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“Drive!”
Rowan’s car door was flung open as a tornado with blonde hair hurled itself into his passenger seat. His first instinct, apparently, was to freeze.
The wild storm of a woman didn’t give him more than a second to respond, which he was still too shocked to do, before shrieking again, “Drive, damn it. Drive!”
Her face was glued to the window. Watching, what? He had no clue. But her words finally registered, and instinct kicked in.
Rowan’s foot slammed down on the gas and the car lurched forward, groaning as it was forced to speed up so quickly. He escaped the winding maze of mall entrances before quickly evading a red light and shooting down a side street far enough away that he could no longer see the large building.
***
Aelin’s heart pounded a thunderous staccato as she pressed her face against the glass and watched the mall disappear. Adrenaline coursed through her veins from her sprint and escape, and she let it out the only way she could – tossing her head back with a manic grin and laughing in full-bodied cackles.
Wiping a tear from her eye as she calmed down, it was only then that she allowed herself a relieved breath.
Only to freeze, her eyes flying wide, as she turned to look at her friend but instead beheld the focused but frazzled man sitting behind the wheel.
“Shit!” She jumped backward, pressing herself against the car door in alarm and demanded. “Fuck, who are you?”
His face jerked towards her in a double take, eyebrows shooting incredulously towards his hairline, and matched her rising volume. “Who am I? Who are you?”
Ignoring him, she tried to look at their surroundings, but they were driving too fast for her to read any street signs. She gnawed at her lip, facing him again, “Who are you? And where are you taking me?”
“Me?” He scoffed, eyes darting quickly back and forth between her and the road. “Don’t ask me that! I don’t know what’s happening! You got into my car and told me to drive!”
Aelin blinked. It was clear that he was just as, if not more, bewildered at their sudden turn of events as she was. Weirdly, that calmed her, and she felt her racing heart begin to slow. Still, with words seeped in incredulity, she demanded, “So you drove? Just like that? It didn’t matter to you that you had no idea who I was?”
“Yes!” He sputtered, taken aback and offended by her disbelief as he defended himself. “When someone runs towards you screaming ‘Run’, you run. When someone throws themselves in your car and screams ‘Drive’, you drive.”
“I could’ve been a murderer.” Aelin immediately argued, arching a brow. Her wariness was fading, but just because he didn’t seem like he was kidnapping her, he still drove off with a stranger at the first sign of distress. She hadn’t decided if that was admirable or stupid.
At that, the car slowed down significantly. When it finally stopped at a red light, he turned towards her again, countering, “I could’ve been a murderer.”
The very fact that he was holding up the turn lane to wait for a woman on the other end of the crosswalk to pass kind of weakened his counterargument.
“You were supposed to be Lysandra.” She retorted, more to herself, and settled back into her seat.
“What the fuck is a Lysandra?” He shot her a confused, sidelong glance. If she wasn’t currently riding shotgun in a stranger’s car, Aelin might have thought that the way his brows pulled together to create a small crease above his nose was slightly adorable.
As if on cue, her phone began buzzing as the screen lit up with a picture of the brunette’s face. Aelin waved her phone so he could see the incoming call. “That’s a Lysandra.”
The moment Aelin answered the call, Lysandra’s voice rang out through the speaker. “Aelin Ashryver Galathynius – why did I just watch you launch yourself into some rando’s car and screech out of the parking lot while being chased by mall security?”
Aelin winced and muttered something along the lines of did she have to Middle Name her? A quick look at her driver’s face revealed his own expression of I’d also like to know. “…Because I thought I was running into your car.”
There was a long pause.
Aelin avoided the other part of the question. Lysandra knew Aelin was avoiding the other part of the question. The man next to her knew she was avoiding answering the other part of the question, but at least he looked a little relieved, having gotten some explanation as to why he was currently navigating the backroads behind the mall.
At her best friend’s urging, Aelin put the call on speaker. Then her friend asked, her voice slightly garbled by the amplification, “And this driver – whoever you are: I have Aelin’s tracker on FYI – just drove away? No hesitation?”
Aelin shot him a triumphant grin. “That’s what I was saying!”
“Woah, hey,” he scoffed, lifting his hand in surrender, “How am I the one getting questioned right now?”
“Are you coming back?” Lysandra asked.
The car rounded one of the streets on the opposite side of the mall, and Aelin checked the intersection they’d just passed.
“Would you mind dropping me back off?” Aelin asked him, but he was already merging into the turn lane towards the mall. After telling Lysandra she would be there soon, Aelin hung up and slumped back into her seat.
***
“Well,” the woman – Aelin – said after an awkward silence, “that was exciting.”
Rowan couldn’t help the surprised laugh he choked out. The rush he’d felt as soon as his foot pressed down on the gas was fading into an almost giddy sense of disbelief. He carded a hand through his hair and took a beat to really look at her. “Is every day like this for you?”
Her reaction was immediate, loud laughter mixed with own, and she grinned, catching his eye. “Only the good ones.”
As they pulled in towards the door she had first run out of, they spotted two security guards standing on the curb scanning the parking lot.
“Oh, shit.” Aelin quickly slid down in her seat until only her upper body was supported by the leather, hiding from view.
Rowan didn’t think twice about it as he kept driving steadily passed the guards and back towards the exit. “Another lap?” he asked.
He heard her huff of laughter and glanced over to see her pulling herself back into the seat. Rowan smirked at the grateful nod she shot back. This time as they exited the lot, he felt an odd exhilaration from being in the know about their little getaway scheme.
Aelin propped her elbow on the window frame and rested her head on her fist.
“So,” her lips pulled up into a half smile. “Do I get your name?”
He met her gaze and felt himself mirroring her grin. “Only if I get yours. And you tell me why you were running away in the first place.”