“Drive fast for me, Dustin. Like you used to,” she says, rolling her head to the side and waiting for me to agree. This is a request I can grant, and I meet her gaze with a devilish grin as I come to a complete stop in the center of the desert road that leads from her parents’ street.
“You ready?”
She merely shifts her gaze to the road ahead as her lip tugs up on the side, her hands folded in her lap like a courtesan ready for a ride through the country. My girl—she’s never been nervous breaking top speeds with me on these roads. If anything, she tests me to go faster. And since that means I’ll be staring at her in the middle of my apartment sooner, I give her exactly what she wants.
We’re flying well over one-twenty within seconds, the road empty for miles ahead, the Supra hugging the lines of the road as I slip from the right lane to straddle the middle. If she really wants a rush, I could turn off the lights. I’ve done that a few times when I want to wake up my soul—when I want to remind myself that the edge is sharp and dangerous. I won’t go that far with her, though. I promised to keep her safe. And I will. But I do love to hear her squeal, so I push us faster, nearing two-hundred as her mouth stretches into a wide open grin. And seconds before I have to slow us down near the junction, she does it—she howls like a wild animal spotting their first kill.
My hungry lioness. Always chasing the need to go faster. Always . . . with me.
I slow the drive up the hill. Partly, I want Hannah to experience the way this desert brush grows thick and the moon lights up the center stripe that cuts up the mountainside. I’m not sure she’ll remember, but she and I rode our bikes up here once. At least a mile up. Not the full drive I’m making now, but it was one of those days that was especially hard for me to be home with Colt. He’d been drinking and my fake mom was rarely awake. I raced out of that trailer with a half-eaten bag of chips grasped in my hand, hungry because there hadn’t been breakfast or dinner the night before. He tore it as I fled through the door and the chips scattered down the steps. I paused just long enough to mourn them as my stomach rumbled and in that tiny break, Colt clawed at my back, ripping out some of my hair and drawing three bloody lines between my shoulder blades.
I hopped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could to the Judges’ house, but everyone was busy. Everyone but Hannah. She gave me Tommy’s bike since my tires were running out of air, and we rode together for hours. It was her idea to ride on this road. It used to be private. Part of it still is, owned by some man who used to keep horses. He passed away a decade ago, but his family still holds title to the land. They sold the bottom acreage off to the condo developer, and it felt like a sign that I was meant to live here.
I glance to Hannah as we near the back garage. Her gaze has been fixed to her window, but I can see enough of her profile to see the start of a smile playing at her lips. She remembers.
“The ride down was so much better,” I say as we wait for the garage door to lift.
She turns to face me and that timid grin grows.
“Says the boy who did not skin both his knees.” She folds her arms over her chest and leans back to shoot me a playful and accusatory expression.
My head falls to the side with my laugh as I pull into the garage and close the door behind us before we step out. Nobody needs to see us here. No eyes means no mouths to share our secret.
“I told you to brake from the beginning,” I say, opening my door as soon as it feels safe to. I move to her side but she’s already got hers open. My gentleman’s days are over, it seems.
“I thought you were trying to slow me up so you could beat me down the hill.” She slams her door, but her smile says she’s still joking.
“I mean, yeah. That’s not wrong. But I didn’t want you to eat pavement, either.”
She wiggles her head with puckered lips, silently mocking me and my excuses as we relive our youth. Our eyes flirt for a few seconds, and my pulse picks up. When it’s clear we’re no longer laughing, that the pull of sexual tension has moved back into our space, I breathe it in and tilt my head toward the entry door.
“We should head in before the lights go out in here.” I hold my hand out and Hannah’s eyes flit toward it. She blinks twice, her mouth curved into a devious little smile, but eventually slips her hand into mine.
I lead her through the garage entry, passing through the small mudroom where Tommy keeps his snowboard, and the laundry room that’s been ignored for too many days. She starts to shake her head at me for being bad at keeping house, but her scolding doesn’t last but a second as the reason I wanted her here comes into view.
“Oh, Dustin.” Hannah moves past me, our hands slipping apart as she steps through the open living space toward the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the trickling water in the creek and the small town that made us who we are lit up below.
“This place is pretty beautiful from up here,” I say, stepping close behind her. My hands hover at her hips, but I curl my fingers into fists and drop them in my pockets.
Hannah turns to meet my eyes and show off her smile, her hair flirting with my chest as she looks to me then turns back to face the view.
“It’s magical. I didn’t realize how high we were.” She moves close enough to press her palms to the glass and lean forward, resting her head on the cold window pane. I remain where I am so I can experience this through her eyes.
“It’s the only row of condos that has the view of the creek and the town. The trees get too thick on the east side of the hill.”
She rolls her head so her eyes can follow the trail of lights that spans only a few miles and looks like spilt glitter.
“Camp Verde is spectacular from up here. I never would have known.”
The town is aglow with holiday lights, a mile’s worth along the main drag that is lit up beginning on Thanksgiving night every year. Rooftops puff smoke and show off rainbows of bulbs and twinkling icicles.
Last year, on Christmas, it snowed, and it was as if I were staring into a life-sized snow globe. I want Hannah to be here for that, should it snow again. I want her to be here for the sunrise—every sunrise. And the sunsets too. I want to watch the spring blossoms catch the wind and land in the water below with her at my side, and to open the windows wide on summer nights and breathe in the faint smell of pine and red dirt and rain.
“We never rode our bikes this far, did we?” She looks to me over her shoulder.
I shake my head.
“I’m pretty sure we would have died on the way down from here.”
Her eyes hold mine hostage for a full breath and I find it hard to shake my smile.
“What a place to die, though.” She turns her back to the scene below and steps closer, pulling her sweater from her arms, and her wallet, phone, and keys from her pockets. She bundles it all into a ball that she rests on the edge of the sofa then circles the room, taking long, slow strides while her eyes roam the cavernous ceiling and rafters above.
“I always thought your black-and-white collage of me, you, and Tommy would look good there,” I say, motioning to the towering blank wall that soars over the sleek, silver fireplace.
“I think that wall would swallow it up,” she says, looking on with one eye squinted.
“You’ll have to create something else for me then, something special, made just for this place.”