Page 43 of Furious

What started as a joke is no longer so funny, and I am extremely aware of my hand on her thigh right now, the worn texture of her jeans and the warmth of her muscled leg beneath it. Without a center console between us in the compact cab, it’s easy enough to lever my weight and swing my own leg up and over so I’m straddling her lap … until I’m perched awkwardly with my back smashed up against the steering wheel. Laughing, Jo reaches down to slide back and recline the seat. Not all the way, but enough that I’m fully braced over her now, my elbows on either side of the headrest, my mouth inches from hers. It’s a soupy summer night, and without any air flowing through the AC-less Hornet, it’s even hotter in here.

But I don’t care. And I feel sorry for the El of one month ago who had no idea what it was like to breathe the same air as the undefeated JoJo Emerson-Boyd. Leaning down to kiss her is the easiest thing in the world; with the seat reclined and gravity working for me, I just have to let myself fall.

By the time Jo drops me off, it’s after ten o’clock. I am mostly put together, cooled by the highway wind on the ride back, though I can feel my lips are still redder than they should be as I stand in my driveway, and there’s no saving my hair. Tying Max’s jacket around my waist to free my hands, I scoop it up into a miniature ponytail. At least my parents should be in bed by now, the porch light left on just for me.

But I’m surprised to see the living room lights on when I wrestle my key into the front lock. I don’t even have the door open before my parents appear in the entryway. And at the looks on their faces, any lingering trace of a smile fades from mine.

Mom peers out into the night behind me, where the Hornet’s headlights are just disappearing beyond the sweetgum tree that blocks the road from view. “Was that your friend JoJo driving?”

“Yes?” Caught off guard, I’m scrambling to remember what alibi I gave my parents. I told them I’d be with JoJo, didn’t I? Yes. And she told her dad that she was meeting me for a volunteer club event. “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d still be up. I tried to be quiet—”

“Your friend JoJo,” Dad chimes in, “who you’re certain has her driver’s license, and did not steal a car from her grandmother’s shop without permission?”

“I—” Shit. Shit. “I mean … it’s her mom’s car,” I say faintly, because we might’ve miraculously escaped at the airfield, but now we’re caught, and I’m in trouble, probably massive amounts. And now Mom has noticed the jacket knotted around my waist, Max’s jacket. All of the blood drains from her face, and all of the blood is draining from my face and fingers and toes, and I am the worst wild card in the world for having no idea how to salvage this situation, and how the fuck were we caught?

“Kitchen, now,” Mom says, low and cold, as Dad shuts and locks the door behind me.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

JoJo

I can still taste El’s strawberry chapstick on my lips as I pull away, watching her parents basically drag her into their house. I drive away, wishing more than anything that we were still in that housing development she’d directed us to. Remembering how she climbed out of her seat and into my lap. Wishing her body was still draped over mine, her warm mouth smiling against my own as we got tangled up in the seat belt.

Eliana Blum.

A wild card indeed.

I touch a finger to my lips. Worth it.

I hope I didn’t get her in trouble—her mom didn’t look too pleased as I pulled out of sight—but at least we got Max’s jacket back and got her address. What we’re going to do with the information is a whole other question, but El has the jacket. Even if she can’t hold her sister or find her, that has to count for something.

Once I’m out of El’s driveway, I pull over and dig my phone out from between the front seats, where it fell while El and I were making out. Hoping she’s texted me something cute or maybe sent an update that her parents aren’t going to kill her, I swipe to my messages.

And.

Shit.

There’s nothing from El, but there are fourteen missed calls from my dad and three from Grandma Jolene. (What was Grandma doing calling from Italy? She’s six hours ahead of us, which means she’s been calling since before dawn her time. Shit.)

There are also a heap of texts from both of them. The last one from Dad just reads:

Don’t take the car back to the garage. Come straight home.

A cold dose of adrenaline—something I avoided when borrowing the car in the first place, driving it through town, and racing it—washes through me now, making my legs weak. Gone are all thoughts of El and her body wrapped around mine. Gone is the thrill of racing. All of those lovely things are replaced by a cold lump of dread. I’m in so much trouble.

Or maybe I’m not. Maybe this will just blow over. Dad hasn’t had much energy to parent lately, and I can’t see him taking up the charge now.

Right.

Surely I can talk my way out of this.

I take my time driving home, letting my arm hang out the window and relishing the warm evening breeze as it cools my sweat-soaked forehead. At least I’m driving. That’s something. Everything slots into place with my hand on the wheel, and the car hums happily as I aggressively shift it and drive through a stretch of farmland between El’s house and Grandma Jolene’s.

I know I’m in big trouble the minute I pull up outside Grandma Jolene’s house.

For one, all the lights in the house are on. For another, Dad sits on the front porch, smoking, which he hasn’t done in months. As soon as I pull the Hornet into the driveway, he stubs his cigarette out in a nearly full ashtray and stands. The stale scent of cigarette smoke washes over me through my open window.

Letting out a breath full of nerves, I turn the car off. How bad can it be? It’s not like Dad can ground me from volunteer club. And he doesn’t even know about the F1 Academy application. And if he tries to stop me from seeing El, then I’ll—