I slowed as I entered the barn, wanting to give Aiden space if he needed it. I’d thought he might have been heading up into the loft to the pentagram to kill his father himself. Or to kick Kader off the property, damning everyone to his death curse — possibly including himself.
But the dark-haired sorcerer wasn’t in the loft. The power of the pentagram thrummed lightly through my teeth and bones, though, so Kader was no doubt utilizing it. And if the elder sorcerer needed to spend so much time suspended in magic that was fortified daily by four other powerful sorcerers, he was in bad shape.
Kader hid his magic well, but perhaps that wasn’t all due to skill.
I brushed the thought away, focusing on where I was needed. Where I needed to be.
Aiden was leaning on the workbench situated under the stairs to the loft. Hands spread wide on the plywood top, head bowed over the pepper and basil plants under the grow lights.
Not really knowing what to do or say, I reached around the stair post, grabbing the spare set of keys for the Mustang that hung there. With the keys cupped in my hand, I closed the space between us.
“Emma …” Aiden’s voice was raw. His magic still thundered through his veins. “Emma.” He turned his bowed head just enough to see me, power blazing brightly in his eyes. “I’m sorry I —”
I held up my hand, letting the keys dangle from my fingers. “What do you say to a drive, sorcerer? Take me anywhere you want.” I shrugged. “Maybe they’ll all kill each other while we’re gone.”
He straightened, moving as if every bone in his body ached. My own chest constricted. I knew it was his heart that had just taken the biggest hit. He thought he’d been in the process of watching Opal die — with both of us powerless to stop it. And he’d still tried to shield her — and me — from his terror while calmly fixing the situation.
His gaze flicked from me to the keys in my hand and back again. A smile softened his hard expression, not quite reaching his eyes. “Take you anywhere I want,” he murmured. “Am I driving, then?”
Other than occasionally pulling it in or out of the barn if I wasn’t around, no one drove the Mustang but me. Though Lani Zachery was slowly setting the groundwork for asking to take it on a road trip in the summer.
“Don’t make me regret the offer, sorcerer.”
He closed the space between us, hand reaching out to cover my hand and the keys as if he was worried I might withdraw. He brushed his other thumb over my lips. Magic was so bright in his eyes that I couldn’t see their natural color.
I bit his thumb.
“Ouch,” he grouched playfully. Then he spun me toward the Mustang in some sort of dance move. I managed not to trip, but only because he checked me with a hand on my hip.
Then he took the keys from me and slapped me on the ass. Hard. “In the passenger seat with you, woman,” he commanded, stepping around and opening the passenger door for me. “Right where you belong.”
His grin and tone informed me that the order was some sort of game. Except I didn’t play games. Not well, at least.
But for Aiden, I would try. Using my own set of rules, of course.
Furrowing my brow furiously, I sauntered over. But just before I stepped into the car, I leaned over and whispered, “I’ll make you regret that, sorcerer.”
He groaned softly into my hair. “God, I hope so.”
I laughed and sat down, making certain my dress was clear of the door.
Aiden shut my door, then took a couple of steps back — whereupon he launched himself up and actually slid over the hood of the car. There had to have been magic involved for him to make the move work with so little momentum.
I cinched my seat belt, checking that the data signal on the iPad was active, and confirming that Opal hadn’t called back yet. Then I tucked it next to the seat. Aiden jumped into the convertible without opening the door. Still playing. Playing really, really intensely. As if doing so might chase all his conflicting emotions away.
He started the Mustang, put it in drive, and eased it out of the barn. Khalid was on the front patio of the house, smoking. Everyone else had dispersed.
Aiden hit the gas, fishtailing the car on the gravel and shooting us down the driveway.
Straight toward the gate.
“Aiden!” I shouted.
Grinning madly, he barked a command. The gate opened, just in time for us to clear it and make another mad turn onto the road, heading out of town.
I glanced back. My hair was wild, caught in the wind. The gate was slowly closing. Aiden had spun huge ruts into the gravel drive, presumably matching those he’d left by the barn as well.
“Aiden!” I howled above the wind.
He laughed, shouting. “I’ve been saving that spell to show off.” He glanced at me, magic dancing in his eyes. “Did it work?”
“Christopher is going to be pissed about the driveway.”
He shrugged. “I’ll fix it.”
Shaking my head at him, I reached around, stretching against my own seat belt to grab his and buckle him in. As I straightened, he wrapped a hand that should have been on the wheel around the back of my head and pulled me in for a fierce, hard kiss. There was nothing playful in his demeanor now.
I bit his lip.
Grinning, he let me go.
I straightened, then opened the glove box and pulled out a hair elastic. I struggled to smooth my hair back, getting the elastic looped once. Aiden reached over and yanked the tie out of my hair and hand, flinging it from the car.
I stared at him.
He laughed, stepping harder on the gas.
Giving in, I leaned back in my seat, holding the bulk of my hair in my hand and simply watching Aiden drive. His deeply tanned hands gripped the wheel, long legs stretching under him. His face was mostly in profile, though he snuck a few glances at me. His teeth were an occasional flash of white. His bright-blue eyes were his own again, not swamped by his unhinged power.
He was so beautiful.
Aiden had thought he was broken. That he’d been healing, and that he might now be on the edge of breaking again. I felt that complex mix of concern and fear every time I touched him. Since he’d opened his father’s letter, then even more so with the knowledge of his mother’s betrayal. And now the sharp adrenaline surge from Opal’s frantic call.
He thought he was broken. But for me, for what I needed — for what was needed by all the people he himself had declared as family to his blood relatives — he was perfect.
We had to slow to the speed limit while cutting through Youbou. Then we were winding through towering trees, catching glimpses of water, and mostly alone on the road. I checked the iPad again, wanting to make sure we weren’t going to lose the signal so that Opal could call.
I leaned against my seat belt again, sliding my hand into Aiden’s lap. He flashed a grin at me, shifting forward obligingly as I slid my hand up. I caressed him through his jeans as he rose under my hand, groaning.
He slowed the car further as I tugged at the buttons of his jeans — then sucked in his breath as I worked my way through his underwear, freeing him. I wrapped my hand around his girth, delightfully skin to skin, and started slowly stroking, pausing to tease the tip with my thumb.
I watched his face as I pleasured him. Tension lined his jaw, but for completely different reasons now.
He suddenly pulled off the road, turning sharp onto a logging side road. Gravel and dirt churned under the tires as the forest closed in around us.
I released my seat belt, ducking under his arm to lean over his lap, thankful that the floor-mounted shifter was far enough forward that it didn’t impede me. He groaned gutturally as I took him in my mouth, still keeping my hand in play.
I sucked, gently at first, still teasing. But as my own desire ignited, I tightened my grip and took more of him into my mouth.
He panted quietly, murmuring moans of pleasure. More heat flooded through me, loosening all my limbs even as a tension built between my legs.
The car rolled to a stop. My shoulder banged against the steering wheel, but then Aiden was grabbing me, lifting me over him.
“In you,” he muttered, moaning. “I want to be in you. Please.”
I tried to oblige, settling over him in an awkward tangle of limbs and clothing, and with the steering wheel in the way.
He tore my underwear off with a whisper of magic, slipping his fingers inside me — checking to make sure I was ready. I was. He wrung a groan from me as he withdrew his fingers, gripping my hips.
I slid onto him. Warm and wet, melding with him. My head fell back. His hands tightened on my hips, as if I was his anchor. I set a fast and hard pace, riding up and down his length.
“Look at me,” he demanded hoarsely. “I’m not going to last. Look at me, my Emma.”
I wrapped my hands around his face, gazing deeply into his eyes. His expression was a mixture of pain and ecstasy. He groaned, fingers digging into my hips, pleasure spasming through him. The orgasm hit him first, practically dislodging me from his lap. Then it flooded through our empathic bond.
I cried out at the suddenness of it, still riding him as he panted underneath me. Reaching my own crescendo just as he pulled my face to him and kissed me hard, darting his tongue in and out of my mouth. I cried out again, my teeth scraping both our lips and tongues.
Shuddering, I braced myself on the seat, allowing the pleasure to linger, then ease.
Aiden reached up to stroke my neck, both our faces curtained in my hair. “I love you,” he murmured, kissing me gently.
“Even all sticky?” I said, becoming suddenly aware of our awkward position — and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere with no running water nearby.
“Especially all sticky,” he said quietly. “But don’t move just yet? I’d like to be here, in you, for a little while longer.”
So I refrained from shifting off him, ignoring the fluids soaking in to our clothing. I tucked my face next to his, cheek to cheek. “You were brilliant,” I whispered. “With Opal. If it had just been me, or even me and Christopher …” My words got tangled in my throat.
“I’m glad I was there,” he said. “I never want to be anywhere else. I just …”
He didn’t finish his sentence, and I didn’t prompt him. I simply enjoyed the feeling of his chest rising and falling against mine, his stubble on my cheek, and the trickle of emotion from him … lingering desire, contentment …
“I never wanted you to see me like this … among them,” he whispered.
“This isn’t our life,” I said firmly. “It’s a momentary blip. An obstacle. And we are both extremely skilled at overcoming … anything.”
He smiled thinly, his cheek tightening against my own. “Are we?”
His use of ‘we’ was laced with so much sarcasm that even I heard it. And that tone somehow sliced across my chest, as sharp as any magically honed blade. Which was absolutely ridiculous.
I shifted back, brushing my lips across his. “Shall I let you inscribe truth-telling runes all over me, sorcerer? Just so you can feel my sincerity?”
He laughed. “How long would they last against the onslaught of your magic, amplifier?”
“For one question, at least. You are highly skilled.”
He chuckled. “Well, if I only get one question, it won’t be to verify your sincerity. Which I never doubt anyway.”
“Oh yes?” I asked. “What question would you ask then, sorcerer of mine?”
He sucked in a breath, staring deep into my eyes. His mouth parted slightly. Hesitantly.
“Would you have me, Emma Johnson? For ever after?”
Back in February, Aiden had teased me about proposing, about making our commitment to each other official. But I hadn’t thought the parameters of that through. Hadn’t truly thought what it would mean for him.
“Do you really want me?” I asked. “With everything that comes with me? All the danger constantly on my doorstep? Literally?”
“Well,” he drawled playfully, “I haven’t met Amanda yet. Is she the worst of the bunch?”
I grinned at him. “You’re already in love with the worst the Five can offer.”
“All right, then.” Aiden’s tone hushed, turning serious again. “With you, I can weather anything, confront anything. With you I can … believe. With you at my side …” His eyes welled with tears. They didn’t fall, but he didn’t try to hide them either.
And suddenly I was crying as well, picking up his emotion but also my own joy. “When the final adoption papers come through for Opal, I want your name on them.”
“Yes,” he said, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I want that too.”
“So then, we’d better get married,” I said. “To make it all official.”
“Oh yes,” he breathed. “To make it all official.”
I kissed him gently.
He opened the car door and lifted me from his lap, following me out. Undressing me with reverence, he whispered spells that removed any and all stickiness from our clothing and skin. As he murmured endearments filled with magic, I made quick work of his clothing as well.
When I lay down in the cramped back seat, on a blanket procured from the trunk, and invited him to me just by opening my legs, I did so with whispered promises of my own. Magic traced around us as he climbed over me. With the car doors open and the front seats shoved forward, it gave his legs a little more room — and made for some delightfully utilized leverage.
“I love you,” he said again, breath warm in my ear.
“I love you,” I said, wrapping my arms and legs and magic around him. “Aiden Azar Myers. All of you. Every broken part.”
“No,” he whispered, hand cushioning my head while the other hand slipped down between us to tease more slow licks of pleasure from me. “With you, I’m whole.”
“Yes,” I said.
And I believed it. For both of us. And Opal.
We dozed. It was too uncomfortable curled up together in the back seat to actually sleep. The noise of the forest around us rose again, birds and small animals returning after having been disturbed by the Mustang roaring up the logging road. The iPad was in easy reach, and I’d checked that we still had a signal. But Opal hadn’t called yet.
Aiden’s heartbeat was steady under my ear, his fingers lazily combing through my hair, gently untangling it from the effects of the windy drive and the sex.
No.
The lovemaking.
And it was completely okay to call it that, even if only in the depths of my mind. To acknowledge that. Because even setting aside all the playfulness, the consideration, and the occasional rune that Aiden usually brought to our bed, our need to be with each other this day — twice in rapid succession — had been completely different.
I raised my head, meeting Aiden’s gaze.
A soft smile lifted one corner of his mouth. But before I could speak, before I could express any of what I was feeling, he tugged me into a kiss. And it, too, was different. Gentle but utterly possessive. Lips lingering as if we were trying to breathe for each other, just for that moment.
As if loving, and showing that love physically, was completely different than simply having sex.
“I’m lying here … thinking …” he murmured.
“That you don’t want to go back?”
He laughed quietly. “The opposite. Because not going back means giving in, losing. I’d have you, but not everything else I want. Opal, Paisley, even Christopher. The house, the library … the responsibility. I want to be responsible. I want to contribute. Hell, I want to provide for you and Opal, as antiquated as that sounds.”
I blinked at him, suddenly fighting back another of those weird washes of tears — from overwhelming joy, I thought. Joy in response to the idea that someone, anyone, wanted to take care of me. For me, not because of some blood bond that had been forced upon them. Upon us.
“I … I don’t think I lost sight of that.” Aiden thoughtfully furrowed his brow. “I just … I could feel it slipping away.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know that. Now.”
I just smiled at him. He’d already said what I’d been thinking, what I’d been feeling. Even without the empathic connection, I’d be able to sense the contentment rolling off him. The steadiness, the resolve.
“Speaking of Opal …” I said.
“Yes.” He kissed me again, then patted my partially covered ass. We’d retrieved the blanket from under us to curl up in, but it wasn’t as nice as being snuggled in our bed together.
I propped myself up — reluctantly, though I took the opportunity to check the iPad yet again — as I tried to figure out how to untangle my limbs from his without putting my knee in the wrong place and causing him bodily harm. My hair fell down around my naked shoulders and chest.
Aiden made the low noise he made when we were alone and he thought I was beautiful. Even sexy. Usually right after he exposed my breasts, or when I was on top of him taking my own pleasure.
“Again?” I teased.
He groaned. “My mind says, yes, yes, yes. But alas, I’m most definitely spent. Though there is a rune …” He grinned at me wickedly.
“There’s always a rune, sorcerer!”
He laughed as he sat up, shifting so I could find my own footing. He took the opportunity to cup my breast and whisper into my neck, “There is indeed.”
I laughed — though I knew I needed to keep moving before I decided we should put his rune to the test.
We climbed out of the back seat. Gently touching each other, we tidied up as best we could, then climbed back into the car.
I drove this time — and quickly discovered that backing down a single-lane dirt road I’d never driven before wasn’t much fun. Thankfully, Aiden hadn’t gotten far from the main paved road before he’d stopped.
With my head still cranked over my shoulder and the car in reverse, the memory of forcing Aiden to do just that made me smile.
He reached over and ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “What’s that smile for?” he murmured.
I smirked, and didn’t tell him.
He laughed quietly, lounging back in as much of a twist as his seat belt would allow, watching me with a purely satisfied smile on his face. ‘Smoldering,’ it would have been called in a book or a movie.
I recognized it as the same look he got when a spell triggered and performed exactly as he’d intended. A mixture of satisfaction and delight, and of intention. A kind of resolve.
We were halfway back to the property when the iPad started trilling. Aiden grabbed it from beside his seat as I pulled over to the side of the road.
It wasn’t a video. Just a voice call from an unknown number. Aiden answered it.
“It’s me.” Opal’s voice sounded thin on the iPad speaker — and peeved enough to let me know she was okay.
Some sort of emotion tore out of me. It might have been a sob. And for the first time in my life, I pressed my hand over my mouth and had to fight to keep it at bay.
Aiden grabbed my other hand. “We’re here,” he said, his voice steady. “Just Emma and me. We’re worried about you.”
“Yeah.” Opal sighed heavily. “I’m in the principal’s office. On speaker.”
“Good evening, Ms. Johnson.” A woman’s voice spoke up in the background.
“Principal Whitaker,” I said neutrally, wary of anything I wanted to say, needed to say, to Opal. “Aiden Myers, my … fiance is here as —”
Opal squealed. The high-pitched sound tore through the iPad speakers so viciously that I actually flinched.
The squeal resolved into clearer words. Opal must have taken the phone off speaker. “You’re getting married! When! When! Can we have a party?! Who will we invite? Can I come on the honeymoon? What about Hawaii? Or Greece?” She took a breath.
Aiden was grinning at me, amused and just … happy. Really happy. Not the strange, almost-smothering happiness I’d been feeling since the witches arrived.
I shook the thought away, focusing on the now. The young witch was babbling about dresses and cake, and something about surnames that I wasn’t quite following.
“Opal.” I spoke her name as sharply as I could while being inundated with so much pure joy.
I could actually hear her settle down on the other side of the conversation. She might have been jumping around. Principal Whitaker was not going to be pleased. The witch was actually a Sherwood by birth, like Opal, but she went by her father’s surname to maintain an appearance of neutrality among the witches. She had a low tolerance for nonsense — which had pleased me when I met her, of course.
“Why are you in the principal’s office?” I asked.
“A question answered for a question answered,” Opal said, bargaining.
I looked at Aiden. He tried to quash the grin that had swamped his face, then gave up and laughed silently.
“That’s a sorcerer game,” I said. “Witches don’t trade information within their coven, because they are …” I realized that I was hanging out really far on this parenting limb.
“Yessssss?” Opal asked, knowing she had me in a bind.
“Nicer,” I finished lamely.
Aiden’s shoulders were shaking now with silent laughter.
“Well, that’s okay then,” Opal said cheerfully. “Because my daddy-to-be is a deadly sorcerer!”
Aiden went still. His gaze dropped to the iPad screen as if he could see Opal through it. “Are you all right with that, Opal?” he asked softly.
“Hell yeah!” Then she laughed, slightly manically.
“You know she just declared you deadly in front of Principal Whitaker,” I muttered.
Aiden shrugged. “The witch has already met you and Christopher. I have no doubt she’s reporting Opal’s progress back to the Convocation as well. I’m not going to be a shock.”
I could hear another voice in the background. Principal Whitaker, sounding impatient.
“Three questions.” I sighed. “Each. And then you will pass the phone to the principal.”
“When are you getting married?” Opal asked.
I looked at Aiden. We hadn’t discussed anything concrete. He just smiled at me.
“When you’re home from school. August,” I said. “Why are you calling from the principal’s office?”
Opal sighed. “I turned in the vessel. The three of us did, together.”
Relief flooded through me. “And?”
“And … are we going to have a party? With cake and everything?”
“Yes,” I said. “If you help me.”
She squeaked a little, excited. And now I couldn’t stop smiling either. The witches and sorcerers might have all slaughtered each other at home. Cerise and Kader might each be poised to murder us all. But I was grinning like a happy idiot on the side of the road.
I focused on being an adult for a moment.
No. A parent.
“Are they kicking you out?”
Opal mumbled something.
I heard it, but I waited for the full confession.
She sighed. “I got a mark on my permanent record. And detention for three weeks.”
“What does the mark mean?” I asked.
Opal made a sucking noise. “I don’t know. Principal Whitaker is sending you an email. But she needed to hear me tell you in person, because, you know …”
I understood. My own magic didn’t affect technology, but as had been amply demonstrated that afternoon during Opal’s panicked call, tech wasn’t a useful way to communicate with most Adepts.
“Hey, Emma?” the young witch said quietly. “Once you get over being happy I’m alive, are you going to be angry?”
“No,” I said. “We’ll talk about it. But I won’t be angry.”
“Okay.” She paused, then asked, “What about Aiden? I scared him, hey? I overheard the necromancy professors discussing the vessel and the suppression spell … and, ah, it sounded pretty nasty.”
Aiden closed his eyes for a moment, presumably struggling with the vision of the spell that had held Emily in its grip — and with the terror of seeing it spread to Opal if his runes hadn’t helped. But when he spoke, his tone was even. “Yes, you scared me.”
“I’m so glad you were there,” Opal whispered.
Aiden cleared his throat, eyes shining with tears. “Me too, little witch.”
“Okay,” I said. “Pass me to Professor Whitaker, please.”
“Oh, wait!” Opal cried. “Does this mean that I have to change my name to Johnson? Or Myers?”
“No,” I said. “You already have a name.”
“Okay.”
Her tone was odd. I wasn’t certain that my ‘no’ had been the right answer. “You belong to us on paper and in our hearts. But your last name is your own. Your birthright.”
“Oh,” she said softly, thinking about it. “Okay. I have to go now. Jack and Emily haven’t made their calls yet. And then I have to go straight to my room.” She sounded exceedingly put out for someone who’d almost died a couple of hours earlier. “Detention comes with extra course work.”
“Sleep well,” Aiden said.
“Call us tomorrow,” I said. “You’ll still have phone privileges?”
Opal sighed like someone long suffering. “If you arrange it, yes.”
“Pass me to Principal Whitaker, please,” I said. Then, reminding myself that sometimes these things had to be said out loud, I added, “I love you. I would have been very, very angry if you died.”
“Me too.”
Muffled noises came over the speaker, then Principal Whitaker’s voice. “Ms. Johnson. Mr. Myers.”
“Professor,” Aiden responded.
“I’ve sent you an email, as Opal already mentioned,” the older witch said. “It will outline the details of the repercussions she’ll be dealing with. But I’ve been lenient because the children voluntarily turned the object in. I didn’t put this in the email, but I did want you to know that the vessel has been confiscated. It will not be returned to Emily’s family.”
“What does the mark mean?” I asked, not carrying about necromancers or witch politics. “How detrimental will it be?”
“Three marks results in expulsion. No exceptions.”
“And?”
“That isn’t enough?” she asked, sounding amused. “Would you prefer the punishment be harsher?”
“What I want to know, Professor,” I said, my tone icy, “is what Opal needs to do to get the mark expunged. Because presumably, such a system wouldn’t exist if that sort of record wouldn’t be held against her at some point in her future with the Academy. What will the mark bar her from doing? I won’t have her education compromised or her opportunities restricted.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. I looked at Aiden.
He wrinkled his nose, whispering, “Few elder witches are accustomed to being spoken to in that manner.”
“What manner?” I didn’t bother whispering.
He just grinned at me.
“After a probationary year, Opal can apply to have the mark expunged from her permanent record,” Principal Whitaker said slowly. “It’s not something we usually do, because life lessons are —”
“All right, good,” I said, interrupting her. “One year from today. Please send me the application in another email.”
“Ms. Johnson,” she said. “The marks, or lack of marks, are a barometer by which —”
“No,” I said. “Opal will have every opportunity I can give her. If I had my way, she’d be with me full time, but that isn’t what’s best for her, for her future. So when I can’t have her with me, I trust you to be doing what’s right for her. I understand she broke your rules, and the repercussions you’ve outlined sound fair. But I won’t have her dragging around a mark that might be construed as a personal failure. I know how witches work, Principal Whitaker. I know what being deemed deficient means in a witch-dominated society.”
“We give all our students the same opportunities.”
“We’re in agreement, then.”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Fine. I’ll email the extra information you require. Good night.”
She hung up.
Aiden was looking at me with his soul-searing, bright-blue eyes. “Sometimes,” he whispered, “I love you so much it hurts.”
“Yes,” I said, unable to articulate the same back to him without the words clogging my throat. “Yes.”
The iPad trilled.
Blinking at the display — which showed the same phone number — I answered. “Yes?”
“Yes … ah.” It was Principal Whitaker again, firming her tone. “Mr. Myers?”
“Aiden,” he drawled, smiling in anticipation.
“Yes, thank you, Aiden. The necromancy professors and I are exceedingly interested in how you aided Opal in quelling the suppression spell on the artifact. And, well … the children claim to not really remember, so …”
I had to stop myself from laughing. There was absolutely no way that Opal — who seemed to have an acutely sharp recall for spell work — would have forgotten the runes Aiden had sketched for her.
“I’d be happy to discuss it,” Aiden said. “I’m busy at present, but should be able to call back in a day or two. Video might be better. Shall I email you a time that’s convenient for me?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. … Aiden.”
“You are very welcome.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
Aiden ended the call, his eyes dancing with amusement. “You work them your way, and I’ll work them mine. Opal will graduate with honors, become a specialist, and have her pick of assignments. If that’s what she wants.”
“Even witches can be charmed?”
“The way in will be through the necromancers. They’re insular, but generally less snobby, since they have to breed outside their own bloodlines.”
I laughed, though he wasn’t joking.
Aiden just grinned at me. Then he sobered. “She’s okay.”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Let’s get the riffraff out of our house. I need to get the peppers and cucumbers planted.”
I started the car. Aiden settled his hand on my knee, and I drove us home.