Page 124 of White Hot Kiss
I loved riding in Zayne’s vintage Impala. The rumble it made, the looks it got. In a sea of Mercedes and BMWs, nothing stood out more than a 1969 cherry-red Impala. He’d let me drive it once, on my sixteenth birthday. Driving proved to be too much with all the shimmery souls serving as an epic distraction. I’d rear-ended a police cruiser.
I hadn’t gotten behind a wheel since.
We stopped at a convenience store to pick up a pack of Twizzlers. I puked a little in my mouth when Zayne brought them into the ice-cream parlor. “That’s so gross,” I muttered.
He gave me an innocent look. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“I’ll never dip Twizzlers into chocolate ice cream.”
Zayne shoved me playfully and stole my place in line. I shoved him back, but he didn’t move a centimeter. The souls around us were various degrees of pastel colors, soft and, thankfully, uninteresting to me. And no demons were in sight. Score. He ordered a bowl of chocolate ice cream and I got a banana split, the same thing I always ordered.
Pleasant temperatures for November had driven people to the shop in droves. Indian summer or whatever Zayne called it. We were lucky to find a small booth to squeeze into. This shop was one of my favorite places to go in the city, a mom-and-pop business shoved in the middle of a modern downtown, and it felt good being here. The floors were checkered black-and-white, the booths and tables were red and family photos adorned the walls. What was not to love?
It felt like a home.
I watched Zayne gleefully dip the ropy stick in his chocolate. He caught my eye and winked. “Sure you don’t want a bite?”
I made a face. “No, thank you.”
He offered the candy to me, a thick glob of chocolate syrup dripping off the end. It splattered against the table. “You might just like it.”
I took a bite of my banana split instead. Shrugging, Zayne popped it in his mouth and sighed. I studied him. “Do you think I’m pretty much going to be on house arrest until I turn eighteen?”
“Afraid so,” he replied. “Father isn’t budging on anything.”
“That’s what I feared.”
He poked my hand with a Twizzler he hadn’t dipped yet. “I’ll break you free as often as I can.”
“Thank you.” I forced a smile. “So...how are things with you and Danika?”
His brows knitted as he focused on his bowl of ice cream like it held the answers to life. “Good. She’s a...great girl.”
“She’s freaking hot. I’d kill to have her body.” I glanced down at my food. “Come to think of it, how many calories are in this thing?”
Zayne’s eyes flicked up. They seemed brighter than usual. “You’re...perfect just the way you are.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have you been watching Bridget Jones’s Diary?”
He studied me a few more seconds and then went back to his dessert. There was stiffness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before, as if he was suddenly carrying some unseen weight. Like an idiot, I kept talking. “I overheard Jasmine and Danika talking. She said you two hadn’t talked about your future...together.”
It seemed like his shoulders tensed even more. “No. We haven’t.”
I poked a cherry around. “So are you still planning to buck the system?”
Zayne ran a hand over his head, squinting. “I don’t look at it that way. If I’m going to mat—if I’m going to marry, I want to do it on my own terms.”
“And what does Abbot have to say about that?” I offered him the cherry, which he took. “Or have you been stalling?”
He shrugged as he studied the cherry’s stem. “I’ve just been avoiding it.”
“But you haven’t been avoiding Danika,” I pointed out. “You like her. So what’s the deal?”
“It’s not about me liking her or not.” He sat back in the booth, hands bouncing restlessly off the table as he stared at the tubs of ice cream behind the glass. “She’s a great girl. I have fun with her, but I really don’t want to talk about her right now.”
“Oh.” Sort of knew where this was heading.
He shot me a knowing look. “I’d ask how you’ve been holding up, but I think the dollhouse answers that.”