick shift as he punches it into reverse. My clit throbs once.
I blink long and hard, turning my eyes out the window as he backs us out into the street. In a few seconds, we’re on High Street, making our way to Weston.
I left the diary under the laptop on the worktable in the kitchen. I’m sure it’s fine, but I should’ve grabbed it. I have the utmost faith in Hawke to get into the bakery, even though I changed the locks, and I don’t want him confiscating it yet.
I lift my eyes, watching the trees in my side mirror flying past in the darkness.
“That’s an interesting tattoo,” Lucas says.
I look over, seeing him eye Aro in the rearview mirror.
“Yours is better.” She smirks.
Headlights are reflected in my side mirror, and I watch the car far behind us.
“Born and raised in Weston?” he asks her.
“Yeah.”
“Which part?”
“The shitty part.”
He breathes out a weak laugh, and he’s either impressed with her retorts or finds it funny that she’s inferring there’s a non-shitty part of Weston.
I tilt my mirror to get rid of the glare of the lights growing closer behind us.
“People talk about the glory days,” Aro muses. “Bustling population. Traffic. The stands packed at football games and streets lit up with businesses and crowded with pedestrians. It seems like Atlantis, though.” Her voice softens. “A myth that we’re not sure was ever real.”
We cross the bridge, but Aro continues before I have a chance to retrieve a coin.
“I’ve never seen this town any other way,” she tells us. “A ghost town and a breeding ground for…opportunists.”
Growing up, I don’t remember anything good about Weston. We never drove here for a restaurant or an athletic event.
“Not going to ask me any questions?” she presses him. “Like how old I was when they drew me in? Or how much money I stole for them?”