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“That’d be great, thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
I press my hands against my thighs so I won’t press them into the ache in my chest.
It’s too easy. Talking to him. Remembering.
If I close my eyes and pretend, it’s almost possible to forget all the bad stuff between us and drop into my memories of those nights at the bakery when I was falling in love with West.
Maybe he feels it, too, because he leans forward to turn up the music.
I look out at the dark green shapes of the trees, the blurred branches. The trial drops away as I let myself think about why I’m here. What I want. My purpose.
West.
But after a while, even West slips away, and then it’s just dark.
Cold air coming in from the driver’s side of the truck snaps me awake.
We’re parked on the street in a neighborhood of nearly identical houses—all of them small, crowded on tiny lots.
West stands outside the open driver’s-side door. His face through the window is stark, shadowed.
“Is this where Frankie is?” I ask.
“Yeah, my grandma’s.”
He shifts so he’s holding the top of the car door with both hands, leaning into it, studying me through the glass. It’s as though he’s using the door as a shield so he can look at me, really look at me, the way he hasn’t yet.
He rakes his eyes upward from my shoes. Right turn at my knees. Left turn at my thighs. Lingering over the parts that used to be his favorites.
It’s like in my dreams—my mind too fuzzy and slow to defend me against the heat of West’s lava-dipped icicle gaze. I just want to crawl across the front seat of the truck on all fours until I crash into his body and he’s on me, over me, hot hands and wet mouths and every single thing I’ve missed that I need.
A few hours in the truck, and my lofty thoughts of friendship and loyalty are nothing but a sticky layer on top of weeks’ worth of longing.
West’s expression has gone dark. “You’re staying here tonight,” he says.
“What, to sleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Out at Bo’s.”
“How far is that?”
“Twenty miles.”
“I want to stay wherever you are.”
He comes from behind the door and jacks his seat forward, pushing himself all the way through the space behind it so he can get hold of my bag.
When he starts rolling it up the walk to the front door, I get the idea that this decision he’s made isn’t negotiable.
I hurry after him. “Who’s inside?”
“Based on the cars, I’m guessing Grandma, Mom, Frankie, a couple of my aunts.”
