Burned (Hate at First Flight #2) ✔️

23. Athena Burns

"You watched Mean Girls?" I burst out laughing as I pictured him watching Mean Girls on his massive flat screen while eating popcorn.

Douglas scowled at me as if to say 'Seriously?'

"Okay sorry. But really?"

He nodded as he looked at me. "Really."

"Okay then. Fine."

Silence dawned for a couple of minutes as my thoughts wandered everywhere. Our new arrangement, how Nancy's day had gone and whether I should truly believe that Douglas was willing for us to start again. Then finally it dwelled on a question I'd been curious about for a long time now. That question stayed on my mind until we pulled up in front of my house.

"What are you thinking right now?" Douglas asked after I continued to stay in the car and not get off.

"What?" I asked, as I shook away the conspiracies I was concocting.

"Your eyes are telling me your somewhere else, they're hooded, your eyebrows are furrowed like they always are when you're thinking intensively of something else and you have that expression as if you're having an internal war with yourself over something."

My jaw unhinged as I started back at him in shock. How long had I been spaced out for him to study me so extensively?

"What?" He chuckled nervously when I just stared at him in awe.

"Nothing," I shook myself and focused on his question. "It's nothing." I moved to open the door.

Suddenly I heard the sound of the door being locked. "You're not leaving until you tell me," he smirked at me playfully. "Didn't we just say we'll start over? Now's the best time."

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but there they remained frozen. I couldn't ask him. I shouldn't.

"Krystal," his words broke into my contemplation. "Just tell me."

"I don't think you'd particularly like my question," I said honestly.

"I'll be the judge of that."

"No really. You don't like the question and I know."

"Krystal."

"Unlock the door, Douglas. Let's leave the new friendship at this point for tonight and start again tomorrow."

"Oh come on. How bad can it be?"

I huffed in frustration. Turned out the whole stubbornness streak ran in the family and if what I had experienced today was anything to go by, Douglas was not letting this go. Might as well satisfy my curiosity. "Fine. What happened to your mom?"

You literally could hear a pin drop as soon as the words slipped out.

This time I took the chance to study him.

Douglas' eyes widened at the question before he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and just stayed that way. His fingers tightened around the wheel again and I heard him draw in a huge lungful of air as if to calm himself.

I was ready to break down the door at this point to run away if things turned sour, which they were already starting to.

"Douglas?" I asked.

He held up a hand as if to silence me.

"Douglas?" I tried again, ignoring his warning. "I told you you wouldn't like it."

He chuckled dryly. "That you did." Finally he opened his eyes and he just stared at the now darkening streets of my suburban area.

"It's okay. You don't have to tell me anything."