Girls Chase Girls | #1 [COMPLETE]

Chapter 10 (new)

On Friday night, Phaedra popped out of the driver's seat to help Xia into the car. Her parents were nowhere to be found. They'd changed their tune the instant they found out who Xia was going out with. 'Oh, her? She's fine, trustworthy. She'll take care of you.' Xia hadn't known what to make of that. Her mother was working the night shift at a women's shelter and her father had left town for work. Long-haul drivers didn't get much rest and her father was no exception.

Just me and her, Xia thought. She didn't think she'd been this nervous in her life--and she'd been in burning car.  She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She'd curled her hair for tonight but the curl was already falling flat in the heat.

"I can get in on my own," she protested Phae's chivalry.

Phae opened the passenger door anyway, raising a razor sharp eyebrow. She rebelled because she could. She made rebellion look good. Xia gulped when Phae touched her back to guide her toward the car.

"I like looking out for you. It's—the last time I saw you in a car, you were scared out of your mind. Let me do this?" She wasn't even pouting, though she might as well have been. Her eyes were dark, serious. She looked at Xia as if Xia was all she wanted to look at all night. The way I look at her.

Xia ducked her head and got inside. She wasn't shy, that was the wrong word for how Phaedra made her feel. Being near her was like being at the center of a quiet storm. Intense without words. Everything she is, is chaos except where we touch.

Phaedra had on her patterned cigarette pants over a muscle tee and fringe scarf. Her boots were shined instead of their usual scuff, tied in knots up to her skins. Her black leather jacket topped with rainbow-patterned shoulders completed the look. She should have been a walking disaster in that outfit. She made disaster look good.

There was a magenta envelope tapped to the dashboard, Xia's name scribbled on the back. She took it since that's what it seemed to be there for, for her to find.

'Baby, you're a firework. The brightest thing I've ever seen. Be mine, Valentine?'

"That's terrible." Xia grinned. She wasn't the only one who wasn't above making an idiot of herself for a pretty girl. Se'd even accept the wild idea that she was the pretty girl making Phaedra Barlowe her fool.

"Tré said exactly the same thing. But still." Phaedra shrugged, her full lips pulling into a grin. "I couldn't help it."

"Uh huh." She hadn't wanted to help it, she meant.

Xia kept staring at the girl driving instead of the road. The road was terrifying, all that oncoming traffic just feet away. Phae was safe, funny—sort of funny, anyway. What a dork, she thought, staring at the quirk of her mouth when proudly made a terrible pun. The streetlights were coming on, strobing through the interior of the car, spotlights on their private stage and Phaedra the star. Xia couldn't get enough of her now that she was close enough to look. She could count the piercings her ear and the pinprick beauty marks dotting her neck. She looked so good she was sort of unfair.

"Something on my face?"

Xia found herself with nothing to say when she went to reply. She raised her hands, mute. Phae stopped them at a yellow light she might have run with anyone else riding shotgun.

"You okay, kitten? You want me to take you home?" She was touched the side of her neck, skimming callused fingers across Xia's fading bruises. Xia didn't respond to the nickname. She'd never have taken that from anyone else. What would have been condescension from someone else sounded like a kiss in Phaedra's gravelly voice.

"So I can do some more homework and fall asleep early? No thanks." Xia rubbed her knees through her burgundy tights to keep from touching Phae right back. "It's a little intimidating. You're really pretty and I'm... I never get to be this close to you."