Free Slow Burn - a Novel: The Elite by KB Winters Page B

out. Come on, consider it a random act of kindness. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to go out wandering aimlessly up and down the coast and that would suck. It’s either come out with me, or go home and pace around worrying about your sister.”
    Her eyes wandered back to the messy tables and then back to me. “Well, I guess…”
    “Excellent. Let’s do this.” I marched over to the trash cans, grab a black bin that was stashed on the second shelf off to one side, and started clearing tables.
    I could hear Carly laughing from her place at the counter, but I just smiled to myself and kept cleaning.

Chapter Eight
    Carly
    “This is a nice truck,” I said, immediately regretting my own words. Wasn’t there anything else I could have come up with?
    Luckily, Nick didn’t find it lame. He grinned at his truck and I was reminded how much boys loved their toys. He could probably go on about his truck all evening if I let him. “Thanks. Now, why don’t you tell me where I’m pointing it,” he said, coming around to the passenger side.
    “What are you doing?” I asked, startled as he reached past me.
    He gave me a quizzical glance. “I was going to open your door.”
    “I thought this wasn’t a date,” I challenged.
    “I’m not allowed to open your door because we’re not on a date?”
    Well…put that way it sounded stupid. But, I’d already waded into the battle and I wasn’t going to back down. “I just think it has certain connotations…”
    Weak, Carly. Weak.
    Nick grinned and straightened. With a dramatic flourish of his hands, he waved at the handle. “All yours then. Wouldn’t want those pesky connotations throwing off our night.”
    My cheeks flushed and I rolled my eyes at myself. I threw the door open and climbed into the lifted truck as Nick jogged back around the front to the driver’s side. He slid behind the wheel in one fluid, well-practiced maneuver, as I buckled in.
    Stop staring at him , I told myself, tearing my eyes off his powerful biceps and dragging them down to his large hands as they wrapped around the wheel. He gave me a sidelong glance before I could fully peel my gaze from him, and he smirked. “Where to?”
    I jerked my head to face the front, staring out the windshield. This was a mistake. I should tell him that I changed my mind. Could I fake a call from Alesha? No…I was an adult. He was an adult. We were fine.
    Right?
    “Um, there’s this bar and grill not too far from here if you want a drink. They have like twenty something brews on tap. Pool tables, too.”
    “Dancing?”
    I shot him a puzzled glance, unsure if he was hoping for, or against, the possibility of dancing. “Not unless someone gets really shitfaced.”
    He laughed and the deep, rumbling sound filled the cab of the truck and sucked all the air from my lungs. Or was that just the effect his smile had on me? It was the dimples. Damn them!
    “I can’t make any promises.”
    “Maybe we should go somewhere else then,” I teased, forcing myself to get a grip.
    Nick’s smile softened, but that dimple on the right side was still visible. “I’ll behave myself. I’m a little too old for that shit anymore.”
    I laughed. “Right. How old are you anyways?”
    “Twenty-nine. You?”
    “Twenty-eight.”
    He nodded. “And you’ve had this place how long?” He asked, jutting his chin at the now dark coffee shop.
    “Two and half years now.”
    “Great. You’re so young to have such a thriving business.” He brought his eyes back to mine, even darker than usual in the dim interior of the truck, the only light coming from the dash. “That’s very…sexy.”
    I tried to laugh, but it got caught in my throat somewhere on the way and came out as a very unsexy-like snort. “I don’t know about that. It’s a lot of cleaning, budgeting, and obsessing over spreadsheets, none of which could really be called sexy .”
    He grinned, his mind obviously mulling over an amusing retort, but he kept it to himself and