Noah goes to take a step and I latch onto him a little tighter. “Don’t,” I beg. “Just…give her tonight. You can rant at her when we get home. If you get all pissy on her now, you’re just going to embarrass her and then she’ll get payback by practically throwing herself at him.”
“Damn it,” he growls, knowing I’m right. “I don’t like it.”
“I know,” I tell him. “Neither do I, but she insists that he’s not as bad as we think, and we need to give her space to explore that.”
“But he’s going to hurt her.”
“Tully’s tough. If anything, she’ll be the one doing the hurting.”
Noah lets out a frustrated groan before pulling his eyes away from his twin sister. “She’ll be alright,” I tell him. “And besides, it’s not like Rivers is going to take his eyes off her for even a second. She’s safe.”
“She’s like a sitting duck over there,” he murmurs.
“You can’t think of her as a fragile little girl. That’s not who she is anymore. She’s a lot stronger than you give her credit for,” I tell him, weaving my fingers through his and giving them a squeeze. “Now, leave her the hell alone before she comes back over here and punches you in the ovaries.”
He looks down at me, wondering if I just called him a girl or if I’m seriously confused about the male and female sexes. “Why the hell would she do that? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Believe me, she could find something to blame on you.”
“You fucking girls,” he says, shaking his head. “You know, sometimes I just don’t get you.”
“Good,” I chuckle, looking up at him. “Then it’s working.”
“What’s working?”
“You’ll never know.”
His eyes sparkle but the next race starts and completely steals his attention, giving me a moment to melt into his side and just enjoy being in his arms. We very rarely get a chance to just be us. Living in Haven Falls, there’s always someone around. It’s either Rivers or Tully and if it’s not them, then it’s the parents or Aria. When we finally escape them, we get hit with the phone calls and text messages of all the people from school wanting attention, and once that’s finally sorted, Anton will drag his ass away.
Not now, though. This is our time and I’m not going to waste a single second of it. Rivers and Tully both seem busy, all the kids from school have already pined over his attention, and apparently, Anton is away on ‘business’ for the night, meaning I have Noah all to myself.
“Why don’t we get out of here?” I ask as my eyes follow the cars drifting around the track.
“We will,” he promises. “I just want to see something first.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see,” he says, grinning down at me. “Have you seen Kaylah yet? Do you want to say ‘hey’ real quick?”
My eyes shoot across to where the Broken Hill kids hang out. “Oh, is she here?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Yeah, I saw Jesse’s Range Rover earlier. I’m assuming she’s with him.”
“Probably,” I laugh. I mean, wherever Jesse goes, Kaylah’s not far behind. Those two are like stuck like glue. They’re madly in love to the point it’s nearly sickening. I wonder if that’s what me and Noah look like to the rest of the world.
Noah starts leading me around the track and it’s not long before we have all the kids from Broken Hill scowling at us, wondering why the fuck we dared to wander over to their side of the track. The scowls instantly stop as Kaylah turns around and gives us a welcoming smile.
“Hey,” she smiles widely before pulling me into a tight hug. “I wondered if you were here. I saw Noah’s race.”
At the mention of his name I glance up to find him saying ‘hey’ to all the guys of this group, though apart from Jesse, Nate, and Jackson, I can’t actually remember any of them.
“Yeah,” I tell her as I watch Noah give an awkward nod to Jackson that makes me want to howl with laughter. That certainly wasn’t the same welcoming backslap that he gave the other guys, but I can’t blame him, he’s not exactly a massive fan of Jackson’s. “If I knew you were here, I would have found you earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I sent you a text when Noah was racing but I assumed you were a little preoccupied.”
My hands instinctively feel my ass for my phone. “Shit, I think my phone’s in Noah’s car.”
“Eh,” she shrugs. “You’re here now.” With that, she pulls me into her group and practically throws me at Tora. After she helped me take down Monica a few weeks ago, Kaylah has been desperately trying to get me and Tora to become besties, but as much as I like the girl, I’m not one for having a million friends. I have Tully and Kaylah and they’re more than enough for me to keep up with.