Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses Book #8)(38)
Cade James is starting to rewrite the rules, break his own code of conduct in my honor. Maybe we have something here after all.
I’ve been in expensive, flashy cars before, but the scent of his new leather seats, all of the strobing lights on his dashboard, that alarmingly large navigation screen that looks like a built-in television, it’s all a giant leap in technological advancements that I can hardly wrap my head around. I knew Piper’s family was filthy rich, but for some reason, Cade and his down-home attitude never really exuded that. Perhaps that’s why I’m so taken aback by his nice ride.
“We can do burgers.” He points to the left at the Burger Hut. “Or something different.” He nods across the street at the Fat Burrito.
“I’m down for whatever.” Fat Burger, Burrito Hut—mix and match, I really don’t care, so long as we’re not spotted out and about enjoying our foil-wrapped fare.
“Burgers it is.” He winks as he takes the turn into the drive-thru. We put in our orders, and he hands me a hot bag brimming with fries and pulls back out onto the street. “Do you mind if we head to the overlook?”
“Not at all. I’ve only been there a couple of times with Pip”—oh my shit—“piping hot food. There’s nothing like looking down over the city this time of night.” My face stings with heat. That was more than close! Crap on a crap cracker! I need to watch my tongue, or I’ll let the cat out of the bag before morning. Hey? Maybe that’s why he’s having me spend the night. It’s all a part of his nefarious plan to get me to confess the truth about who I am. A dull chuckle pulses through me. That’s ridiculous. It’s not like I’m hiding anything from him. I’m not some two-faced liar looking to shake him down for his hot buns in the bedroom, only to conceal the fact I’m secretly his little sister’s bestie. That would be ridiculous.
“So, which dorm are you in?”
“Prescott Hall.” Holy crap! I am a liar! I may as well step on a crack and break my momma’s back. I’m a damn liar—going to hell in a hand basket. My entire body heats with sin as I bleed out a sickly smile. If I had admitted to the fact I’m in Cutler Tower, I might as well have said Piper James is my roommate. We both know she would have been the inevitable next question. “But my dorm mother is a real peach. Don’t bother sniffing around, or she’ll hand you your rock-hard bottom on a stick.”
“Sounds painful.” He raises a brow as we cruise farther up the switchbacks, past the Witch’s Cauldron that boils and steams into the night. “This look good?” He pulls in close to the fence, and all of Hollow Brook lights up, glittering beneath us like a Christmas tree.
“Wow”—I sigh as we marvel at the sight—“my grandmother had a snow globe like this. It was a city scene just like this, and I used to love to watch it sparkle and shine. This almost makes up for the fact I broke the darn thing one year.” I pass him a burger and fries as we start in on our artery-clogging meals.
“That’s too bad. How about this, I’ll bring you up here as often as you like, and I’ll let you shake me.” He gives a dirty little wink as he takes a bite out of his burger.
“Sounds like a good deal.” I examine him like this, with the moon licking a blue line over his dark glossy hair, his eyes lit up ten times brighter than they’ve ever been before. It’s been easy to keep my face tucked to the left on the drive up here because that way I’m actually facing him instead of subjecting him to my imperfection, but dear Lord Almighty, Cade James doesn’t have a single imperfection to call his own. “Any luck on the unicorn front?” Not sure why I went there. Hell, I know why I went there. Cade James is perfection, and he deserves that in his counterpart.
“None so far, and you?” His gaze cuts to mine with a slight accusation in it, and my stomach bisects with heat. Cade James is alarmingly handsome, alarmingly sweet, and overall dangerously sexy. It feels as if I’m walking on a wire without a safety net below. Any moment now, he’ll meet up with his unicorn, and it’ll be much more than my body that will miss him.
I shake my head. “No unicorns my way either.” I look away, because for one, I can’t seem to say those words while looking into his angel blue eyes.
“You mentioned your grandmother. Are you close to your family?”
Cade is probing, hoping for some unreasonable clues as to what makes me tick, and a part of me wants to push my lips to his to stop him from going there.
“Close as I can be. Mimi and Pappy—yes, that’s what I call them—they’re back home with my momma. She lives with them.”
“So, you’re out here alone?”
“As alone as you are.” I lift a fry as if to toast him before taking a bite.
“I have my sister and my brothers.” He takes a long swig from his soda.
“I have a sister, too.” I’m not sure why I let that little familial nugget fly, but it felt good to give him something. As if all of my secrets were a wound festering on the inside, and that one tiny detail was the incision that helps get some of the poison out. I’ve spent my entire life filled with the toxins I’ve accumulated right after my father left. I’m not quite sure how to get rid of them.
“I’d love to meet her. Does she go to WB?”