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“Pretty much.” He looks happy at the thought.
“Can you show me around?” I blurt out.
He stills, and for a long time, he’s silent, like he’s fighting some internal battle.
I’m starting to regret asking, when he drags back his chair and leaps up. “Sure can.”
As I stand up to join him, I’m struck again by how he towers over me. Such a big, powerfully-built guy, but he treats me with such gentleness.
He gestures to the bus. “Savannah, meet Bertha.”
“You named your RV?” My heart gives a little flip.
His thick dark eyebrows tug together. “Of course. Would’ve been rude not to give this lady a name after all the time we’ve spent together.”
A flutter of emotion goes through me. Something like jealousy. Something like a wish that he’d want to spend a lot of time with me. My cheeks heat again at my own silliness.
He holds the front door open for me and I go ahead of him, up the steps.
There’s a lot of space in these schoolies. He shows me around, explaining how every bit of it was converted from a public bus into a home, and I explore it all, fascinated. I love the thought that he made all this with those big, strong hands of his. He shows me the kitchen, the seating area, the bathroom.
The only thing missing is a bed.
“Where do you sleep?” I ask.
“Up there.” He points at what looks like a shelf, but he doesn’t move to unfurl it from its recess, like all the other things he’s shown me so far.
Together in this small space, his scent fills my nostrils. He smells like pine forests and leather and tobacco. I take several slow breaths in and out, each one flooding my body with euphoria. He’s less than a foot away. If I take a step closer, we’ll be touching. I can feel the heat of his body, and in the quiet I think I can hear his big heart thudding in time with mine. A beat of need. Of synchronicity.
His hands lift toward me, and I go real still, longing to feel them wrapping around my hips, pulling me against him.
His presence envelops me. My eyelids feel heavy and I let them flutter closed. My lips tingle.
There’s a whoosh of movement in the air and my eyes snap open again.
He’s stepped away.
“That’s all,” he says, in a businesslike voice.
I swallow down a boulder of disappointment. “T-thanks,” I manage to choke out, embarrassment already smashing through desire. I imagine how I looked to him, eyes heavy, lips pursed.
Probably shameful.
He walks out of the bus, and I stumble after him.
The sun isup in the sky now and it’s turning out to be a bright, warm day. Beau strides off across the parking lot, and the tension between us severs. I wonder what I did wrong.
I go to the table and gather up the breakfast things, then I take them into the little kitchen and wash them up. When I come back out, he’s pacing around a patch of pavement in a tight circle.
“Been thinking,” he tells me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts. “We need to get you someplace to stay.”
“Yeah,” I say, because he’s right. “But—” I barely have a cent to my name.
“There’s a bar over on the other side of town. Looks like they hire young people. Might have a room you can stay in.”
“Great,” I say with a brightness I don’t feel. Which makes me a brat. Because twenty-four hours ago, that would’ve sounded like heaven. But now… now the last thing I want is to leave Beau’s company.
Even though he’s acting like he’s desperate to see the back of me.
