“Are you nuts? He’ll destroy her.”
“No, he won’t,” Nate defends. “He’ll keep her mind off Max and make sure she has a good time. Jess is exactly what she needs.”
I turn around and set my fiercest glare on Jesse. “If you even have one sexual thought about her, I’m going to castrate you.”
Jess makes a cross against his heart as he grins back at me. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I roll my eyes as we pull into Brooke’s driveway. “What are you, twelve?” I laugh.
I pull out my phone and send a quick text to Brooke, letting her know we’re here.
Tora – Get your skinny ass outside. Jesse is taking you hostage tonight!
Brooke – Shit. Coming.
We come to a stop outside her house and wait for the quickest moment. Her front door opens and she comes out in a little black dress that hugs her starved body just right, making me cringe because I know she hasn’t eaten all week. “Geez,” I murmur beside Nate. “We better stop and get her a burger.”
“Mmhmm,” he replies as Jesse puts down the window and wolf whistles.
“Fuck me,” Jesse says before Brooke gets close enough to hear. “I know I crossed my heart and hoped to die, but I’m getting up in that tonight.”
“What?” I shriek, spinning around in my chair to face him. “No, you’re not.”
“Sorry, babe. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Nate? I grunt, hoping he will be able to help me out here. “Isn’t there some kind of bro code?”
“Nope. Sorry. Max didn’t treat her well, so in our eyes, she’s open for the taking,” he laughs as Brooke opens the door and starts climbing in. “It’s out of my hands. Besides, you know how Jesse gets. If he wants something he won’t stop until he’s got it. It’s in Brooke’s hands now.”
“What’s in my hands?” she questions, always hating when she’s being talked about.
“Dinner,” I tell her. “Your choice.”
“Oh, um. I’m not hungry.”
“Trust me,” Jesse says. “You’re going to need your energy for tonight.”
She narrows her eyes on him before turning back to me. “What do you want to eat?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Maybe a burger.”
“Fine,” she says. “A burger it is.”
With that settled, Nate gets busy driving us to Broken Hill’s famous drive-through diner which just happens to have the best burgers in the country, well, in my opinion, it does. Five minutes later, Nate throws me the bag of take out and I do my front seat passenger duty of handing out everyone’s dinner.
“Whose party are we going to?” Brooke asks as she unwraps her burger and looks at it as though it could kill her.
Jesse fills her in on the plans for the night as I look to Nate. “Is this what it was like when I wasn’t eating?” I ask quietly.
“Worse,” he grunts. “She’s only like this because she’s upset. You weren’t eating because your twisted mind was hurting you.”
I press my lips together and watch as she lifts the burger to her lips. “You made me better,” I remind him.
“Damn straight, I did,” he grins triumphantly.
I resist rolling my eyes. “I’m sorry I put you through all that,” I tell him as I bring my soda to my lips.
He looks across at me as though I’m some misbehaved child in need of a stern talking to. “Just don’t do it again.”
I can’t help myself as I draw a cross over my heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“You’re trouble, Tora Roberts.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With that, we drive the rest of the way mostly in silence. Mainly with me shoving the burger down my throat and Jesse working his charm on my best friend.
We pull up at the race track twenty minutes later and for once, Nate actually parks the Range Rover among the other cars. “You’re going to make me walk?” I tease as he cuts the engine.
“I can’t be an arrogant pig every time, can I?”
“It’s never stopped you before,” Jesse grunts before getting out and helping Brooke down in her heels.
Jesse walks off with her leaving Nate and I behind. I wait for him to lock the car before he pockets the keys and takes my hand in his. As we walk closer to the track and the crowded bodies, it occurs to me that this is the first time since Nate’s accident that we’ve been here. “Are you ok?” I ask him, hating that it took me so long to realize that this could be hard for him.
“Yeah, I guess,” he grunts, lifting a shoulder in a shrug and being way too blasé about the whole thing while also letting me know he’d rather not talk about it.
“Ok,” I say, letting out a breath. I mean, if he wasn’t feeling great about the whole thing, he’d tell me, though, he would probably wait until we were home alone in bed.