Off Limits by Lola Darling Page A

air today, she clears her throat.
    "You didn't have to do that," she says, loud enough that I can hear her over the accelerating wind. "Pack food, I mean."
    "No big deal." I shrug. "I wanted to. Besides, maybe if lunch doesn't suck you'll stop hating me."
    She snorts, then rolls her eyes. "I don't hate you."
    I feign a shocked expression. "News to me."
    "I just think you're arrogant," she continues with a toss of her head. "After all, the girls at the office fawn all over you, and you flirt right back."
    “Flirting is fun,” I respond. And the girls at the office don't know me at all either , I think. Aloud, though, I add, "Besides, you love my arrogance." For a second I'm not sure I actually said that loud enough for her to hear over the sudden rush of wind as we reach the main highway up toward Suzie's place. But then she shoots me another dramatic eye roll behind her glasses and sinks deeper into her seat.
    "You wish," she says, barely loud enough for me to hear. A moment or two passes in silence, before she leans in a little closer. "Why are you being so nice to me anyway? I thought I drove you just as crazy as you drive me."
    You have no idea, Miss MacIntyre , I want to say. But I know better. That’s a step over a line that I’m desperately trying to resist crossing.
    I cast a sideways glance at her, at her hair where it whips around her face in the wind from the road, at her lush, full lips half-parted as she watches me. For a second, I see past the facade she throws up in the courtroom, at work, in meetings, everywhere she goes really. For a second, she looks, not like an uptight badass and snarky litigator, but like herself. Still snarky, true, but also vulnerable. And a little bit fragile this morning.
    "Let's just say I think I know how you're feeling," I respond. Then I crank up the radio station, and let her drift off into her thoughts as I lean on the gas.
    The time flies by, with the sun on my face and the engine purring loud and reassuring beneath us. It's been a while since I've had my hands on a decent vehicle—a while since I've driven anything, actually, let alone a car as easy to maneuver as this one.
    I make up for some of our lost time in speeding between all the stretches without police supervision, something I still remember from back in the day when I was a little more sociable and a lot more reckless. This was the route we used to take up north every summer, my college buddies and I, on god knows how many ill-advised road trips.
    Chloe stirs in her seat, shading her eyes as she squints at the scenery around us. “You’re quiet,” she remarks. “I didn’t realize you ever stopped talking for this long.”
    “Would the dulcet tones of my voice help ease your headache?” I grin sideways at her, just in time to catch her lip jutting out in a pout that is equal parts adorable and oddly satisfying.
    “Very funny.”
    “Because I can talk more if it will help, no problem at all. I could tell you the story of the last time I was as hungover as you are.”
    “Ugh, I’m sorry I brought it up,” she groans, but she’s laughing, underneath it.
    “Well, if you don’t want it to be quiet, and you don’t want me to talk, I guess you’ll have to fill the silence. How did you wind up in this state, anyway?”
    She sighs, all playfully dramatic. “Let’s just say I tried to make up for a few too many girls’ nights out all in one evening. Also, rum is the devil.”
    I nod in sympathy. “I was always more of a whiskey man myself.” I turn off onto our exit, and Chloe scoots a little higher in her seat.
    “This it already?”
    “‘Already,’ says the woman who slept through ninety percent of the drive.”
    “We already covered that, it was because I was suffering from a lack of the dulcet tones of your voice.”
    “So you do like my voice.”
    “I never said that!” She crosses her arms.
    “You just called it dulcet.”
    “That’s beside the point.” Chloe tosses her head, probably