Page 57 of Drive

“If you want to call it that,” he said as he grabbed my bag, tossed it behind him, and pulled me inside.

“I’m sorry,” I said as my breath hitched and more tears flowed. I was embarrassed, furious, and temporarily homeless.

“We both did this,” he said as he thumbed my jawline. “We, not you.”

“She’s so pissed.”

“She’ll get over it.” Nothing in his voice told me he believed she would. Had I just cost him his best friend?

“Can I just stay today? I need some sleep. I need to think.”

Reid nodded as I shook with the revelation that I’d completely alienated my sister.

Was I wrong? Was she? Would Reid make a fool out of me? And what were we? Was it even worth it?

Reid bit his lip and pawed the top of my head. “Stop your brain.”

“I’m so screwed.”

“Welcome to adulthood,” he said with a Cheshire grin. “It fucking sucks here.”

“God, please don’t ever volunteer for a suicide hotline,” I said as I looked around his place in the early morning light. “This looked so different an hour ago,” I said under my breath.

“Because you weren’t stuck here,” he said softly behind me.

I looked his way and saw the shame my words brought him. “I didn’t mean it like that at all. If you think this is bad, you should visit my uncle’s place. You live like royalty compared to him.”

Reid shook his head the way he always did when he dismissed my eternal optimism and led me to his mattress. Tucked in his hold, he kissed me until I came undone for him and fell asleep on his chest.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Watching the Wheels”

John Lennon

The next week was a mixture of heaven and hell on earth between Paige’s wrath and Reid’s healing lips. My parents were pissed. She wasted no time telling them I was shacking up with Reid. I avoided their calls. Paige glared at us both from a distance while keeping hers. She refused to speak to either of us. As soon as we clocked in on the same shift, I could feel the heat wave she let off. Reid tried to approach her a few days after she kicked me out, but she just walked away and embarrassed him. We were completely screwed in our footing. I wasn’t welcome back to her house, and she made it known by telling my parents everything, which put me in the doghouse with them as well.

I avoided it all, completely fixated on my bubble with Reid. When I got to The Plate Bar, I went straight to work, doing my best to avoid Paige as we all scurried around like mice trying to tame the dinner rush. But that Friday, we were so busy at one point Paige got temporary amnesia, and we worked together to get through it. My hopes of any sort of truce were dashed when, an hour after the doors closed, she slammed her hands into Reid’s chest and yelled at him without an ounce of restraint.

“My sister? You. Fucking. Asshole! You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Well, you wanted her, you got her!”

Leslie came out of her office and nipped it in the bud, but Paige’s tear-filled and angry eyes were enough to silence us both until we reached the parking lot. Reid had a Chevy truck that was ten years older than I was and had just been repainted black. The repairs from the accident had taken forever because the car was considered a classic. TheACbarely blew enough air to cool us both, and the switch was one of those you had to push to the right with your finger to amp it up. But he loved that truck. It was obvious. The cabin was clean and in decent shape. It wasn’t what I pictured him driving, but when he chauffeured me around in it, I couldn’t see him in anything else.

I stared at his profile as he took us through the streets that led us back to safety, away from the scrutiny of my sister. “Why is she doing this?” I asked

Reid drove silently for a few minutes. “Because she loves me, but she thinks I’m a piece of shit, Stella.”

Once we pulled up, we sat in his truck. A silent relief radiated between us both.

“And you believe her,” I stated and turned to face him on the bench seat.

“Nope, no, we’re not arguing tonight,” he said as he leaned in and took my lips before he pulled the key out the ignition and gripped the door handle.

“Don’t believe her,” I said as he ignored me and got out of the truck. I wasn’t having it. I met him at his stairs. “Reid, look at me,” I demanded. His tired eyes met mine as I laid my hands on his chest. “Believeme, not her. Not what goes on inside that head of yours. Believeme.”

“Stella, it’s not that easy.”

“It is that easy. You aren’t who you were yesterday or the day before. Believe that. You are not your circumstances. You aren’t that empty apartment.” I nodded toward the door. “That isn’t who you are.”