Chasing Sofia

Chapter 11 - The Cover

"We got caught in the rain last night. We decided not to drive home out of precaution and must have fallen asleep," Adrian tells him, his eyes somewhat narrowed. Well, at least that's the truth.

"Cute story," he replies, looking a little bored. He turns back towards me. "Are you aware that your registration has expired, Miss Durant?"

"Um, no officer."

He pulls out a notepad and starts scribbling away, checking the registration every now and then. Once he finishes, he peels the paper off the pad and hands it back to me together with the car documents and our IDs. I immediately see the bright yellow ticket on top with a hefty fine written on it. Dad is gonna kill me.

"I suggest you refrain from falling asleep in parking lots with all too eager boys, miss. It's reckless and dangerous," he reprimands me.

I nod at him but can't help but think about how wrong his assumption about Adrian is. He would never take advantage of me like that. He was even the one who had suggested we go home and I had wanted to stay.

"You have a nice day now," the officer says and turns around walking away, leaving me a bit stunned.

I turn towards Adrian and I've never seen him look angrier. He wordlessly opens the door to the passenger side and motions for me to get in. I jump inside and quickly put on my seatbelt. He sprints around the car and does the same, turning on the engine and exiting the parking lot, not even bothering to put his shoes on. Is that legal?

"You okay?" he finally asks me. "God, I wanted to rip his face off."

"My dad is going to kill me."

"I'm sorry, Sofia. Technically, he should be on top of that stuff, not you."

"I know, but still."

"Sofia, your dad can't find out about this," he says nervously.

"That's going to be difficult, given the ticket I just got."

"I get that, but he can't know that I was with you. He'll kick me out of the house. You saw the police officer. How do you think he's going to react?" Adrian's voice is laced with guilt and it sounds like he's really regretting what happened last night. I tell myself he's just trying to be rational about all this, but he's almost acting like a completely different person.

"Okay, we won't tell him," I assure him.

The alarm on my phone suddenly goes off, signaling that it's 7am. I reach for it in the cup holder and quickly shut it off.

"What about Nico? Has he called you? He can't know either."

I check my phone but the last message I have from him was from last night telling me to be safe. "No, nothing."

He breathes a sigh of relief. "Okay, so he's probably still asleep and hasn't noticed we're not back yet."

Adrian speeds up a bit as we reach our neighborhood. "Once we get home, I want you to go straight to your room as quietly as you can, okay? Mess up your bed and everything. We have to make it seem like you slept there."

"Okay," I gulp. I really don't want Adrian to get in trouble because of this. This is all my fault. At least Nico is the only person we have to deal with today. For once in my life, I'm actually really glad my parents aren't home at the moment. Adrian's right, I can't imagine what my dad would do if he found out about this.

We pull into our house and he drives into the garage very cautiously. I reach for my boots and shirt in the back before turning towards him. "Don't forget the rest of the stuff," I tell him before I slip out of the car.