Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4)(30)

Be free.

Show her how much fun it was to just not give a f*ck anymore. What anyone thought, wanted, or needed. To see that life didn’t start and end with her Bo. That there were other possibilities in this world where she might be happy, and I wanted to take pride in being the one person that opened her eyes to that.

I drank.

She drank.

I danced.

She danced.

We laughed.

We smiled.

We lived in the moment. Where it was just me and her. And it was one of the happiest days of my life.

“Stop walking so fast,” she rambled, holding onto my hand tighter.

“Stop walking so slow,” I replied, slightly slurring.

“Hurry your asses up!” Jason yelled from in front of us.

“Where are we going?” she asked, already forgetting what I told her.

“The cops are coming. The party is being relocated.”

“Oh yeah,” she giggled, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

I opened the passenger door for her and closed it when she was safely seated inside. I ran over to the driver’s side, jumped in, and threw my car into reverse. Her body jerked forward from the momentum, and she started to giggle.

“Turn the music on,” I said.

She had a hard time finding the knobs, fidgeting from one to the other.

“Half-Pint, you’re drunk,” I chuckled right along with her.

“I love this song!” she shouted when she found the station she wanted.

I watched her dance around in her seat, singing at the top of her lungs. I’d never seen her so f*cking happy before, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me love her just a little bit more.

I banged on the steering wheel, dancing right along with her. The music switched over to a slower song as we pulled up to a red light.

I caught her leaning back in her seat, lazily looking over at me from the corner of my eye.

“I love you, Austin. I love you so, so, so much.”

I looked over at her and spoke with conviction, “I love you more. I will always take care of you and don’t you ever f*cking forget that. Now put your f*cking seatbelt on.”

“Oh yeah.” She sloppily grabbed the strap behind her head as I started driving again.

“It won’t go in the buckle,” she giggled again.

“Here.” I took it out of her hands. “Grab the wheel.”

“Mmmkay.”

The car started swerving a little.

“Austin, I don’t think I should be doing this.”

“I’m almost done.”

I would never let anything happen to her. I didn’t care how long it took me to put her goddamn seatbelt on. I wouldn’t stop until she was safe.

I felt her looking down. “You need to put your seatbelt on, too,” she hiccupped.

“Done,” I stated, ignoring what she said.

She smiled at me before facing forward as I grabbed the steering wheel again. We went back to dancing around.

“Austin, you *, can’t you drive faster than that?” Jason shouted out his car window next to us. “If I beat you to the woods, you pay for all the beer.”

“You’re on!” I yelled back.

“I don’t think—”

“Hey,” I interrupted. “What were the rules?” I reminded with a huge smile on my face.

“To have fun,” she beamed.

I turned the radio up louder and pushed down the accelerator with my foot. She danced around some more and I focused on driving faster than him. I hated when my friends thought they could do something better than me. That only added to my will to kick his f*cking ass.

The paved road ended and we had to drive through the woods till we reached the party. My car started to recoil from the dirt and grass, making her body jolt all around. I went faster, wanting this to be over and for her to be comfortable again. She pressed her hands against the dashboard, trying to hold her body steady from the impact around us.

I expected it when she yelled out, “Slow down!”

“We’re almost there!”

I could sense she was scared. Which only pissed me off further and fueled my need to beat him for making me cause her any distress.

She turned down the radio.

“You’re going too fast.”

“Relax, we’re fine,” I soothed.

I knew these woods. We were fine. I’d been partying in them for years. She gasped every time I took a sharp turn. The cars headlights only illuminated a few feet out in front of us, so I could understand why she was hanging on the edge of her seat. I decided to take a short cut and swerved left and then right. We would get there faster that way and then we could go back to having a great night. Like none of this bullshit had happened.

When I saw the clear path in front of us, I heard her breathe a sigh a relief, and I knew I had made the right decision.

Except it was too soon…

My heart dropped and pure panic took over, locking up my senses. A tree laid out in front of us a few feet ahead, probably a result from one of the last few hurricanes.

“AUSTIN!” she screamed bloody murder.

It vibrated throughout the car, and I immediately looked over at her with regret and sorrow written clear across my face. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The tires spun in the mud, causing us to slide closer and closer to our destiny that waited with open arms. Alex’s screams and the sounds of branches whipping by filled the small, vacant spaces. She instinctively placed her arms over her face, and my whole life flashed before my eyes within seconds.