“Don’t look right now, but Miller just pulled up next to your car.”
My eyes widen. “He did?”
“Yes. And I need you to take me home, but I don’t want to make it awkward if he’s wanting to talk to you, so I’m going back inside the school. Text me when it’s safe to come out.”
“Okay.” I’m nodding, my stomach full of nerves.
“Also, you’re full of it. You are so into
him. If you use the word inconsequential one more time in reference to him, I’ll slap you.”
“Okay.”
Lexie walks back toward the school, and I take a breath. I spin around and walk toward my car, pretending not to notice Miller’s truck until I’m at my driver’s-side door. His windows are up and his truck is running, but he’s just sitting in it, staring ahead with a sucker hanging from his mouth. He’s not even paying attention to me.
He probably doesn’t even know he parked next to me, and here I am assuming it was deliberate. I feel stupid.
I start to turn around and open my car door but stop short when he unlocks his passenger door.
That’s when he lazily turns his head and looks at me expectantly, like I’m supposed to get in his truck.
I contemplate it. I like the way I feel around him, so even though I know I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to summon me into his truck with one simple look, I get in his truck anyway. I am that pathetic.
When I close the door, it feels as if I’ve trapped a live wire inside the truck with us. The silence between us only makes the feeling more noticeable. I can actually feel my heart beating from my stomach all the way up to my throat, as if my heart has swollen to fill my entire torso.
Miller’s head is resting against his headrest, his body is facing forward, but his eyes are on me. I’m looking at him much the same way, but I’m not as relaxed. My back is straight against the leather of his seat.
He does have air-conditioning, despite what I assumed last time I was in his truck. It’s on high, and it’s blowing my hair into my mouth. I flick the vent closed and then pull a strand of hair away from my lips with my fingers. Miller’s eyes follow my movements, lingering on my mouth for a moment.
The way he’s looking at me is making it really difficult to inhale a proper breath. As if he can tell I’m having a physical reaction to just being in his presence, his eyes fall even more to my heaving chest, albeit very briefly.
He pulls his sucker out of his mouth and grips his steering wheel, looking away from me. “I changed my mind. I need you to get out of my truck.”
I’m dumbfounded by his words. And also very confused. “Changed your mind about what?”
He looks at me again, and for some reason, he looks torn. He drags in a slow breath. “I don’t know. I feel really confused around you.”
He feels confused around me? That makes me smile. My smile makes him frown.
I don’t even know what’s happening right now. I don’t know if I like it or hate it, but I do know that whatever it is that makes me feel the way I do when I’m around him is a feeling that can only be fought for so long. He’s looking back at me like he’s almost at the end of his fight.
“You really need to figure out your shit, Miller.”
He nods. “Believe me. I know I do. That’s why I need you to get out of my truck.”
This entire interaction is so bizarre I can only laugh about it. My laugh finally makes him smile. But then he groans and grips his steering wheel with both hands, pressing his forehead against it.
“Please get out of my truck, Clara,” he whispers.
I should hate that he’s battling some sort of moral struggle right now. I like this feeling—thinking he might be attracted to me—a lot more than thinking he hates me.
(C) Collen Hoover, Montlake, 2019
***
From #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us comes a poignant novel about family, first love, grief, and betrayal that will touch the hearts of both mothers and daughters.
Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.
Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body.
With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.
While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.
Women's Fiction [Montlake, On Sale: December 10, 2019, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781542016421 / eISBN: 9781542016421]
Professional Make Believe
Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including the bestselling women’s fiction novel It Ends with Us and the bestselling psychological thriller Verity. She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three years in a row—for Confess (2015), It Ends with Us (2016), and Without Merit (2017). Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Hoover and her family founded the Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service that offers signed novels donated by authors. All profits go to various charities each month to help those in need. Hoover lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys.
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