Page 30 of A Reputation Dark & Deadly

Chapter 8

She was late. Shit, she was so late.

Peyton was supposed to have left her office hours fifteen minutes ago. Instead, she had gotten caught up in discussing psychological factors that went into crime with Brad that she totally blew through her deadline.

Logan was not going to be happy.

Instead of taking care with her outfit, Peyton was forced to take a quick shower and throw on a simple grey t-shirt that scooped in the front. She kept on her pale blue jeans that were a size too small for her. She had her sandals on her feet as she ran a brush through her hair. She had wanted to blow it dry and then straighten it, but that definitely wasn't going to happen so she decided to keep it down and if it looked messy, it looked messy.

It wasn't like this was a date.

Keep telling yourself that, Hart, a voice muttered in her head.

Peyton clenched her jaw and forced it from her mind. She didn't have time to think about it anyway. She needed to get to the North Gate, where Logan was supposed to meet her for their non-date outing seventeen minutes ago. At the last minute, she decided to throw her hair up into a ponytail, deciding to get it out of her face. She threw her purse over her shoulder and locked her dorm door before sprinting in her sandals all the way across campus to the North Gate.

By the time Peyton reached the gate, Logan was leaning against the black metal, a scowl upon his face. Peyton stopped moving, stood up straight, and swallowed.

To an outsider, he looked relatively casual, leaning against the Gate with a jut to his hip and a comfortable slouch to his shoulders. However, Peyton noticed the tight jaw and the narrowed eyes. His brow seemed to drop further when he saw her and she held her breath, waiting for his onslaught. Her eyes quickly took him in as she waited, took inventory of the jeans, the belt, the boots, the jacket. His hair was slicked back as usual.

"Hello there, sweetheart," he said. For whatever reason, he suddenly reminded her of the Big Bad Wolf and she was Little Red Riding Hood, about to be eaten by him. "What the fuck?"

Peyton clenched her jaw and shifted her eyes away. The sun was starting to set and she had to squint to looks up at him. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I got caught up at office hours. I was going to cut it short but" -

"Was it that asshole who has a hard on for you?" Logan asked, standing up to his full height so he towered over her.

Peyton furrowed her brow. "I don't know who you're talking about," she said, genuinely perplexed.

"You're lucky I'm still fucking waiting for you," Logan muttered, avoiding Peyton's unanswered question. "I have much better fucking things to do than to wait for a girl who's fucking chronically late to everything." Peyton opened her mouth to defend herself but Logan didn't give her a chance to speak. "Let's get this fucking over with."

Peyton furrowed her brow and felt a spark of anger flare up inside of her body. She clenched her teeth together and he shot his brow up.

"You have something you want to say to me, sweetheart?" Logan asked, quirking a brow. He seemed angrier than he should be due to her tardiness but he seemed to have a thing against lateness.

She took up his challenge without blinking an eye. "No one is forcing you to go," she told him in a low voice. "Feel free to stay here and boink some young woman. Please don't let me keep you from whatever else you would have done."

"I told you I would take you," he growled, starting to move his feet in the direction of the staffing department. For a moment, Peyton wondered if he lived anywhere close by or if he had housing here. Not that it mattered. It wasn't as though Peyton planned to go to his place anytime soon. "I'm going to fucking take you."

"God, try to enjoy yourself while you're at it," Peyton said.

"Look, I don't like it when people waste my goddamn time," Logan said through gritted teeth, leaning towards her. His voice was low and dangerous and Peyton ignored the way her body reacted to his voice. She could feel the sandpaper rub against her skin and she suppressed a shudder sliding through her body. "If I'm making fucking time for you, I expect you to make a goddamn effort for me. It's called mutual fucking respect."

Peyton pressed her lips together. "I'm sorry," she said again.

He huffed but said nothing and turned away from her. They slid into a somewhat tense silence. Peyton wasn't sure how she felt about it but she tried not to overanalyze the situation. She didn't like the disgruntled feeling she currently felt in the pit of her stomach but she didn't know how to make it better. She didn't even know if she wanted to make it better. She didn't know if she could.

Peyton hated this feeling. She didn't quite know how to define their relationship so she wasn't sure what she should be feeling or what she wanted to feel. This was confusing and exhilarating and conflicted.

They reached the staffing parking lot and he headed straight for an older Yukon. Peyton raised a brow at the black SUV, wondering why he needed such a big vehicle when he didn't have a family - besides this younger brother. He unlocked the doors with a click of a button and Peyton walked over to the passenger side of the door and let herself in. She was actually happy he didn't try and open the door for her. It would have made things awkward and tense and made it more like a date than it really was.

Or maybe that was only Peyton thinking that this anything like a date.

She slid into the cracked leather seat and clicked on her seatbelt. Logan closed his driver door and started the car, his right wrist resting on the steering wheel casually. He grabbed a pair of aviators from his glove compartment and put them on even though the sun was setting and would be down soon.

They drove in silence Peyton wasn't quite sure how to define. It wasn't uncomfortable but she wasn't relaxed either, and there was definitely something in the air between them. Perhaps tense was the appropriate word. But there was something about him as he drove away from campus, something in his air that made him seem more... not relaxed but at ease. His shoulders didn't have that firmness and his long fingers hung limp from the wrist resting on the steering wheel. He turned on the radio and Peyton wasn't surprised to hear classic rock coming from the speakers. She could feel his tawny gaze on her profile after he turned on the music, probably waiting for some quick retort about his taste, but Peyton firmly kept her mouth firmly closed and chose, instead, to stare out the window.

"It's the damndest thing," he muttered. Peyton glanced back at him and found him staring at her. "Out of all the things you could have fucking asked for - an A in the class, being released as my TA - you ask me to take you to Old Newport Jail. I would have assumed with your fucking obsession for Herbert you already would have been."

"I have," she agreed. "Just never at night. Never on a private tour." She couldn't stop the big, excited smile from blooming on her face if she tried. Whatever that tenseness was that had hung between them, it was gone. She felt much more at ease than she anticipated, and she knew it probably had to do with the fact that they were talking about Alvin Herbert, a topic she was extremely well-versed in.