VIP (Rock & Release, Act I) by Riley Edgewood Read Free Book Online Page B

sure I did—hanging out with you last night."
    "Here." She walks me and Gage toward the door, stopping at the entryway table. She hands Gage his keys and scribbles her number down on a piece of paper. "I'd love to hang out again—call me sometime."
    It's the easiest friendship I've ever made. "I will."
    Jared calls, "Put a password on your phone if you don't want people to go through it."
    "How about just don't go through phones that aren't yours?" Vera says to him as the door closes.  
    "Exactly," I mutter. Sunlight blinds me for a moment, and a headache pulses sharply behind my eyes. The heaviness of reality settles across my shoulders. "Right. Okay. Back to real life."
    But Gage grabs my hand, weaving his fingers through mine on the way to his car, a black shiny thing, and…maybe reality is okay after all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Once I figure out where we are, I tell Gage we're less than fifteen minutes from my house. "Lucky you. You don't have to drive an hour out of your way."  
    He shrugs. "I wouldn't mind."
    "Less time to have to scramble for things to talk about," I say, expecting him to laugh. But he doesn't. He's quiet during the drive—he's been quiet ever since Jared brought up the job offer. Does he not want me to take it? I should ask him but can't get the words to form. Not that it matters anyway.  
    The road hums by outside my window and even that has me closing my eyes for a moment against the way it heightens the tension of my headache. I'm grateful Gage hasn't turned on the radio, even if it makes the lull between us more profound.
    I check my phone—seven texts from Teagan asking where I am, each more demanding than the last. The most alarming reads: If I don't hear back from you in the next twenty minutes, I'm calling your parents .
    Shit. I check the time she sent it—seventeen minutes ago, thank God. I shoot her a reply that I'm fine and on my way home, shaking my head as I hit send. "And not a single apology."  
    "From your friend?"  
    Oops. I didn't mean to mutter my thoughts aloud. "It's…whatever. She'll get there eventually. She almost always does."
    He nods and drums his finger on the steering wheel in a rhythmic beat.  
    I smooth out the paper Vera handed me with her number and copy it into my phone contacts.  
    I twiddle my thumbs.
    I false start about thirty different conversations in my head.
    Maybe it'd be easier if every ten seconds I wasn't hit with another flashback from last night. His tongue. His hands. My moans. Everything comes in bits and pieces—and that does absolutely nothing to make any of it less hot to remember.  
    Which makes the silence between us feel even colder.
    As we get closer to my parents' house, I can't stand it anymore. "You don't have to worry about me taking the job."
    He glances at me, brows furrowed. "What?"
    "I just…you got quiet when Jared was talking about it. I'm not going to take it—I have the internship." I stammer on, my nerves and my hangover combining in the most horrible, jumbled way. "It'd be weird to work together after last night and I don't want you to think —"
    "Cassidy." He puts a hand on my knee to silence me. "If you didn't have the internship, I would tell you to take the job at BackBar. I'd have fun working with you. Especially after last night. Trust me."
    "Oh." Oh . Stolen kisses around the corner flash through my mind. Me and Gage this time, instead of Nicole and her mystery man. A little shiver works its way up my spine. "Then why have you been so quiet?"
    He runs a hand through his hair, making it even messier and—if it's possible—sexier. "I've just been trying to figure out how to ask… Do you want to talk about your brother?"
    I stare at him, my mind stuck on the ridge of the dichotomy between the heat of us working together and sharpness of my brother's death. "How do you…"  
    Another flashback, this time to the bar last night. Tears stinging my eyes, my head turned against Gage's shoulder. Jason's name on my