The black car wasn’t so lucky. Not only did it hit the water, it had been going so fast that it hit it with all the force of driving into a brick wall. I could hear the splash, and as I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw the huge wave that came out of the pool.

The Dodge came to a shuddering halt, bumping against something solid that I thought might be my mom’s new birdbath.

Whoops.

I put the car in park and turned it off, plunging us into silence. Well, not total silence, since I was breathing pretty hard and David kept mumbling, “Please don’t let us be dead, please don’t let us be dead.”

“David,” I said, reaching over to grab his arm. He reached over with his other arm and covered my hand with his.

“Pres?” he said, opening his eyes, which still looked very wide and very blue in his pale face. “We’re not dead,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “How did we not get dead?”

I smiled at him and squeezed his arm. “Because I’m awesome.”

He stared at me and his smile got bigger and brighter as the fear drained out of his face. “We’re not dead!” he said, like he just now got that we were still sitting in his gross—and now completely busted—car instead of playing harps in the sky or whatever.

I was smiling back, my grin probably exactly as crazy as his. “We’re so not dead!”

He laughed and the sound was so full of relief that I found myself laughing, too.

He turned to me, still grinning. I was grinning back when he reached out, grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled me to him.

Chapter 9

FOR ONE horrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t really sure how I’d react if he did. I mean, I knew that if he kissed me, it would be a kiss of the “I am so glad I am not dead that I would kiss a flesh-eating zombie were it sitting in this car beside me” variety more than the sexy “I only write mean articles about you because I am secretly in love with you” type.

But it was only a hug. And if I maybe spent a second or two thinking that he actually smelled really nice, or that he was much more solid than he appeared, so what? I was traumatized by all the car chasing/nearly dying.

Luckily, it didn’t last long, but when I pulled back, I noticed that my heart was pounding and there was this weird fluttering sensation.

Butterflies.

No, I thought to myself. Near-death flutters of anxiety. That’s all.

Then I noticed that David was staring out the shattered windshield, looking as weirded out as I felt.