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He nods like that’s to be expected. “Open the glovebox for me, would you?” I open it to find a perfectly organized set up with tissues, a tire gauge, the car’s owner manual, and antibacterial wipes. “Hand me a wipe, please?”
I pull out the plastic package, opening the flap on the top, and hand him a wipe, which he uses to clean his hands before putting it in the backseat behind me.
At my confused look, he explains. “Trash can in the back.”
I spin in my seat to see a tiny reusable plastic bag attached to the passenger seatback with a few tissues inside, and now a wet wipe on top. “Of course you have a trash bag in your car.”
“What do you put your trash in?” His eyebrows are curled in confusion as if I just told him people in my neighborhood cut up their trash and eat it for breakfast or something.
“The floorboard, like normal people,” I explain. “And then you clean it all out when you wash the car.”
“The floorboard? That’s animalistic,” he declares.
I fight my grin, knowing I’ve tossed a few tissues and fast food wrappers onto my floorboard in my time. “I don’t know if I can date someone who doesn’t use extra fast food napkins as tissues in the car. You might be too fancy for a girl like me.”
He’s too everything for a girl like me. Tissues versus napkins are the least of it.
“I’m totally telling my sister that you said I’m fancy. She thinks I’m still half-Neanderthal. Honestly, she’s not wrong,” he says, throwing a thankfully now-clean hand on my thigh. “But Neanderthals have to be prepared for messes too. Especially after that one episode where Miles got gelato on everything.” He shudders at the memory of the mess.
“Gelato?” I echo incredulously. “I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never even had gelato, much less made a mess of it. Ice cream, shakes, malts . . . those I can make a mess with. Which I clean up with a leftover, half-wrinkled napkin from the Dairy Palace like a normal human being. Five-year-olds with gelato . . . fancy.”
“Tissues aside, you just said we’re dating.” He’s grinning like I just gave him a free gelato with sprinkles and told him to have at it. “You having second thoughts about turning me down?”
“Second, and third, and bajillionth. Absolutely,” I confess, heavier than his teasing tone.
He cuts his eyes to me for a second, then back to the road, then repeats the move once more before boldly asking, “You’re not just using me for sex, are you?”
“Oh, my God, you can’t say stuff like that!” I squawk insecurely. “What the hell, Mr. Hale!”
“I want to make sure you’re not only after the goods and agreeing to a date because I said no sex until we go out officially.”
How does he say things like that with a straight face?
Because just listening to him say it has me grinning like I’m a middle-schooler, swooning like a love-struck romantic, and squirming like a woman who just swallowed a mouthful and really needs a little release of her own.
It’s harder than I’d like to admit, but I do it anyway. “It’s not just the sex.”
Tension I didn’t realize he was holding releases in his shoulders. “I like you too, Miss Walker. Ya weirdo.”
Somehow, when he says that word, it doesn’t hurt. It’s funny, like we’re being weird together, even though he’s amazingly not only un-weird but normal.
* * *
We go to my house to look through the trash. Not because it’s a trailer but because it’s closer and I have gloves. I insist on those, and Blake is thankful and agrees easily. “Trash bags are one thing. Actual trash is another.”
That decided, we get to work. I spread out wrapping paper on the kitchen floor because I don’t want to do this outside where there are prying eyes, plus, it’s all I have. Still, I promise myself that I’ll be mopping after this . . . and that I’m going out to buy one of those big blue tarps just in case something like this ever comes up again, as unlikely as that may be.
We open the first bag, and the smell is . . . not too bad. Blake and I look at each other in relief and then with a sigh of resolve, we dig in. We make piles of what we find—possibly useful and totally gross. Mostly, everything goes into the totally gross pile until we have to make a third pile of ‘what the fuck is that?’
There’s a lot of food trash, including some spoiled chicken lunch meat that makes us both retch. We end up needing to pause to re-bag that container and set it outside on the porch.
Which is when Jacob comes in, pinching his nose, and recoils in disgust. “What in Satan’s taint hole is that smell?”
