Page 19

NINETEEN

KIT

I shut the door, collapsing against it to prevent me from opening it again. When my breathing steadied, I strode toward the bed, dropping my overnight bag and shaking my arms. My heart raced, and my body buzzed.

Kissing Trent was not supposed to feel like that. Kissing Trent was supposed to feel like kissing a drunk guy at a bar at three A.M. Not great, not even good. Just a sated curiosity. A kiss that ended with a nod and the thought, “Huh, so I guess that’s it?”

That kiss did not sate my curiosity. There was nothing unsurprising about that kiss. There was nothing humdrum.

I wiped my sweaty palms against my jeans and threw myself on the bed, covering my eyes with my arm. A disaster.

This entire trip had been a disaster since the moment I stepped into the hospital, but now? I was on the Titanic of car rallies. The Hindenburg of make out sessions. The Pompeii of barely acquaintances.

A knock at the door jostled me from the bed. I sat up. “Yeah?”

Another knock.

Reluctantly, I walked to the door, checking the peephole before taking a deep breath to regain some sense of composure before opening the door. “Did you lose your key?”

Trent shook his head, cheeks tinged pink. “You said ‘sibling energy,’ right?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“That’s what I thought.” He frowned, eyes darting down the hall and back again. “So, definitely nothing?”

I shook my head, biting my tongue so hard I worried I’d break skin.

“Not even a little something?”

“Nope. Why? Did you feel something?” I asked, the question breathy and my voice low. Sultry even.

His green eyes shuttered into slivers, studying the look on my face. I clamped my mouth shut again, sure that I’d given myself away.

He shook his head. “No, I guess not.”

Even with the air conditioning plummeting the room into a subzero ice box, and the covers bundled around me, I didn’t get more than a fitful night’s sleep.

What the hell had I done?

No, scratch that. What had we done? Ruined the rally, that was for sure. Because I couldn’t take Trent’s smug face when he realized that he’d shaken me. That the kiss hadn’t sucked. The kiss had actually been…kind of good? Sort of great?

The kiss wasn’t supposed to be good. It was supposed to be awkward and weird and confirm that there was nothing between Trent and me other than maybe a hint of mutual respect coupled with a terse agreement to cohabitate in a shitty car for Derek’s sake.

And maybe Trent was just a great kisser. A fabulous kisser. Hell, the guy had enough experience. He’d been papped with more supermodels than a fashion show in Milan. The last guy I’d kissed was a random hobosexual at a bar who tried to follow me home.

I didn’t even know if I was a good kisser. But Trent knew. Or at least he knew now. What a mistake.

The alarm blared on my phone. I peeled myself out of bed, and a quick shower later, I stood at the door, bag packed, but not ready to step outside.

It meant nothing. Nothing to Trent, nothing to me. Nothing’s changed.

I repeated the affirmation to myself and plastered a neutral face on before pushing open the door.

“Hey, late start, huh?” Trent stood in the hallway, bag slung over his shoulder and hair slightly curled, still wet from the shower.

No, don’t think about Trent in a shower.

“I was tired,” I mumbled, brushing past him on my beeline for the elevator.

“So, about last night.” A slight waver invaded Trent’s normally confident cadence.

“What about it?” I tensed, palming the hotel room key in my hand as the doors closed.

“You okay, Kit?” The edge of his lip hitched up as he dipped his head so he could examine me straight on.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I lied, my hands turning clammy.

“Last night,” he repeated, following my brisk pace to the toward the lobby. “I wanted to apologize.”

I slipped my key into the box at reception. Trent’s hand followed, his fingers brushing mine as he dropped his key. I pulled my hand back as if burned, a tiny jolt of electricity racing through my body and reminding me of the night before.

“I shouldn’t have pressed you…about the kiss.”

My cheeks burned as I raced for the car.

I slotted the keys, missing and scratching the door. “You didn’t press anything. We kissed, it sucked, we’re moving on. We don’t need to talk about it again.”

“You thought the kiss sucked?” Trent’s face fell, and I distracted myself by popping the trunk to put away our luggage.

My eardrums filled with the sound of pulsing blood, tricking me into wondering whether I’d heard an edge of dejection in his voice. Absolutely not.

Trent picked up our bags, loading them into the trunk.

I waved a hand. “Okay, sucked isn’t right. Lackluster? No. Exactly what we thought it’d be.”

With a deep breath, I sat in the driver’s seat, gathering my nerves before Trent climbed into the driver’s seat. This wasn’t going well.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You tell me. You had the book.”

My fingers stopped on the keys in the ignition. “No. You did. You had it at when we got out of the car last night.”

He patted his pockets. “Are you sure?”

A flare of anger heated my chest, replacing the weird ball of feelings I’d been batting around all night. “Yeah. In the bar, you had the book. Did you seriously lose the book we need to compete in this race?”

Trent frowned, hopping out of the car and smacking the trunk. I pulled the release, frustration mounting as he rifled through the luggage in the back.

“Bad news.” He returned to the passenger seat with a grimace. “It’s not in the back.”

“So, you lo?—”

He held up a hand. “And I just remembered that you had it last night. You took it from me in the bar.”

The bar. My cheeks heated even as I played through everything that happened before Trent got us unceremoniously kicked out. The drink, the game, my brilliant idea to trick Trent into netting us a few more points.

I winced, vaguely remembering holding it in my hands as I watched Trent embarrass himself. “I didn’t see it this morning.”

“Okay, so probably not in the hotel room. Definitely not in the trunk. Do you think you stashed it somewhere else?” He opened up the glove box, papers and napkins spilling onto his lap. No book.

“The bar.” I bit my bottom lip. “I think I left it at the bar. When you got kicked out.”

His gaze shifted across the street to its empty parking lot.

“Damn,” I swore, tipping my head back and closing my eyes. “I am the worst.”

The slam of the car door jolted me back. Trent’s seat was empty. He ran across the parking lot, hands waving overhead like a lunatic. Or, at least he seemed like a lunatic, until another rally car that had been turning onto the street, reversed back into the parking lot.

Trent leaned in the driver’s side window for a few minutes before running back to the car. “I got pictures of their book. And I think if you can read chicken scratch, we might even have a couple of addresses. Between the two of us, maybe we can probably remember what we still needed for bonus points and grab a couple of those today.”

The pictures on his phone showed the other team’s book, along with a bunch of addresses. “Do you want to take off and let me decipher this, or should we take ten and try to put together a plan?”

“You’re not mad?” I asked, guilt settling in my stomach at the thought of how eager I’d been to rip into him. Anything to scrub away the memory of last night.

He shrugged easily. “Nah. Honest mistake. If we run into the judges today, I think I can sweet talk them into giving us another guidebook. Until then, at least we’ve got this.”

He punched my shoulder playfully.

“And what was your plan if they didn’t stop?” I asked, stomach dropping.

“Start finding nearby weird shit and call my assistant to tell me which shitty motel I was supposed to check into tonight.” A good plan. Hell, a brilliant plan. Certainly better than my plan, which mostly consisted of berating Trent for losing the book. “So, plan now or let me handle it from the passenger’s seat?”

“Passenger’s seat,” I said with a nod. “I trust you.”

My cheeks heated, the words just as intimate as the kiss we shared the night before. I turned the engine, ignoring the beaming smile plastered on Trent’s face.

“You trust me?” he asked with a grin.

“Just a little. Really, a minute amount.”

“Still counts.” He reached across the seat, his thumb and forefinger pinching my cheek, letting it go just as fast. “I trust you, too. And we’re still in the hunt to win this thing.”

I brushed away his touch and the tingling sensation it left in its wake. “We’re definitely not winning. Not even close.”

“Top three.”

I pulled the car out of the empty parking lot. Trent fiddled with the radio, re-establishing a fragile Bluetooth connection with the hastily installed radio.

“Thanks,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road.

I was desperate not to rehash the night before, and yelling at Trent was an easy way out. A coward’s way out. Despite the weird emotions he made me feel, he didn’t deserve that.

“What for?” Trent relaxed back into his seat, wedging his travel neck pillow between him and the window as he pulled out his phone.

I pursed my lips. “For not being a dick about me losing the guidebook.”

He raised an eyebrow, dragging his eyes away from the phone. “Why would I do that?”

I waited a beat, wondering if he was joking before chancing a look over. His stare was placid, inviting.

“Because I was sort of a dick when I thought you’d lost it.”

His lips hitched up. “Only slightly.”

“Well, I’m sorry, and thank you.” I turned my attention back to the road but felt Trent’s stare burning into my cheek. “What?”

“Nothing.” His voice lilted, drawling out each syllable. “That was just a really nice thing to say. I’m shocked.”

“It’s the only nice thing you’re getting out of me for the rest of the day,” I muttered. “Now, play your dumb podcast.”