Page 149 of Broken by my Bully

I scoff. “What? No.” I reluctantly take the keys when he jingles them at me. “But I can’t do this.”

“Which part? Drive? Follow me? Get in the car?” He’s losing his patience, though I’m surprised he has any left at this stage. First, he has to put up with me in his space all day, and now I’m balking at what seems to be an incredibly generous offer for me to use his spare car.

“I can’t accept this. It’s too much.” I try to give him back his keys, but he ignores my hand.

“And I can’t stand the thought of you spending another minute driving that deathtrap around, so I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

“Deathtrap?” I shake my head. “Yourhouseis a deathtrap.”

There’s such a sudden, ferocious light in his eyes that my stomach clenches up. “What?”

“A bird hit your window. It’s dead now.”

At least, I think it is. Its body is gone. Maybe it survived and flew away. Or maybe it was never there to begin with.

Bastian looks away, sighing. “Yeah. Shit. The angle of the light is just right sometimes. The tint’s supposed to prevent it, but I guess they can’t always tell what’s real and what’s just a reflection.”

Thank God. I don’t need to add hallucinations to my growing list of mental disorders.

“Please.” I hold out the keys again, hoping this time he’ll take them. “I know it looks like shit, but my car is fine. I don’t need you to give me a car.”

“I’m not giving you the Landie,” Bastian says, frowning again. “It’s a loan until the end of the semester.” He glances back, waves an irritable hand toward the garage. “Saves me having to keep it on a trickle charge to stop the battery going flat.”

“If you don’t use it, then why do you still have it?”

I don’t expect him to answer me. I’m just stalling so I can try to think of another excuse not to accept this car. Because he can paint it however he wants, but it’s another gift. And while the concealer and ointment were practical, and the chocolates were yummy…this?

This feels like entrapment.

Like I’ll owe him…owe him big.

And everyone I’ve ever known hasalwayscollected their debts.

“In case there’s a terror attack,” he mutters, as though he doesn’t actually want me to hear his answer.

A laugh bursts out of me so fast, I clap a hand over my mouth in embarrassment.

He narrows his eyes at me. “An EMP can disable anything with a circuit board. That includes my Tesla. If there’s a strike, I want to get the hell out of the state.” He slaps the Land Rover’s boxy frame. “Post apocalypse? It’ll be this guy, the cockroaches, and Keith Richards.”

“Who’s Keith Richards?”

“Jesus Christ.” He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, and then goes to his Tesla, shaking his head the whole way. He pauses by his door to point a finger at me. “Stop reminding me how old I am!”

I point one right back at him. “Gotta keep you humble, Sir!”

He faces away, laughing as he climbs into his car.

I bounce the keys on my palm, then stare over at him as he reverses. When he sees me just standing there, he rolls down his window and sticks his head out of the car.

It’s a surreal moment. Another one of those snapshots, right on the cusp of something new.

Good? Bad? I don’t know yet.

He changed into a black t-shirt and dark-wash jeans. I guess he was going for casual, but now the contrast between his pale skin and dark hair is that much starker.

That muchsexier.

He doesn’t seem to feel the chill in the early evening air. The clouds will start building up again soon. And then comes the rain. Days and days without end, until the Agony River floods and washes away all the bullshit that’s collected over the past year.