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He was late. He was always freaking late.

I last texted him fifteen minutes ago, but he still hadn’t gotten back to me. I kept opening the message thread, waiting for those stupid typing dots, but the bottom of my screen remained empty regardless.

Nora

Hey I’m outside

Are you on your way?

Dean???

Are you planning to pick me up at all??

DEAN

Nothing. Nada. Not even a stupid sorry got caught up, I’ll be there in a bit .

I pressed the call button again, not even bothering to hold the phone up to my ear this time.

It was just loud enough for me to hear it ring once then go to voicemail.

It was the sixth time that had happened—because not only was he abandoning me at school, but he was also ignoring every single one of my calls.

I put the phone back in my sweater pocket just as a car came revving past me.

I was sitting on the half-wall that faced out to the parking lot, so plenty of cars had driven by in the last hour, but I still checked each one to make sure the license plate wasn’t the one I was waiting for.

The black sports car raced straight past me, going faster than any car should reasonably be driving in a parking lot, but then suddenly screeched to a stop ten feet away.

I cringed at the harsh sound, then stared as the car was thrown into reverse and came to a stop right beside me.

That’s not good .

I slipped my hand into my school bag, my fingers immediately finding the mini can of hairspray I kept in the front pocket.

Hairspray probably wasn’t as effective as pepper spray, but it was what I could carry in my bag at school and I hoped it would still bother an attacker for long enough for me to get away.

But then the driver’s side door of the car opened and a head appeared above it. I let go of the hairspray as I realized it wasn’t some murderous stranger coming to kill me, but I couldn’t say I was happy either.

“Did Dean send you?” I asked. Not waiting for his response, I gathered up my stuff and hopped off the wall.

I didn’t care if he was here to pick me up or if he happened to be driving by when he saw me—Dean clearly wasn’t coming for me, so I might as well make use of his best friend showing up instead.

Sebastian’s brows pulled together as he leaned forward on the roof of his car, resting one arm along the smooth top and using his hand to hold up his chin while he pretended to think through the question.

“Hmm… Dean. Do I know a Dean?” he asked in his deep, smooth British accent.

I hated that my heart always raced at the sound of it.

If I were any other girl—or really, if he were any other boy—I might have swooned or giggled over it.

But Sebastian Novak was the one person that was completely off-limits to me, so I refused to let myself even think of him like that.

It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way, because there had been a time that I secretly crushed on him. But then I’d once mumbled his name in my sleep when I was sharing a room with Dean on a family vacation, and he tried to smother me with a pillow.

“I should hope so,” I said. “He’s your best friend.”

“Hmm,” Sebastian said, starting to tap his fingers against his mouth. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Oh, well, that’s concerning.” I propped open the passenger’s side door but continued to look at him across the car as best I could.

He was a lot taller than me, so he could actually see me over the car but I had to crane my neck to be able to see him.

I probably looked like a kid compared to him.

“Because if you’re not my brother’s best friend, then I’m getting in the car of a stranger, and how do I know that you’re not going to kill me? ”

He t’sked. “I guess that’s just a risk you’re gonna have to take then.”

He dropped down into the car, slamming his door behind him—a clear indication that I was supposed to get in too.

I did, throwing my bag in the backseat and immediately turned down the volume of his music, which was so loud that it was making the car shake.

He was listening to his usual awful music and I wasn’t going to deal with that trying to burst my eardrums for the whole ride home.

Sebastian put the car into drive but didn’t start going, eyeing me pointedly. I rolled my eyes but buckled my seatbelt, which I knew was what he was waiting for. He didn’t do that with any of his other friends, just me.

“So, where is your brother?” Sebastian asked.

He whipped out of the parking lot at full speed, and I quickly grabbed the armrest with one hand and the handle over the door with my other, trying not to get thrown out of the seat.

I wasn’t sure why Sebastian’s parents ever thought it was a good idea to give him a sports car—he drove like a maniac.

Actually, he drove like somebody who was looking to commit vehicular manslaughter and he wanted to kill all his passengers along with him.

“Who knows,” I choked out, trying not to puke from motion sickness.

It was always like that for the first couple of minutes I was in his car, and then I got used to it again.

But the cycle repeated every single time he gave me a ride, because these rides only happened once in a blue moon.

It was only when Dean couldn’t be bothered to come pick me up somewhere, or if we were all going somewhere together because Sebastian’s car was nicer than our mom’s old SUV that she let Dean borrow.

“He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Sebastian looked genuinely surprised at that. I wondered whether it was because Dean hadn’t actually sent him and he had just happened to pass by me sitting here, or if Dean had sent him but neglected to mention how long I’d been waiting around.

“An hour?” he asked. “Need me to remind him what manners he’s supposed to have?”

I snorted at the implication that he would ever get in the middle of an argument between me and Dean. Sebastian may have treated me like one of his little sisters, but whenever it came down to it, I knew he would always pick Dean over me.

“Somehow I don’t think it would make a difference.”

He shrugged and dropped one arm from the steering wheel to rest it along the open windowpane.

He always looked so relaxed whenever he drove.

I never understood it. I had only just gotten my learner’s permit, but I couldn’t see a world where I would ever find driving to be a relaxing activity.

At this point, I still held the steering wheel in a death grip and screamed every time another car showed up on the road. Nobody had much faith in my abilities.

“Can I change the playlist?” I asked, already picking up his phone and unlocking it.

I’d learned his password ages ago. He hadn’t given it to me, but when he left his phone unattended one day, I’d tried guessing it.

It only took me three tries—his birthday.

I was sure he would change it right after he figured out that I knew it, but he said he knew I would just figure out the new one so there wasn’t any point.

I didn’t like most of the music he listened to, so I scrolled past all his playlists until I found the one that I’d made and shared with him, simply named NORA’S SONGS.

I added him as a collaborator, but he hadn’t added anything to it.

I pressed shuffle, then turned the speaker back up as Taylor Swift’s voice started to filter through the stereo system.

Sebastian pretended to grimace, but I knew that he actually liked this music. He just didn’t want to admit it to me.

Since Sebastian didn’t adhere to the traffic laws the rest of us mere mortals had to deal with, the drive home wasn’t long, so we only got through three songs—all of which, I noticed him humming along to—before he turned smoothly into his driveway.

He barely killed the engine before jumping out of the car, while I took my time turning around to grab my bag from the back—and immediately noticed the white bra splayed out across the backseat, like it had been chucked there casually.

I immediately had a horrifying mental image of Dean calling Sebastian while he was in the middle of hooking up with a girl in his car, and Sebastian kicking her out to come pick me up.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get rid of the thought and also trying to decide what I was supposed to do.

Should I say something? He should probably get rid of the bra before his mom or sisters came out and noticed it.

But was it just as embarrassing for his best friend’s little sister to comment on it?

Sebastian knocked on the window. “You coming?” he asked through the glass. Of course, me sitting here debating whether or not I should embarrass him by pointing this out was stopping him from being able to go anywhere. I quickly scrambled out of the car.

“Sorry if I interrupted something,” I blurted. “When you came to pick me up, I mean.”

I still wasn’t even sure if Dean had asked him to pick me up or if he’d been by the school and happened to notice me sitting there, but either way, somebody must have left in a rush to leave it behind.

Sebastian looked at me in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“The, uh…” I cleared my throat. “The bra sitting on your backseat. I assume someone left in a hurry.”

He ducked back into the car to look at it, but came back out a second later, rolling his eyes. “Oh, that’s just Ainsley’s.”

That did not answer my question at all.

“Why would your sister’s bra be in the backseat of your car?” I asked as I grabbed my bag.

“She has no time between swim team and her dance class,” Sebastian said.

Now that he mentioned it, I did remember Ainsley running out of the locker room super quickly after our swim practice.

By the time the rest of us finished washing our hair, she was gone.

But even though the Novaks had lived next to us for five years, I didn’t know Sebastian’s younger sisters well enough to ask her where she was going.

“So, I drive her between them, and she gets changed in the backseat of my car. And apparently leaves all her clothes around.”

He paused with his hand on the door handle, like he was considering going in to grab it, but then he shook his head and stepped away like he thought better of it.

“Why are you the one driving her? Swim team has to finish at the same time as your soccer practice, so then you must also have to run to the car, then drive her and…” I trailed off as I saw the pained look on his face and all the pieces in my mind clicked.

Suddenly, I regretted bringing this up at all.

Because there was only one reason why he was doing that: there was nobody else who could.

It had been a little over a month since his dad left, but there were still days that I forgot it happened. It had all been so sudden that it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it.

It was a gorgeous summer day when it all went down.

Everyone’s windows were open, so the sound of his parents’ screaming at each other echoed from their house and into ours.

The next thing we knew, Sebastian had been standing on our porch with Lavender, Ainsley, and Imogen in tow, asking if they could hang out there for a bit because they needed some space.

A bit turned into three nights, and when they went back, their dad was gone—presumably to move in with the women he’d been caught cheating with.

“So, do you think Dean’s home?” Sebastian asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

He’d parked in his driveway, so he cut across the lawn to go up to our house.

I trailed after him slower, leaving him plenty of time to walk in and start chatting with Dean before I followed.

Even though we hadn’t done anything wrong, and there was every possibility Dean had actually sent Sebastian to get me, I did everything I could to avoid leaving Dean with the mental image of Sebastian and me together.

Getting smothered with a pillow one time was more than enough for me.