“Sorry,” she said softly.
He dropped his head back against the headrest. “Don’t worry about it. And to answer your question, it was your dad who taught me.”
She couldn’t help the laugh. “I love that he taught you, but not me.”
“Maybe he knew that I would listen to him.” Reece turned his head and smiled at her, and for an annoying moment, Lucy’s breath caught.
He was so good-looking she couldn’t stand it sometimes. No matter how hard she tried to remind herself that he was Reece, it was getting harder and harder to think of him as a brother figure.
Especially when he was this close and there was no one around. Their gazes caught and held, and her mind flitted back to that first kiss. She thought about it a lot more than she should.
She’d had a few kisses since then, but Reece had lied when he said that kisses got better after the first one.
Nothing had even come close to that day in her bedroom.
“We good for today?” he asked, breaking the moment. If it even was a moment.
She laughed. “Well, let’s see, I learned the difference between the gas pedal and the brake, and…well, that’s about it.”
“And turn signal,” he said, holding up a finger. “I’m a very good teacher, Luce.”
“Uh-huh. I really owe you for the ten minutes you took out of your busy schedule of football and feeling up Abby Mancuso.”
He gave a startled laugh. “Craig’s been ratting me out.”
She forced a smile. “He doesn’t have to. I have eyes, and you guys are all over each other between classes.”
“Careful there,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his missed calls. “You almost sound jealous.”
She looked away and said nothing so he wouldn’t know how right he was.
Reece pushed open the door of the family’s station wagon and stepped out. “Switch. I’ll drive you home.”
Lucy reluctantly went back to the passenger side, knowing that it meant the end of their time together. It seemed that the older they got, the busier they got, and she hardly saw him anymore.
Except at school, and she’d meant it when she said his mouth was always fused to the head of the debate team. A brainy, pretty blonde named Abby who made Lucy feel like a ditzy cheerleader in comparison.
Probably because she was a ditzy cheerleader. And student body president, and theater darling, and track captain, and just about every other activity she thought would look good on her college application given that her grades were good but not great.
On the way back to her house, Lucy forced herself to keep things light as they bickered and bantered back and forth in the way that had become their thing in recent months.
They were still friends, but there was an almost frenemy edge to their conversations now. Almost as though that kiss a year earlier had made them realize they weren’t actually brother and sister, and now they put up walls however they could.
A few minutes later, Reece pulled Horny into the Hawkinses’ garage before pulling the keys to his dad’s truck out of his pocket and heading down the drive. “Tell your parents hey,” he said, attention still locked on his phone.
“Sure,” she said, lifting her hand in a lame wave he didn’t even see.
She was just heading back into the garage when he called her name.
Lucy turned.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked with a grin, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
Lucy grinned back and nodded, hoping like hell that he’d never find out just how much seeing him had become the highlight of her week.
The highlight of her everything.
Chapter 8