Page 145 of On His Schedule
“It would be temporary,” she says.
I smile to myself. Temporary? That means more than one night? I take a sip of water and then say, “You can stay as long as you’d like.”
She blushes. “I’m only taking you up on this because I can walk to school from Hawthorne.”
I lift my hands. “Yes, of course.”
“Are you sure?”
I smile at her. “Haven’t been more sure of anything.”
Chapter 30
Lucy
Iquestionifhe’stelling me the truth or if he’s just flirting. By the twinkle in his eye, he might just be flirting with me. I fix my hair, putting a loose strand behind my ear, and then the food comes. We eat in comfortable silence. He steals a few bites from my plate and hums.
“Are you sure they won’t mind?” I ask, feeling nervous that his friends will have a lot to say about this. I’ve seen the Hawthorne House rules.No serious girlfriends in the house.They seem to have a strict no-girls-allowed policy.
“They won’t care. You’ve seen the parties we throw.”
“Okay.” I drink my water. He drinks his.
“Do we need to grab things from your mom’s?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, I have everything in my car.”
He pauses. “You can seriously stay with me, Lucy. Okay? It’s no problem.”
I must sound like a homeless person to him. I don’t know if it’s smart to tell him this, but I doubt he’ll talk to his sister about it. “Penelope said that she has a room available.”
“Oh,” he says. “Are you taking her up on that?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m trying to give Gianna space, but she fully kicked me out. I don’t know what I’m doing, Bens. Thanks for offering your place. The drive is brutal.”
“Not a big road tripper, huh?”
“A road trip I can do, but a daily commute of forty-five minutes is not for me. I miss walking to campus.”
Our waitress comes over with the check. I reach for it, and he kisses my hand. “Don’t worry about it, babe.”
The October air bites through this hoodie on the sidewalk. I pull it tighter around me. He shoves his large hand into the pocket and intertwines his fingers with mine.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
In the truck, he has his right hand on my thigh and his left on the wheel. He drops me at my car in the lot off the math building and gets out before I do to open my door.
“Follow me back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go slow.” He kisses me on the corner of my mouth and closes the door for me. I lick my lips, wishing he had kissed me fully instead. My body is left tingling.
The drive to Hawthorne is six minutes. I follow his taillights up Ash and right on State and left on Hawthorne. I argue with myself the entire way that I should not be sleeping at his house. I shouldn’t be coming over to his house if there’s no party period.
When I park, he’s already at my door. “Let me help with your bags.”
