Any woman felt like a betrayal, though I had every right to fall for someone else. I simply didn’t want to. Maybe I liked the hurt because it reminded me of what we once had. Physical pleasure was transient, and often a mutual distraction. The track was business and a way to cling to what I knew while Alex stole my passion for it. But there’s something in the air this morning, a sweet smell that fills my chest even though my heart is beating its way out of it.
I breathe it in as the front door opens and Hannah slips outside, her body bundled in sweat pants and an oversized tie-dyed sweatshirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail that rests on her shoulder. She holds up a palm the same way Jorge did a few minutes earlier, and I mirror her, my chest thumping differently than last time.
Rather than walk halfway up the drive to meet her, I let her come to me. Not because I’m being stubborn or proving some point, but because I’m indulging in her beauty. She’s a mother now, and it shows. Her eyes are a little more tired than the wild child who raced down desert roads with me. Her cheeks round when she forces a smile, and her pale skin hasn’t been kissed by the sun in months.
She doesn’t know it, but I found her artwork online. Her mixed media final project told her story. I could see it plain as day in the black and white photography she overlaid with graphics and paint and somehow poured digital movement into. They were images from the Straights, of the Supra and Ava and the lights that blur when two cars drive like bats out of hell under a midnight sky. It was perfection, and I’ve held on to this fantasy that one day, when her work is for sale, I’ll buy a piece and mount it at my racing headquarters. Because as much as it tells her story, it tells mine too. It tells ours.
“You should have shown up an hour earlier. You could have seen my dad’s full display at work.” She waves her hand across the view of her parents’ house as if washing it with a paintbrush.
“I think I got the picture from the little still lit when I arrived. Does he know he put five different colors of lights in the river bed? And none of them are blue?”
Hannah’s head falls back with a quiet laugh and my eyes zero in on the stretch of her lips, the natural light pink like candy against her skin.
“He does. He was so pissed because he was trying to make it look like water.”
Her gaze falls back to me. We stare at one another for a few seconds, nervous smiles playing at our lips. Jorge left. She knows I know. There’s a dangerous tinge of flirtation in the air, a flickering of electricity between us. I breathe out hard, testing the temperature with my breath. It fogs, but barely.
“It’s cold now, but you might get hot in that later,” I say, motioning to her sweatshirt.
She lifts it slightly and tugs down a shirt underneath, one I recognize instantly from the worn yellow fabric.
“That thing always did look better on you,” I say, my chest full of butterflies. This trip, it’s dangerous. And not only because I’m going to meet a woman who gave me up as a baby, but because I’m traveling with the one who broke my heart as an adult. I’m excited for it. Leaping in, like a fool.
“I brought a few snacks, but I figured we could stop and eat, or whatever,” she says, nervously holding out a few snack bars and stuffing them into her small backpack.
“So we’re really doing this?” My feet have a hard time moving toward my car, but Hannah’s instant positivity urges me forward as she smiles brightly and nods, nearly skipping to the driver’s side of the Supra.
“I did say I would drive,” she says.
I chuckle and glance sideways toward her car.
“Oh, you thought I meant mine? But don’t you remember? It’s not safe. Needs a tune up. Lots of miles.” She holds out her open palm and I lower my chin to my chest and shake my head with a laugh.
“You are really something, using my own words against me. Fine. You can drive the Supra,” I say, fishing my keys out and placing them in her palm. She wraps her fingers around my entire hand and our eyes mingle briefly, mouths touched with careful grins.
“I’ll keep her under a hundred,” she says, and I know that’s a lie.
She breaks that promise about twenty minutes into our trip.
This car. The open road. Arizona’s painted skies, desert hills, sprawling city core. Nothing is wrong when this is where we are. Maybe the familiar is a welcome distraction from the tension. Whatever the reason, Hannah and I transcend time for the two-hour drive through the Valley, and life feels as it was years ago, when things were simple and we were in love.
We talk about Tommy and Bailey. And while I know it hurts her to have to get the stories from me, she laughs gleefully and lights up with happiness as I fill her in on their awkward romance. From the beginning of it all, how it started with a bet between Tommy and me that he wouldn’t be able to go on one actual date with her without needing to kiss her when it was done. I knew he was smitten, and maybe my broken heart needed to see something good flourish. I gave him the push. And he more than kissed her after dinner and a movie. They made out in this very freaking car.
“Gross!” Hannah says, pretending to be disgusted by the steering wheel.
“Trust me. I detailed this baby after that, and he hasn’t driven it since.”
My eyes skim down her arm to where her hand grips the wheel, at home. Honestly, nobody else belongs behind the wheel of this car besides her. In some ways, I think she belongs driving it more than me.
Somehow, we managed to make two hours fly by without my stomach flipping once. But that easy feeling is gone now, stopped hard and cold by the harsh sign in the parking lot we just pulled into.
CASA PALOMINO
“Have we ever eaten here?” I don’t think we have, but Hannah would remember. She shakes her head and we swivel our attention to the parking lot, empty except for the two cars pulled up close to the back door.
“I didn’t think so. I read online that it’s supposed to be good. They probably aren’t open yet, though. Maybe we should get breakfast somewhere? Or drive by the other address I have, for her house.”
“Dustin,” Hannah says, reaching over and grasping my arm. My eyes dip to her touch and my lips part. I feel them quivering. I’m scared.
I swallow hard.
“Yes?”
“It’s going to be okay.”
I blink a few times before lifting my gaze to meet hers again. I accept her promise even if I don’t believe in the idea.
“Do you think that’s her car?” she asks, tilting her head toward the white sedan with Hawaiian flower stickers decorating the lower edge of the back window.
I lick my lips and search my instincts. I have no idea what this woman is like, if she’s the kind who dreams of islands and beaches or simply likes beautiful things. I can’t even picture her age, though I know from the report from the investigator that she’s forty-four. She was nineteen when I was born. So young. Probably scared shitless. I mean, look at the man she was tied to because of me.
Because of me.
She took off. Left me with him. Ran as far as she could. I ruined everything. I’m probably the reason she works as a waitress here instead of running some company or writing books or—
“Dustin, stop,” Hannah interrupts my spiral. My forehead is covered with a light sheen of sweat. I run my forearm over it and give in to the uncertain feeling, rolling my head to my left and staring at the only person who has ever truly understood me.