Between Now & Never (15 page)

Why am I lying? I shouldn’t even be here.

Ron offers his business card and steps back inside. I start toward my car, taking one last look at the license plate frames. ACKLEN MOTOR GROUP. Even if it was a Jaguar that hit me, it could have been purchased anywhere. Maybe Vic and I drove around this side of the mall that night. This sign could look familiar for any number of reasons. The best I can do is tell Detective Ferguson I think the car was a Jaguar, even though it’s not much.

The door behind me swings open again and Ron makes his way out. Another customer has arrived: a lady in heels and the type of pricey sunglasses that suggest she’ll have no trouble buying a car here. Ron’s lucky day.

“I hear you’re in the market for a Jag.”

I spin around at the voice, my gaze coming level with a set of blue eyes. Lightest blue I’ve ever seen. This salesman is a lot taller than Ron, almost as tall as me. And built. He wears no tie, though, and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, the sleeves rolled up.

“Uh, yeah,” I stammer.

“You ever been in one?”

I hesitate because the answer is
no
, and the real reason I’m interested in Jaguars isn’t something I’ll divulge. Luckily, he extends a hand and pretends he didn’t ask.

“I own the place,” he says with a firm handshake.
Owns
the place. Great, now I’m really going to get a sales pitch. “Ron told me you’re looking at Jaguars. Thought I’d come out and introduce myself.”

“Thanks,” I say, wishing I had hightailed it out of here as soon as Ron gave me his card.

“And your name is?” he asks.

“Cody.”

“Cody,” he says expectantly, like he’s waiting for a last name.

Why do I not want to tell him?

“Rush,” I finally add, telling myself off for being mistrustful. That’s what you get when your dad is a fed and you hear too many stories.

“Welcome, Cody Rush,” he says with a smile I can’t decipher. “Have we met before?”

His question catches me off guard. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

He nods, the corners of his lips retaining a grin, his eyes studious. How would I know if we’ve met before? Maybe Vic and I did come here. “Are you sure? You look familiar.”

“Nope,” I say with a fake confidence that seems to satisfy him at last.

He waves it off. “My mistake. I must be thinking of someone else. We get a lot of guys like you here.”

“Like me?”

“Yeah,” he says with an appraising nod. “Good-looking guys like you. Ladies at your heels. World at your fingertips. How about we get you a nice set of wheels under your fingertips as well?”

“I was just stopping by,” I cut in and shift toward my car. “I’d have to bring my dad back if I even dreamed of owning one.”

“Yeah, I know how it goes,” he says. “Once you have Jags on your mind, they’re hard to forget.”

My head snaps up, my full attention drawn to his blue eyes as his words ring too true for comfort.

“Thanks,” I say with finality and a parting handshake, realizing he never introduced himself. “What was your name?”

One corner of his lips turns up into a crooked grin, and I realize how intense this guy is, his eyes never straying from mine. Just as I finish that thought, his icy blue gaze trails down to the boot on my leg and his lips spread into a full grin. “Damian.”

I push the unlock button, breaking away at last. “Thanks, Damian.”

G
etting to Cody’s house on foot in 116 degrees is not ideal, but I have little choice. Vic disappeared in Rusty after school, even after I told him I needed the car, and I wasn’t about to ask Dad for a ride. I don’t need him getting suspicious about who I’m tutoring.

Luckily, the Valley Metro took me halfway. Now I approach what I think must be his neighborhood. Hopefully, his AC works a lot better than ours. I hum a song from choir as I reread the address, realizing there’s more to Cody’s text than I initially saw. He left a gate code—a
gate code
?

I look up, doing a double take when I spot it, the mother of all community gates, intricate wrought iron between stone fences and a sign that reads C
HADWICK
E
STATES
.

I double-check—triple-check—Cody’s text, hoping I got turned around somehow. I figured he was rich, but
this
is a whole different level of richness. I wait for cars to clear out before dashing across the street.

My fingers hesitate over the keypad before punching in the five-digit code. I jerk back when the gate responds. It glides open, revealing a fancy road made of brick pavers—not your typical asphalt—and it leads the eye straight to a roundabout complete with water fountain, palms, and planted flowers.

My feet start down the road. I take everything in with a sort of reverent awe. Any neighborhood in Arizona that can keep this much grass alive and so green deserves respect. Trees shade my walk down the path, offering a blessed relief from the beating sun. Flowers in vibrant shades of yellow, red, and purple line either side of the road. A car passes by, a shiny SUV with an engine so quiet I didn’t hear it coming.

Weaving through the streets, I navigate my way until I reach the house that matches the address on Cody’s text, a two-story brick house—no, a
mansion—
with a fountain and a circular drive that put the community entrance to shame.

It hits me, like it took me clear up until this moment to fully grasp where I am: Agent Rush’s house. Cody is intimidating enough, his cocky smile reminding me too much of his dad. He’s rich, popular, and almost too pretty, and he won’t leave me alone. I hate to admit it, but something about him gets to me every time he’s near, and if I were smart, I would be nowhere near his house now.

Cody had to go and be all nice to me yesterday, though, agreeing to have me tutor him after I’d been so rude. I start up the sidewalk, trying to calm my breathing. I knock on the door and then freak out, wondering if I should bolt back the way I came or hide in the bushes.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.

I spin around and dash down three of the stairs before the door swings open. I jolt, whirling back around. My face flushes with a different kind of heat when I see Cody standing there, a funny little smirk on his lips.

His grin breaks into a dimpled smile. “Leaving already?”

Dimples are definitely dangerous.

“Yes,” I say, “I mean
no
.”

He laughs. “I was starting to think you’d ditched out again.”

He had to bring that up. “Sorry I’m late.” I point back in the direction I came. “If this isn’t a good time, I can leave.”

“No, come on in,” he says and stands aside, gesturing me inside.

“Okay,” I say, hesitating before braving the remaining distance. I slip in past him and scoot off to the side, casting a quick look around. His entryway is ten times the size of my bedroom. And ten times cooler. “Should I take my shoes off?”

“Whatever’s most comfortable,” he says and shuts the door. “Up to you.”

I doubt anything will make me comfortable here. I keep my ears alert for any other male voices, praying that Cody’s dad is still at work. I slip my flip-flops off and follow Cody. When my feet hit the carpet—the superplush kind you can sink your toes into—I think maybe I was wrong. I could get used to this.

“You want something to drink?”

I want to say no, but my throat is so dry. I’m not sure which is better: making eye contact to assert my confidence or avoiding it altogether. Looking into his eyes has proven deadly in the past, especially that night at the mall, so I settle for glancing around impassively. “Water’s great. Thanks.”

He heads to the kitchen. This place is huge, with classy lighting fixtures and crown moldings to boot. All of the furniture looks heavy, made of solid wood. Fans spin overhead without a sound. Not a single pile can be found anywhere on the counter. It feels clean and, yes, even comfortable. It feels like someone cares.

Cody returns with two water bottles and grabs his backpack from a recliner. “Have a seat.”

I freeze when I realize this is where we’re studying—the living room. Cody pops a squat on the floor at the end of a coffee table that’s probably more expensive than our car. This all looks too cozy, like friends kicking back to do more hanging out than studying.

Better get this over with. I sit. “Okay, what do you need help with?”

I look at Cody from across the long coffee table, finding that funny smirk on his face again. He shifts around the table, coming closer, and rests his back against the sofa, his left leg extended to keep his booted foot straight. “It’s a lot more comfortable if you lean up against the couch,” he says with a suggestive glance at the spot of carpet beside him, like I’m going to heed his beckoning and happily scoot closer.

He’s got something else coming at him. “Oh, no, I’m just fine right here. What do you need help with?” I repeat with a quick glance over my shoulder toward the garage door, praying his dad won’t walk in any second.

“Art,” Cody says.

“
Art
?” I repeat. He mentioned needing help with art before, but I thought he was joking.

“Yeah,” he replies and pulls a piece of paper from his backpack.

Who needs help with
art
? And for fifteen bucks an hour?

His head shakes as he scans the paper. “It’s our first project. Some ‘One-point Perspective Collage.’” He reads off the instructions. “‘Create a one-point drawing on cardboard using geometric shapes, checking for a balanced composition. Then pick a color scheme and create an aesthetically pleasing, three-dimensional—’” He tosses the paper on the coffee table without finishing. “Sounds like Chinese.”

A chuckle escapes my lips before I can stop it. “That’s what I say about math.”

“
Math
?” he asks. “That I can understand, but
this
? Sure, I can be dense, but this doesn’t make a lick of sense. About the only word in there I understand is
geometric.
”

I laugh, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s his self-deprecating way of blaming himself for not understanding instead of calling the assignment stupid. “Pick a shape,” I say and sip from my water bottle.

He thinks for a second. “Square.”

I pull out my notebook and find a blank page, sliding marginally closer for him to see. I draw a horizontal line to represent the viewer’s eye level and explain the basics of drawing a three-dimensional object. He nods as I explain, taking the liberty of scooting closer as he does. I shift back an inch in response and finish a sketch of a room drawn in one-point perspective.

“Wow,” he says, eyes on my drawing. “You
drew
that.”

I glance at my rough sketch—and I mean
rough
—and can’t help smiling. Everyone in my family is artistic, even Vic. Even Lucas doodles little anime characters from time to time. No one has ever stared at something I’ve made quite like Cody is now, and it reminds me of how impressed he was of the cupcakes I frosted at The Chocolate Shoppe.

“That’s crazy,” he says, rubbing the thick stubble along his chin. “Like you’re looking right into a room.”

“And here I just thought you had a thing for cupcakes,” I say.

His brows pull together as he looks at me. “Cupcakes?”

“Yeah. I thought you were just trying to schmooze a free one off of me at The Chocolate Shoppe.”

Recognition still hasn’t crossed his face, and I realize with a stab of humiliation that he doesn’t remember. Duh, Julianna. Obviously that night meant more to me than it did to him.

“Oh, right,” he says and smiles, but I know better.

I sit upright and scoot back to my spot at the end of the coffee table.

Cody props himself up on one hand as he leans closer to me than we’ve been since that night in the photo booth. A clean, strong scent tempts my senses, like aftershave and manly soap. Even as I dare a glance at him, I know it’s a bad idea.

His sandy-colored hair is a little crazy, like he just rolled out of bed, and a healthy layer of scruff covers his sharp jawline. He’s so different from the clean-shaven guy I met at the mall. Still, Cody is agonizingly handsome whether he’s trying or not. And there’s something else. He seemed so carefree at the mall. Yet there’s something in his green eyes now, laden with doubt and perhaps a few secrets of his own, that makes him all that much harder to disregard. Like a guy who hasn’t always had the easy way in life after all.

Which almost makes me want to ask him what happened to his leg.

A playful grin curves Cody’s lips as he looks into my eyes. “About that night—”

“Listen”—I cut him off before his flirtatious ways turn me into a puddle of mush at his feet—“for the record, that whole photo booth . . . incident . . . didn’t mean anything, okay?”

He sits up, leaning forward to pull a wallet from his back pocket. He fishes something out and slaps it down on the coffee table.

“Oh, yeah?” he challenges. “What about that?”

I glance down at the pictures—the photo-booth pictures. His index finger taps the third picture, the one of him practically kissing my neck. The nerve! I feel a wave of heat rising up my neck and into my cheeks. Wait,
he keeps this in his wallet
?

“Pulling out that dimple-loaded smile of yours and doing . . .” I fish for a term to describe what he’s doing in that picture. Smelling my hair? Kissing my ear? It’s too intimate, too personal to articulate. “. . . doing . . .
that
. . . might win over every other girl who comes your way, but it doesn’t work for me.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks again and leans in dangerously close, his tone doubtful. His gaze drops from my eyes to my lips. “What
does
do it for you, Julianna?”

The sound of my name on his lips sinks right to my core, rich and tempting. Like chocolate. He is
such
a player. I wonder if slapping him would make me feel any better. Isn’t the admiration of three fourths of the Highland High School female student body enough for him? Why is he toying with
me
?

“You would like to know, wouldn’t you?” I ask, loading as much spite into that challenge as possible.

One side of his lips kicks up, like he’s thoroughly enjoying this. “Lucas?”

“Yes,” I assert, pulling the conversation back into my ballpark. “Lucas is my type.”

“So all I need is an ear spacer then?” Cody teases.

“Ew.”

“
Ew
?”

Oops. It slipped out. Simply imagining Cody with a spacer makes me cringe. It’s all types of wrong. An uppity-uppity like him with brand-name clothes and the kind of cocky smile that’s only acquired from years of being too popular for your own good . . . all that and a
spacer
?

“Yes,
ew
.”

“Right here,” he says and pinches one of his earlobes with a smug smile, his face a breath away from mine. “What do you think, Jules?”

“
Julianna
,” I correct him, not about to let him make up his own nickname for me. Who does he think he is?

His smile looks more mocking now than anything. “Fine. What do you think, Julianna?”

“You couldn’t pull off a spacer,” I assert.

“Oh, yeah, I could.”

His arrogance is driving me crazy. “
No
, you couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a pretty boy!”

The words ring out, filling the short space between us with awkwardness. And remorse.
I can’t believe I said that.

The sound of my lungs moving oxygen in and out is suddenly very loud, the only sound I hear as I wait for him to tell me to
shut up
or
get out and never come back
, either of which I would happily comply with.

He leans back against the sofa, no doubt bruised from my cutting remark.

I bite on my lower lip, something I do when I’m nervous. His eyes are locked on mine, his intense eyes dragging me in and swallowing me whole as he gives a fluid wink of his eye.

“I’m going to remember that,” he says and settles back into a comfortable recline with a smile, like he just scored first base with a girl. “You think I’m pretty.”