In the distance, I notice Ryan
throwing a complete bitch fit, yelling at his friends before shouting at Kaitlyn and Makayla to “Get the hell in,” and they drive off. The other Silvers send us death glares, but I’m so hopped up on excitement and Aiden that their threats don’t even reach me.
Plus, how can you feel threatened when Aiden has his arm around you? You can’t, that’s how; it’s scientifically impossible. Other people come up to Aiden to talk to him or congratulate him on winning, and the whole time he keeps his arm around me, holding me to his side as if proudly showing me off.
17
After Aiden finishes talking to some people about some boring car stuff, he leads me back to the Boys’ trucks, where Julian and Noah are talking to some other guys in the near distance.
“Did you have fun?” I ask him randomly.
He looks at me thoughtfully as we get to Julian’s truck and pauses. “Yeah, I guess I did.” He opens the tailgate of Julian’s truck and turns to face me.
“I guess it would be pretty fun to take four grand from Ryan.” I laugh.
He smiles at me, an action that I’m quickly becoming addicted to. “That wasn’t my favorite part though.”
Just when I start to blush, he puts his firm hands on my hips and hoists me up to sit on the tailgate with my legs dangling down, and steps closer to me, resting his hands on either side of me on the open tailgate.
I don’t know how to breathe. My lungs have forgotten how to work. Clearly, I can’t be too close to Aiden; he affects my respiratory system. That would be such an awkward cause of death on my death certificate. Cause of death? Aiden Parker’s charm.
“Honestly, you were amazing,” I admit, trying to distract him from my evidently racing pulse. “But why did it seem like you were holding back in the first race compared to the second one?”
He holds me hostage with his intense and unwavering gaze. “Because I was.”
“Why?”
“He makes my life hell, he harasses you, and, most importantly, he threatened my little brothers. In my mind, two grand isn’t a big enough loss for him to suffer.”
“I get it. Once the bet for two grand was made, you couldn’t raise it, so you needed a rematch for more money. But why didn’t you just beat him the first time and then offer him a rematch instead of going through all the effort of losing then provoking him?”
“See that bitchfit he threw when he lost? And how he stormed off after? He would’ve done that if he lost the first time, too, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to challenge him for more money than he would’ve offered the first time.”
I nod, understanding and agreeing with what he’s saying, even if it is a bit hard to focus with our current intimate position, and how he’s so close to me.
“It was either that or take Anna up on her offer to break his kneecaps with a tire iron,” he chuckles.
“Shit. Where’s Anna?” I ask, looking around frantically.
“What’s wrong?”
“I ran into this guy when I went to the bathroom—”
“You went to the bathroom alone?” he interrupts harshly, looking at how far the bathroom is from where we currently are, and how many people are between the two.
“No, Mason took me,” I add quickly. “Anyway, he told me his name was Luke and he wanted to know about Anna. I don’t know, I just thought she should know someone was looking for her. I didn’t get a bad vibe from him, but I didn’t get the best vibe either.”
His eyes narrow in thought. “That’s not good.”
“Why? Who is he?” I panic.
He looks around, as if searching for Luke. “No one she wants to see.”
“Where is she? Why isn’t she with Julian?”
Aiden looks over at where Noah and Julian are talking with some guys. “Hey, Julian!” he calls. “Where’s Annalisa?”
Julian looks at us and catches himself from doing a double-take at our intimate position; meanwhile, Noah very blatantly waggles his eyebrows suggestively at us. If I wasn’t so worried about Annalisa, I would’ve been more embarrassed.