14
SEBASTIAN
The forty-five minute drive to the hibachi restaurant was awkward.
Just after we got in the car, and I started the engine with trembling hands, Gwen asked how my day at work was. I said, “Good.” And nothing else. Not even the same question in response. Just silence. Because, apparently, I was fifteen years old and had forgotten how to talk to a pretty girl.
We were at the stop sign between the ranch and the main road, the humming radio still the only sound, when I saw her shiver in my peripheral. “Shit, are you cold?”
“Little bit.” Her tone was playful, a smirk across her cherry lips.
Which I should not have paid any mind to, because the second I took the smallest glance at those lips, my stomach flipped, blood pumped, and I knew I should’ve looked away. So I did. To the dashboard, where I spun the dial to increase the temperature and pressed the button for her heated seat.
“Whoa, whoa!” Gwen yelled.
The truck coasted forward.
I slammed the brake.
We both jarred toward the dash.
I stared ahead at the pine trees on the other side of the yellow lines.
Why? Why was I acting like I had never seen a girl in my life? My hands were shaking and my heart rate was through the roof. Had I forgotten the last year the two of us had spent as friends?
She laughed. Not a little chuckle, but a deep belly laugh that filled all the empty space in the truck’s cabin. I swear, those pine trees laughed at me too.
“Okay, it wasn’t that funny.” Spoken as if I wasn’t also warring with the smile that played at the edges of my lips.
“No.” She made out between giggles. “Not at all funny. We could’ve died.”
I lost the battle, and a laugh escaped me too. “We could’ve. That wouldn’t have been funny.”
“Not at all.” And yet, she hadn’t stopped laughing.
Neither had I.
Still holding the brake, laughing harder and harder, we held one another’s gaze. And I remembered why I was here. I remembered why we were doing this. Because even at the worst moments, here we were. We laughed and looked at one another and something I’d never felt before spread through my chest. Something worth stepping out of my comfort zone for.
Giggles finally slowing, she playfully swatted my shoulder. “Come on. It’s a Friday night. The place is gonna be packed.”
I released the brake, and we were on the road again. But our little laughing fit hadn’t done enough to break the ice because a mile or two down the road, my hands were still shaking, and my heart was still fluttering. Music would help. Gwen liked music.
I spun the dial on the dash. Johnny Cash’sWalk the Linepulsed through the speakers.
Now my stomach was turning again. I fumbled for my phone in its holder on the windshield. “Shit, you hate country. Here,you pick.” I freed it from the clips and held it out to her between sweaty fingers while the front right tire dropped into a pothole. It left us both swaying side to side. And my phone flying in her direction.
She dodged it just before it hit her in the face.
It fell through the crack between her thigh and the door.
For half a second, I considered reaching over to grab it for her. Only to realize that would look like I was feeling her up.
Giving me a crooked smile, clearly trying not to burst into obnoxious laughter once more, Gwen stretched a hand under the seat. “You know,” she grunted, craning awkwardly to reach, “I don’t hate country.”
“I clearly remember you mentioning that you hate country on at least five occasions.”
“I hatetractorcountry.” Coming out from under the seat with a crunched up fast food wrapper, her nose curled in disgust. “Songs about beer and good ole’ American values.” She added a southern twang for that last bit, still digging for my phone. “But Johnny Cash? Dolly Parton? Tanya Tucker? Oh, and Reba McEntire. They’re classic.”
