The Devil You Know by Trish Doller Page A

since we left High Springs is that at sixty miles per hour they aren’t as romantic as they seem. I’ve peeled the same strand of hair out of my mouth about 642 times, the music just
wah-wah-wahs
from the speakers, and unless we’re shouting, talking isn’t all that easy. Of course, in the grand scheme of problems, these are not bad ones to have—and it getsinfinitely better after we stop outside Ocala for gas and a bathroom break for the dog. Noah tosses the keys to Matt and hops over the side of the car into the backseat with me and Molly.
    â€œHey!” Matt protests. “Am I the chauffeur now?”
    â€œYou wanted to drive Miss Kitty.” Noah stretches his arms out along the top of the seat, tilting his face to soak up the sun. I feel his fingertips tapping out a rhythm on my shoulder, and I’d swear to it that my heart starts beating in time. “And I want to sit back here with Cadie. I’d call that a win for everybody.”
    Matt’s hand reaches between the front bucket seats, his middle finger extended, but his reflection in the rearview mirror is laughing as he pulls the Cougar back out onto Route 40.
    â€œMiss Kitty?” I slide up against Noah so I can talk without my words getting blown away. “Is that really the name of your car?”
    â€œYep,” he says. “She belonged to our granddad, but she’s been garaged ever since he died. Grandmother MacNeal would probably be rolling over in her grave if she knew we had it out on the road.”
    â€œWere you close to her?”
    â€œNot even a little bit.” He smiles to himself and shakes his head. “The first time I met her I had a foot-high, bright-red Mohawk. She looked me up and down, wrinkled hernose like she was smelling something bad, and told me I looked just like my father. So I did the same thing. Looked her up and down, wrinkled my nose, and said, ‘He is quite a handsome son of a bitch, isn’t he?’ ”
    I clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, but I laugh anyway. “And she still willed Miss Kitty to you?”
    â€œMaybe in the end she was proud of me for getting myself straight and going to college,” he says. “Maybe she felt bad because Matt’s family inherited everything else, which makes sense because my dad can’t be trusted with money or nice things. Or maybe she liked that I didn’t take her shit. I don’t know, but I do know I love this car.”
    â€œIt’s pretty hot.”
    Noah leans down close so his lips brush against my earlobe, and my insides feel as if someone has set off a string of firecrackers. “I haven’t made out with anyone in the backseat yet. Wanna break it in?”
    I can’t keep from smiling. “Might be fun.”
    â€œI guarantee it.” Noah’s hand comes up and curls softly around the back of my neck as his mouth touches mine. No one has ever kissed me the way he does. Intense, but not hard. Sweet, but not soft. Like if he drew his lips away right now a piece of my soul might just follow along behind. Which sounds completely insane in a head witha history of being level, but I can’t help thinking it. And wanting more, even if I’m just a tourist attraction.
    â€œI’m still in the car, you guys! I can see you!” Matt shouts, his words wedging themselves between Noah and me, pulling us apart. “Have pity on the guy whose date abandoned him, would ya?”
    Noah rolls his eyes, but the two of them grin at each other in the rearview mirror.
    I shift positions, lying on the back bench-style seat with my feet propped on the door frame, my head on his thigh. “Do you mind?”
    â€œDo I mind your head on my thigh?”
    â€œNo, I meant feet on the door,” I say. “If it’s a problem …”
    â€œI never gave a shit what Grandma thought when she was alive, so you”—Noah leans down and kisses me again,