He draws in smoke, then releases it. “Yeah. Tell Eric he’s got a snitch.”

A snitch. Fuck. Not what anyone needs. Eric’s a mean asshole already, and he’ll go insane if he thinks someone turned his business over to the police. A gentle tug on my hand coaxes my attention back to Rachel. “Isaiah, let’s get inside.”

Yeah. Inside.

The door closes behind me and I wait for Rachel to drop her hand. Instead, she inches closer to me when she surveys the narrow room. The chipped, worn wooden bar stretches the length of the left wall and in a nook on the opposite wall sits a stage.

The throb of an electric guitar playing Southern rock pulses against my skin. I place a hand on the nape of Rachel’s neck and guide her through the thick crowd so we can find a booth in the back. Even if the cops come in, they’ll give up before they maneuver past the groupies.

“Maybe you should go first,” she yells as I push her forward.

I lean down to say in her ear, “And take a chance on some drunk asshole grabbing your ass? I’m not interested in getting into a fight.”

Her head whips back to see if I mean what I say. I nod for her to keep moving. A crowd this packed? They’d also try to cop a second-base feel, but no need to tell her that. The music becomes muffled as we continue toward the back. She pauses to take a seat at a table in the wide-open. I shake my head and point to the corner booth. “That one.”

Preferring a view of the room, I motion for her to claim the space across from me as I settle on the bench against the wall. Rachel takes off her coat, sags in her seat and hides her face in her hands. “My parents are going to kill me.”

I don’t know why her statement hits me the way it does, yet it happens. For the first time in months, I laugh.

Chapter 10

Rachel

I SPLIT MY FINGERS APART and peek at Isaiah between the gaps. He’s laughing at me. It’s not loud or boisterous. At first his eyes hold a bit of humor, but slowly the humor dies and his laughter becomes bitter.

“What?” I ask.

“You,” he says while scanning the crowd.

Feeling very self-conscious, I sit straighter and shove a hand through my hair. I’m probably a mess. “What about me?”

“There’s an entire task force against street racing hunting us and you’re concerned about getting grounded.” Isaiah leans forward. His arms cover most of his side of the table, plus a little of mine. I place my hands in my lap and move my feet as he sprawls his legs underneath. The funny thing is, he appears relaxed, but his eyes keep searching the crowd.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“Trouble,” he says without glancing at me.

I swallow and grab a paper napkin out of the dispenser on the table. My heart beats faster as I let the events of the past hour register. “Are the police here?”

He says nothing and my hands start to sweat. I smooth the napkin flat, then begin to fold. “Should we leave? Or stay?” Panic stabs my chest. My car. Oh, crap, my baby. “What about my car? Is it safe? Will they find it? Will someone else take it? And your car? What do we do?”

“Rachel,” Isaiah says in a low, calm tone that makes me meet his eyes. “We’re good. We lost the police. Your car’s in the garage where I work. And someone has to be damn desperate to jack my piece of shit.”

My muscles still, including my heart. Did he just say... “Your car is not a piece of shit.” I flinch at using the word shit and the right side of his mouth turns up in response. I stare at the napkin my hands continually fold and refold. I don’t like that he reads me so clearly.

“She’s...she’s gorgeous,” I stammer. “Your car, I mean. My favorite is the ’04 Cobra.”

My parents bought me and my siblings the car of our choice for our sixteenth birthday. I asked for a 2004 Mustang Cobra, the last year that model was made, but Dad didn’t think I’d notice the difference and got me my baby. I love my baby, but I knew the difference, even though I pretended I didn’t.

“I’ve never seen a ’94 GT up close before,” I continue, hoping for a spark of conversation.

No response. His eyes become restless again even as his body stays completely motionless. Fold. Refold. Fold until the napkin’s so thick I can’t fold anymore. My fingers release the napkin and the folds tumble out. I smooth out the paper and begin again.

I don’t know this guy and he doesn’t know me. He hates me. He has to. I’m weighing him down, and I’ve noticed how he’s looked at my clothes, my diamond earrings, the gold bracelets on my wrist, my car. He can tell I’m not from this part of town—that I don’t belong. Not that I belong at home, either. But he told me before the race to leave. I didn’t. And now I’m a burden he’s dragging around.

My lower lip trembles and I suck it in. First that horrid speech. Now this. I’m scared, I’m seconds from a panic attack and I want to go home.

I try to breathe deeply. It’s what my middle school therapist told me to do. That and to think of other things. “You shouldn’t talk about your car that way.” And I don’t know why I can’t stop talking, but his car is a gem, he should know it, and cars are the only things that don’t make me cry. “It won Motor Trend’s car of the year in ’94.”

“Yeah,” he responds in a bored voice.

“That was the year they put the pony emblem back on the car’s grill.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“It has a V-8.” And I’ve run out of good things to say about the car. “But what I don’t get is how Ford was okay with producing the thirtieth anniversary car using the same engine as the ’93 and losing 10 horses off the power.” And I’m rambling. I press my mouth shut and sigh heavily. Not that he’s listening anyhow. As I said before, guys don’t like girls who talk cars.

He surprises me by answering. “I don’t have the original motor in my car.”

My eyes snap to his. “For real? I know it probably sounds like I’m talking bad about your car, but really, the engine rocked. I mean, add a different air filter, or pulleys, or, I don’t know, some other mods and bam, your pony’s flying.”

Lines bunch between his eyebrows as they move closer together. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tugs on the bottom loop of his right ear and relaxes back into his seat. “How do you know so much about cars?”

I shrug. “I read.”

His eyes mock me with amusement. “You read.”

“I read,” I repeat. A moment of silence stretches between us, and the band begins to play Jason Aldean. “Thank you for coming back for me.”

It’s his turn to shrug. “It’s nothing. Thanks for not leaving me back at the warehouses. I owe you.”

I owe you.

A tiny whisper of wings tickles the inside of my chest as he says those last three words. Or maybe it’s the way his gray eyes become charcoal as if he’s swearing a pact. Either way, the moment is heavy, and I can’t help but look away in response. “Anyone would have done it.”

“No, they wouldn’t have,” he says. “You could have gotten away clean without me. I can’t be arrested, Rachel, and I owe you big.”

The cuticles on my fingernails have never been so interesting. “So I’m assuming I also owe you, since you came back for me.”

“No,” he says automatically. “You sacrificed a hell of a lot more for me.”

I bite the inside of my lip to conceal the smile forming. All right, so this is cool. Very cool. I’m well aware that I’m barely seventeen and in a bar because I’m hiding from the police, and the guy across from me is my opposite in more ways than I can calculate, but I can’t help but feel like a princess who has a knight pledging his loyalty.

And because this moment is so intense, and there’s no way it’s as powerful for him as it is for me, I clear my throat and force a change of subject. “So, does that make us friends?”

Okay, last-minute game changer. I know, I know, any self-respecting girl would have let the subject drop, but I need to know. I don’t have that many friends, and I like the idea of having a friend who isn’t one of my brothers.