Page 15 of The Storm

“Phone charger,” he says before he drives forward a few feet and then has to stop again.

“Let me.”

He sends me another one of those bored, unimpressed looks.

“You’re driving.” I’m already leaning forward, and the tips of my fingers slide over the back of his hand for the briefest of moments. I frown at the mess inside the compartment and pretend I don’t notice the way my pulse pounds against the inside of my neck.

It’s a thing that sometimes happens. His close proximity and my inexplicable nerves mix, and it makes the air buzz. I can’t explain it.

“Stop rooting around in my shit,” he says. Annoyed. Because that’s one of the few emotions he’s willing to show.

Fingers tangle in the tight space, and I have a sudden image of both our hands getting stuck in there and?—

“Got it,” I say, too loudly and on an exhale, so I sound out of breath for no reason at all. “Hand me your phone?”

He pulls it out and slaps it onto my palm, but he doesn’t let go of it at once like I expect him to, and my brain doesn’t get the message, so I close my fingers around it. Around his hand.

I snap my eyes up. The touch burns. It’s maybe a second, but that second extends before I get my head on straight enough to pull away. The phone clatters as it drops down between the center console and his seat.

“Shit! Sorry.” I stuff my hand between the seat and try to fish the phone out. I’m leaning over to see better. He turns his head.

For a ridiculous moment, I swear he inhales deeply. I freeze on the spot.

I’m imagining it.

I know I am.

There’s no excuse for the way heat creeps up my neck, or how my heart gives a series of lightning-fast thumps that feel suspiciously like excitement.

I scrabble for the phone. I can’t get it out fast enough. I lean forward an inch more just to hide my face. Now it’s me smelling him because I’m too close. I finally reach the phone then pull away and busy myself with it, determined to look anywhere but at him.

“There,” I say once I’ve connected it to the charger. “All good.”

We’re silent the rest of the way to school. He parks the car, and I lunge for the door handle, ready to get away. Once outside, I start to move, but my manners win out, and I turn around again and lean down to look at him from the open door.

“Thanks for the ride.”

He glances up from his phone, eyes moving up and down me, but he doesn’t acknowledge me otherwise. I slam the door shut and walk away. The feel of his skin against mine has mostly disappeared. It was nothing. Just nerves and adrenaline and the irritated buzzing of my skin he so expertly coaxes out every time I’m near him.

I really shouldn’t let him get to me.

TWO

INDY

“So? We’re going tonight, right?”Bridget leans forward over the lunch table and looks at me expectantly. She tosses her long auburn hair over her shoulder and puts her chin on her palm while she waits.

I glance at the phone, then at her. “I already have plans.”

“Going rowing by yourself isn’t a plan. If anything, it’s a cry for help.”

I turn the page of the chemistry textbook and highlight the answer before I look at her again. “I’m planning to do it. By all definitions that makes it a plan.”

She harrumphs and throws herself against the backrest of the chair. “God, sometimes you’re so lame! I miss Dia. Where is she?”

“She said she’d meet us for lunch.”

Bridge looks around pointedly. “Clearly. Come on, use your twin telepathy.”