Page 162 of Their Cruel Play
His smile looks relieved, and we get out of the car. He comes around the hood and takes my hand. “The guys said this place is the best. I told them I wanted some place with burgers, fries, and shakes.”
He pulls open the door for me to walk into the restaurant.
“You asked the guys?” That surprises me a little.
“They’re my friends.” He shrugs and follows me in.
“How many?” The girl at the hostess stand is a junior. Her gaze trails past me like she’s expecting the rest of the guys to show up.
“Just two.” Nico draws me in close to him.
She grabs a couple menus and leads us into the restaurant. It’s Tuesday night, so it’s not busy. When she leads us to a booth in the back, I notice a few other tables of high schoolers, but they don’t pay us much attention.
“The benefit of being a new horseman.” Nico picks up the menu and turns to face the tables. “They still don’t know who I am.”
“You haven’t really made a huge splash the way they do.” I set my menu to the side.
“Have you been here before?”
“A time or two.” I shrug. “But never on a date.”
He smiles. “There was a lot of pressure for me to get this right.”
“The date?” I tilt my head. “Why?”
He sets his menu down. “It’s your first date. The others reminded me you have nothing to compare it to, so I shouldn’t stress. But I want it to be perfect for you.”
I laugh. “Since we need to discuss our issues, I don’t think this is going to be a normal date.”
“Probably not.” Nico takes my hand in his. “But how about this half, we just be two teenagers on a date and save the heavy stuff for the second half?”
I blow out a breath and look around. It’s not really a private place to have a conversation anyway. “Fine.”
“Good, and we can do that whole get to know each other thing.”
I shake my head and smirk. “You mean like things we should have known about each other before having sex?”
He chuckles. “Probably.”
The server stops, and we focus on getting our orders in. When she walks away, Nico looks down at my hand. His fingers stroke over the ring the guys gave me.
“When did you get this?” His eyes lift to mine.
I blush. “It was a birthday present from the others.”
“Yeah?” He studies it again. “That was nice of them.”
I shrug. “I figured it was another way to mark me as theirs. Make everyone else back off. Not that anyone else wanted me back then. Now...”
“Now?” He sounds genuinely interested.
I blow out a breath. “Something about the way guys watch me now just gives me the creeps. It’s like they know me because I’m with the horsemen. Like they already know who I am without actually getting to know me.”
He nods. “Kind of like how I just showed up?”
I shake my head and smile softly. “No, you assumed we still knew each other because we used to be friends. But I did the same thing.”
“Not gonna lie. The benefits of being a horseman really have improved since I was a kid.” His smile makes my insides warm. “So besides hiding, what else have you done with your life? I’ve seen some of your artwork in class, but there’s got to be more than that.”
