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“Just keep talking.”
“I’m a judgmental person,” she blurted out.
His chuckle came out in a rumble. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Her eyes flicked to her rearview mirror. “I’m serious. I readily admit it. I meet a person, and I make a decision about their character within half an hour. I have an outstanding track record. My hypothesis is right roughly ninety percent of the time. But on the rare occasion I’m wrong, it’s a thrill. Some people are like an iceberg, with the dangerous and beautiful parts hidden below the surface.”
“Are you trying to say I’m a dangerous and beautiful iceberg?”
Clara huffed. “More like an ice cap.” Her gaze shot from the freeway to her hands on the steering wheel, and then back at the road. “I’m trying to say thanks.”
“Thank me after,” Josh said.
“There may not be an after. I think I’ve reached my limit.”
“Okay, here are our options. You can merge, or we can sit here and talk about yesterday when I had my hands on your—”
Clara pressed her foot to the gas pedal almost without thinking. Josh had managed to find the one thing that made her more nervous than driving.
* * *
• • •
JOSH HOWLED TRIUMPHANTLY, pumping his fist in the air to knock the roof of the car. “Do you see what’s happening right now? Because you, Clara Wheaton, are keeping pace on the freeway. I feel like you need to let out some kind of primal yell.”
Aside from a tiny arch in her eyebrow, Clara didn’t acknowledge him, but he noticed that her hands relaxed slightly on the steering wheel. Color returned to her cheeks. She even suggested he put on the radio, as long as he kept the volume in the vicinity of a whisper. A win if he ever saw one.
The concern that sat heavy and unfamiliar in his stomach slowly faded. He’d never dealt with anything like this with Naomi. A woman who was self-sufficient to a fault. The last time he remembered worrying about her was when she’d insisted on getting her tongue pierced on the Venice Beach Boardwalk.
After about fifteen minutes of uneventful cruising by the ocean, a familiar cluster of palm trees gave Josh an idea. “Hey, how would you feel about a little detour?”
“You mean a chance to get out of the car?” Clara laughed tightly. “Yes, please.”
“I know just the place.” Josh directed her toward the next exit and then down a few streets until they found themselves pulling into the empty parking lot of a high school.
He raced to help Clara out of the driver’s seat, mostly because he didn’t want to risk her getting a case of jelly legs and face-planting on the pavement. While her color had returned, she still had a sheen of sweat across her forehead.
When she put her tiny, clammy hand in his, he tightened his hold on impulse. She sighed as her feet met solid ground. “Please tell me it gets easier?”
His body, betraying all instruction from his brain, buzzed from the contact with her skin. “I’m pretty sure it has to.” He wasn’t positive whether he was talking to Clara or himself. As soon as she stood up, Josh backed away, out of the pull of her orbit, as she took in their surroundings.
“How did you even know this place was here?” Clara shook out her hair.
“This was my high school.” Josh greedily inhaled the scent of fresh-cut grass. “My family moved here from Seattle right before ninth grade. You wanna look around?”
When she nodded, he guided her around the building. “So, what was Josh Darling like at eighteen?”
He watched, momentarily mesmerized as her long dark hair whipped in the wind. “Well, Josh Darling didn’t exist yet, but Josh Conners was your classic fuckup. I cut class so much they almost held me back.”
“Ah.” She took two steps to keep pace with every one of his. “A rebel.”
“That’s one word for it. I think the law prefers truant. You see, over there”—he pointed to a set of corner windows—“is where I served a month’s worth of detention. It took a lot of sweet-talking to get the principal to agree to let me graduate on time.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Clara tilted her head back and offered her porcelain skin to the dying sun.
“You’ve never met Principal Carlson. I tried to spin my life into a sob story, but there wasn’t much to work with. Only child, on the light side of latchkey. My parents worked all the time to pay the bills, but they’ve always been good people who loved me and I guess I never figured out how to hide that.”
Josh swallowed the lump of guilt in his throat. He hadn’t seen his parents since Thanksgiving two years back. Ever since, turkey made him nauseous.
