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Kian was already throwing himself back behind the wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! I’ll reverse!”
The car rolled back an inch, and Vaughn shouted again. “Forward, you idiot! You’re making it worse!”
Kian slammed the car into drive and planted his foot on the accelerator. We lurched forward again, freeing Vaughn.
Kian and I just sat there, staring at each other in shock, while Vaughn limped to the passenger seat and jerked it open. He yanked his seat belt so hard it locked. He kept pulling it too fast, the seat belt protesting every time until he calmed down enough to pull it slowly.
I put my hand on Vaughn’s shoulder gently. “Is it broken?”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. Bruised for sure, but I don’t think anything is broken. Let’s just go.”
Kian silently drove us out of Psychos’ parking lot and onto the main roads of Saint View. You could have cut the tension in the car with a knife. We were almost at the freeway before he gave Vaughn a sheepish grin. “So…that never happened when we were in high school.”
If looks could kill, Kian would have been dead on the spot.
30
VAUGHN
Fucking Kian. My foot throbbed from where the dumbass had squashed it. I was tired after being awake all night, but it ached like a mofo and made sleeping impossible.
Rebel, true to her word, had made herself a nest among my and Kian’s jackets and gone right off to sleep.
Kian drove silently, eyes mostly on the road but occasionally glancing over at me awkwardly.
I wouldn’t look at him. I was too pissed off to say a word. At least when I’d played that game with him in high school, I’d been a good enough driver to not run him the fuck over.
Uncomfortable, I stared out the window as night turned into day and the sun got higher and higher. Miles passed beneath our tires.
Eventually, Kian pulled into a gas station and got out to fill up the car.
I got out, too, favoring my good leg. “I’ll drive for a while.” My banged-up foot wasn’t the one I needed for driving an automatic, and it would give me something to focus on. But pain shot through my foot when I put it down on the ground. Fuck. I hobbled around to the driver’s side and quickly got back in. I was hungry and thirsty, but I didn’t fancy putting weight on my foot again. Rebel was still asleep, and I wasn’t about to ask Kian to get me anything. So, I stubbornly sat there, staring out the window while pretending I was anywhere but with him.
A few minutes later, he got back into the car, this time in the passenger seat, a rustle of packets in his arms. God, he really was a prick. Now I’d have to sit here and watch him eat while my stomach growled.
“Here.” Kian threw something at me.
A little packet landed on my lap, and I turned it over so I could read the label. “What’s this?”
“Painkillers for your foot.” He passed me a bottle of water. “And a drink.”
The stubborn part of me wanted to throw them back in his face. The injured part of me said stop being a jackass and swallow the damn pills.
So I did.
Kian sighed. “You know I didn’t mean to run your foot over, right?”
I stared at him. “Yes, you did. You obviously wanted payback for what happened between us the other day…”
He shook his head, his jaw tight. “Fuck, you have your head up your own ass sometimes. I might have been pissed, but I would never deliberately hurt you.”
I busied myself turning on the car and getting us back on the road.
Until a jumbo-sized Kit-Kat landed on my lap.
I didn’t want to take it.
“Eat it,” Kian demanded. “They’re you’re favorites.”