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“I… I’ve never really had a partner.”
“Oh. Well, if you imagine yourself with your ideal partner, who do you see?”
She blushed. I didn’t even have to look at her to know. I felt it. The temperature inside my truck rose twenty degrees. Or so it felt. The truck was an old piece of shit. It didn’t have air conditioning. I could’ve rolled down my window to cool things down, but then the fast rush of the air from the highway would’ve drowned out the sound of her voice, and the intimacy of this conversation dictated that she needed to be heard and understood.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me. But I guess it’s somethin’ for you to consider, in case you ever decide you want to… find someone.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I really want that.” She took a deep breath and blew it out loudly, effectively ending that part of our conversation. She never brought it up again. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“What’re you lookin’ for?”
“Oh, I dunno. Same as everybody else, I guess. Someone to love. Someone to share my life with. You know, the usual.”
“Yeah.”
Time flew while we talked, and it surprised me how easily the conversation flowed. When we pulled into Wisper, she asked, “Could you drop me at my house, please? It’s over on Third Street.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. Where do you live?”
“With my mom. In Barton. I know, it’s lame,” I said. “But she’s all alone, you know?” My next question surprised me, but I really wanted to know. “Do you go on dates often?”
“No,” she said. “Not really. Which explains my cluelessness. You?”
“Not at all.”
“Hm.” She nodded.
My admission probably hadn’t surprised her. It wasn’t like lesbians paraded around small-town Wisper, Wyoming, hanging out by the hardware store, yelling, “Hey, girl, hey!”
Her vulnerability had softened me toward her, and suddenly, the sweet scent of her hair in my truck and the familiar way she felt sitting next to me, even though she never had before, were drawing me to her. All of my senses focused on her, how she breathed and moved. Every little noise she made had me dying to know the thoughts in her head.
“But I would,” I said, and I caught the tender skin on the inside of my bottom lip between my teeth. Devo, no! Just no.
I couldn’t help wondering about her. Where did she go for sex? She’d said “not really,” but did that mean she did date occasionally? The curiosity was killing me, and I had no idea where it had come from. Probably because she looked hot as hell, with her tight jeans and silky lace tank under her flannel and her boobs dying to spill out. Besides the racy undershirt, her outfit was also very Abey. If she wasn’t dressed in her work uniform, she wore jeans and a flannel, but sometimes, she’d tie the flannel in a knot at her hip. Tonight, the stark red and black from her shirt made her hair look an even lighter blond. My eyes kept going to her hair.
Like now as I glanced her way again, I noticed how the natural highlights weaved throughout the darker yellow strands, and the baby hairs closer to her face seemed almost white and so curly. They were adorable, and so was the dimple deepening on the side of her cheek. I’d never noticed a dimple before.
“I mean,” I hedged, trying to gauge her reaction to the direction of the conversation, “if there were more opportunities. But you know—there aren’t.”
She nodded. “Don’t I know it.”
The energy in the truck shifted. I held my breath for way too long before it all came out in a gush, and I heard myself say, “Theo says there’s places in Boston where guys can go to… to meet other guys, if, like, they wanna hook up.”
She looked at me. I felt her quizzical gaze on the side of my face. “Oh yeah?”
My next sentence came out really fast. “Yeah, and everyone there already knows no one’s lookin’ for a long-term thing. Just sex.”
“Hm. Sounds handy.” She laughed. “In more ways than one.”
I laughed too. She was just so damn charming, but I caught myself. This was weird, right? Why all of a sudden was I nervous around her?
“You okay there?” she asked, cocking her head and watching how my smile turned into a wince.
But I’d never really given her a fair chance. I’d been pissed when she threw me in the clink, and then my anger at her was all I’d really been able to see. But tonight was the first time I’d ever noticed that there seemed to be a lot more to her.
