Page 56 of Wrong For Me

Rose

My mind feels all jumbled up as I lead the way out of the psych building towards the parking lot. Leo trails behind me, radiating tension. He hasn’t said a word since leaving the office.

Stupid, stupid girl,I chide myself as I walk. Why in the hell had I made the choice to intentionally prolong my time with him. Am I crazy?

From the moment he chose not to call me in Lake Tahoe, Leo Malone has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t enjoy spending time with me. He was visibly pissed off to learn we’d be working together and all week long, I’ve gotten nothing but hostility from him—with the occasional bout of teasing thrown in. I should be running as fast as I can in the opposite direction. Let him deal with the bus.

Except…except today we spent several fairly decent hours together. Not even decent—the time had been straight upnice. Pleasant. As someone who has a hard time feeling comfortable around anyone I don’t know well, it’s strange that I could have sat with Leo, in such close quarters, and felt fine. Content, even. Reading, eating good food, listening to music. It might not sound like much of an exciting time to most people, but for me, that’s pretty much a perfect afternoon.

Plus, all the sparing between us. The back and forth. All the moments I would look up and see him sitting over there, just as engrossed as I was in his work. Every so often I’d catch him tugging on the ends of his hair in a fidgeting kind of motion I wondered if he even noticed.

And when I mentioned that the Ransom song was about me, he’d been…nice about it. He hadn’t reacted the way so many other people would. Hadn’t stared at me in shock, or asked a million stupid questions, or started to make hints about wanting to meet my dad. He’d just been…normal.

I’d discovered a long time ago that normal is a lot harder to come by for me than it is for most people.

He makes a weird noise when I stop at the side of my car. “Holy shit,” he mutters. “Thisis your car?”

I turn to face him, eyebrows raised. “Uh, yeah? Why do you sound so surprised?”

He shakes his head, staring at the powder blue finish. “I just didn’t take you for a muscle car kind of girl, I guess.”

Part of me wants to get offended, but I can see his point. “Honestly? I never did either. But that was before Cindy came into my life.”

“Cindy?” I gesture at the pale blue exterior of my restored Mustang. Leo blinks at it for a long moment. “You named a kickass car like thisCindy?”

“I guess this wouldn’t be the best time to tell you that Cindy is actually short for Cinderella, huh?”

He makes a low, pained sound in his throat, like he’s wounded on the car’s behalf. I could tell him that it had been my Aunt Paige’s idea—something about the color of the restored paint job matching Cinderella’s dress perfectly—but his horrified expression is too perfect to ruin.

“Aren’t you the one who always calls me princess?” I ask sweetly. “Why does it surprise you that I named my car after the best princess there is?”

He holds up a finger. “First of all, Cinderella is nowhere near the best princess. That would be Jasmine. Obviously.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Strong opinions on Disney Princesses, huh?”

“You’re not going to shame me on this,” he insists. “Jasmine is smoking hot. And she had a pet tiger. Therefore she’s obviously the best princess.”

“If you say so,” I mutter, giving him the shifty eyes as I open my door. “Now will you please get in the car before anyone sees me standing with the guy ranting about Disney princesses?”

He glares at me but I can see the telltale flattening of his lips that indicates his attempt not to laugh. He climbs in on the passenger side and lets out a low whistle. “This is gorgeous.”

I bite back a snort. He hadn’t even been this effusive when I’d been naked in his bed. Apparently, Leo is one of those car guys.

“Is this leather custom?” he asks, running a hand over the pristine cream dashboard.

“Sure is. It was a bitch to find, let me tell you.”

He shoots a surprised look in my direction as I put the car into reverse. “Youfound it?”

“Well, I called around to about a hundred upholstery shops, so, yeah. I found it.” I point at my phone. “You want to put your address in there so I know where I’m going?”

Even as he plugs his address into my phone’s GPS app, he’s still looking at me with undisguised surprise. Feeling fidgety under his gaze, I start to ramble. “Of course, the upholstery was only half the problem. The real bitch was finding the right headlights. Apparently, this was the only model year that took this exact size, so there just aren’t that many of them out there.”

Leo is full on gaping at me now. “What?” I finally ask, hands fluttering near my face, wondering if I smudged my mascara or have lipstick on my teeth or—

“Yourestored this car?” he blurts out, tone filled with disbelief. It’s enough to make my hackles go up.

“Yes. I mean, not alone. My uncle Lennon helped a lot. And Will volunteered some time. But they made sure to teach me every step of the way so I could participate.” When he continues to gape at me, I shrug. “It was fun.”