After a late night fight between Alex Summers and her ex goes terribly wrong, her parents ship her off to spend a stress-free summer in Los Angeles. But the second she steps off the plane, Alex stumbles into California bad boy Elias King, a too-hot...
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Alex
Two-person bus fare: three dollars. Unused comedy show ticket: fourteen dollars. Following Elias onto a grimy L.A. night bus: priceless.
There are some things "sorrys" can't fix and ditching my date last minute was one of them.
Staying with Kai would have been the right thing to do, but everything right in the world went to hell around Elias, including my intentions.
After being ditched by Rory on multiple occasions I promised myself I'd never flake on anyone. But I broke all my promises on the back of a run-down bus.
My phone rang in my pocket and threw me headfirst into a mini-panic attack.
Kai.
Again.
"You should turn off your phone, Jersey. Twenty bucks says the bus driver's gonna throw you out if she hears that ringtone again."
A slap-happy smirk sprouted on Elias's face like a patch of weeds. I glanced up into the driver's rearview and switched my phone to silent before the red-eyed, manly woman stopped the bus and tackled me.
"Your fault," I said.
"It's my fault you can't turn off your phone? That makes sense."
"No, it's your fault I'm here."
"You could've said no to me, Jersey. Admit it, you couldn't help yourself."
Elias shuffled in close enough to suck the air out of the entire bus. Heat sparked off his skin and sunk into mine like there was invisible friction between us. I plastered my forehead against the cool Plexiglas window as a last-ditch attempt to get my body to chill out before I freaked out.
"Would you mind sitting somewhere else?" I said, half-ignoring his reflection in the window.
"Nah, I'm cool right here."
It started with his hands--the quiet click, clacking of his finger nails across the grey plastic seat behind my back until he planted his palm on my shoulder. Something far less pleasant than butterflies fluttered around in my stomach. Probably moths.
"Do you always stare out windows when people are talking to you?" he asked.
"Do you always put your hands where they're not wanted?"
He brushed his fingers across my skin, slowly enough to make me cringe and crave more of his touch the second he stopped.
"Always."
I scrambled for my phone—any distraction was a good distraction from Elias and those hands.
