“Like how you knowa bitabout antiques?”
I laugh.
“I can imagine you trailin’ around a museum… Lookin’ at everything…” He smiles as if he really is imagining it. “You must be right at home there.”
“I’m like a piece of the furniture.”
“But there’s more to the story, isn’t there?”
“Wha–what do you mean?”
“You never tell me much about your past. Some people, you can’t shut them up. You know everythin’ about them right down to the color undies they’re wearin’ within about five minutes. But you…”
I pretend to be enthralled by how the button on my cardigan swirls around. “Sometimes, when you start a story, even an innocent one about books or traveling, you end up revealing a lot more than you ever mean to.”
“Only to the people who are actually listenin’.”
“Are…you?”
“Of course I am. We’re friends.”
I’m not sure if I ever smiled so wide in my entire life.Friends!“Well…friend.” I love the sound of that. “It’s been over five minutes, so I suppose I should tell you that my undies today are a lovely shade of beige.” They aren’t. My briefs are high-cut and hot pink but somehow cute and chaste because they have a tiny bow.
Sawyer barks a surprised laugh. “I don’t believe you for a second.”
“What!”
“You can practice your fibbin’ in the truck, Hosko. Come on. Everyone will be waitin’ for us.”
9
Light winds with a chance of making new friends
Although I can writean entire thesis on popular sports in Victorian England—and I did years ago—it’s a sad truth that coordination is not my forte. Underwater, I can twirl and spin, and on weekends, I swim for hours. I’m majestic. However, on land, I am most certainly not.
These factors mean that climbing into Sawyer’s truck is far easier than it will be for me to get out of it.
I unbuckle my seatbelt. That man is about to get a front-row seat to learn the accurate color of my knickers. How can I climb down from his monster truck without tumbling into an embarrassing heap on the ground?
Slowly. Verycarefully…
“Hosko?” Sawyer appears on the passenger side and steadies the car door with his hand. He extends the other. “Need help?”
“What I need is to do an abseiling course so I can learn how to get out of your truck.”
“I suppose this old beast”—he knocks on the metal roof—“isn’t built for delicate ladies.”
“Was it built for soldiers? It’s like a tank! You know, people might have seen something like this thundering over the snow-covered countryside of the Ardennes back in 1944.”
Sawyer grins. “Am I gettin’ a history lesson from Miss Hoskins?”
“Hardly.” I shimmy off the seat and reach for his hand. “I’ve never studied much about World War Two—”
A spark of something delightful shoots up my arm when our fingers touch. Any hope of finishing my witty comeback dies into nothing but a breathless “Oh.”
This is unexpected, but…
Wow.
