Free The Stern and Wild Ones (The Seeker Series) by Reece Evhans Page A

done."
    I gripped his hand tighter. "God, Jack, that would be great. What can I do to help? Can I talk to anyone, tell them how great you are or anything?"
    He gave me one of his wonderful half-smiles. "How about you just don't do anything that would make you seem like you're having your morals corrupted. Like don't go getting a tramp stamp like Veronica."
    Why was he noticing that tramp's tramp stamp? "Gross. I would never do anything that trashy." I took my hand out of his and pointedly looked out the side window.
    "So, you think I'm great, huh?" he teased.
    I continued to look out the window and crossed my arms in front of my chest. "Yeah, well that was before I knew you were scoping out Veronica's ass."
    "Hey," he defended . "I can't help noticing when she sits down and her jeans ride down and those stringy underwear are showing along with her tramp stamp. What do you call those things?"
    I chuckled in spite of myself. "You mean thongs?"
    "Yeah, thongs. You never have those showing above your jeans."
    I turned and punched him on the arm. "I would never wear a thong. And you shouldn't be looking at my ass, either." Of course, I was lying and was secretly flattered. And I might just have a secret thong or two hidden in my underwear drawer, courtesy of a shopping trip with Tara. But Jack certainly didn't need to know that.
    "Oww! Jeez. Besides, what you ask is physically impossible. But I will never look at Veronica's ass again. Pinky swear," he said as he held out his pinky to me.
    I really couldn't tell if he was being serious or just teasing me some more, but I wrapped my pinky around his. He didn't let my hand go as we continued to drive to my house.
    Later that night, as I sat on my bed doing homework (which the thief had not stolen, unfortunately), I got a text on my new iPhone from Jack. He had made sure to program his number into it before we even pulled out of the Verizon parking lot and then made me call his phone to make sure it worked.
    < Hey jst wntd 2 make sure ur OK. Sick r anything? >
    < I'm fine. That's an old wives tale that getting cold gives you a cold. > I have a thing about proper grammar and spelling in my text messages. I don't have a problem with other people using shorthand, as long as I don't have to look anything up, but my messages will be written with correct spelling and punctuation, thank you very much.
    < Yes maam >
    < Thanks for rescuing me today. You seem to be doing that a lot lately. >
    < My pleasure. Any time. C U 2morrow >
    As I lay back on my pillow, staring at his text messages, I realized I needed to face the truth: I did indeed have a major crush on Jack Ruiz. No more denials. No more self-lies. In the span of about a week and a half we had gone from being just two strangers who had a couple classes together to a friendship of sorts. And tonight there had definitely been some flirting going on. Ok, fine. There had also been some rather unattractive jealousy on my part. I admit that, too. Happy? I sighed as I realized that I had probably totally tipped my hand to Jack. He probably knew now that I was feeling very friendly indeed toward him.  All right, calm down. Let's take a moment to analyze the situation. On the plus side, he had not run screaming into the night. Instead, he had driven me to pick up a new cell phone (we had insurance, so it didn't cost anything. My mom says that not buying the insurance for a teenager's cell phone is just insane.) He had also made sure that we now had each other's numbers. On the minus side, he had totally backed off when he found out I was only 16. Now, just so you understand, an 18 year-old dating a 16 year-old is not illegal in New Mexico. I Googled it just to be sure. But there was still the issue of his probation, about which I couldn't find very much information online. I fell asleep still pondering this conundrum.
     
    ****
    The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. Jack and I continued to work together in physics, he at e lunch with