Page 79 of Crash Course

He’s so close I can feel his breath. Just a couple of millimeters and—

“Guys! I have an idea…” Megan’s voice comes from around the corner and we jump apart.

“What are you doing tonight?” Jameson asks an hour later at my locker near the garage as we’re wrapping up. Class is over for the day, and so is our garage time.

His voice makes me want to say “you” like a bad joke.

“I have to cover a shift.”

The disappointment in his eyes is so perfect I want to cry, but he regroups fast. “You’re staying with Megan. She told me,” he supplies at my look.

I nod. “And Raj.”

I shuffle my books between the locker and my bag, and he shifts to rest his back against the metal.

“I could sneak in your window tonight.”

He says it so casually I nearly drop my books.

The possibility sends a rush through me. The line of women who’d give everything to have Jameson Ashford text U up? is long enough to pave the streets of the Monaco Grand Prix.

“Sure thing, Edward Cullen. You’d get bludgeoned to death with a stiletto.”

His lips twitch. “By Megan or Raj?”

“Megan. Raj would make you coffee and force you to hang out with him.”

Still, my gaze drags down his body shamelessly. How anyone can be so beautiful is beyond me.

He hesitates, then keeps talking. “How’re things with your dad?”

The question lands more heavily than he seems to expect. Hello, hard right.

“Are you pretending to care?”

Jameson looks offended. “I’m not pretending. Just figured that’s why you moved out.”

My gaze lingers on him as I finish packing my bag and shut my locker.

“We haven’t talked since the race. He doesn’t like me going to school here. He doesn’t like me involved in the academy, or ARI. He thinks this world is destined to beat me down. All fragile male egos and that.”

“No clue where he got that idea,” Jameson deadpans, and my lips twitch.

When I start toward the back doors, he falls into step next to me. As we walk, I tell him how my dad took me in, how he’s worked for ARI his entire career.

Campus is pretty busy still, and students and professors alike nod to him as we pass. If I figured we’d get weird looks, we don’t. Probably because everyone knows we’re working together.

If they knew what else we were doing, they might care more.

“You never told me you were covering for him.” Jameson’s voice brings me back.

My bag feels heavier suddenly, and I shift it on my shoulder. “I thought if you knew, you would tell your dad. I didn’t figure Luca would look kindly on people going behind his back, even for a good cause.”

“Why did you do it?”

“To take care of him after all he’s done to take care of both of us.”

“That’s not it,” he predicts. “Part of it, sure. But that’s not the real reason.”