I’m giddy, and I don’t even try to hide it because it reminds me of the time he had me cut class with him to drive to another field—a field full of daisies.
When he returns from opening the gate, we drive only a few yards before he stops again. I crane my neck to look around us, but it’s almost pitch black where the headlights don’t reach. “Do you have your phone on you?” Holden asks.
“Yes, why?”
“Dang, so they can trace your body.”
“Holden!” I screech, backhanding his chest.
He feigns hurt, rubbing at the spot. “I’m kidding. But I do have to blindfold you now.”
“Stop it.” I cross my arms. “No.”
“You’re going to ruin my surprise,” he says, and then he pouts, and that stupid pout does something to me.
Two minutes later, I’m blindfolded, alone in the car, and I can hear him moving things from the back of his truck, then slight sounds I can only describe as pops of air. He opens and closes the back door, and a few moments later, he’s right beside me. He doesn’t say a word as he grips my waist, pulling me from the seat. I wish I had time to hold on to him before he plants my feet on the ground. He takes my hand, as if all of this is completely normal, and leads me a couple of steps away. Heat floats against my flesh, different from the outside temperature, and I bounce on my toes, the anticipation getting the best of me.
Then, standing behind me, Holden settles his hands on my hips. “Ready?” he asks, and I’m so grateful he’s behind me, so he can’t see how pathetically wide my grin is.
I nod, and he removes the blindfold completely. A giggle bursts from my lips as I turn to him. “This is amazing!” Before I can count all the tiki torches surrounding me, he’s leading me away again, this time to the back of his truck, where a blow-up mattress lays. I turn to him, my brow knitted.
He’s pressing his lips together to stop from laughing.
“What are—”
“It’s not what it looks like,” he says through a chuckle. “I swear.” He draws a cross over his heart.
“Then what is it?”
After a shrug, he states, “Remember when I gave you that product catalog?”
I nod.
“And you saw pictures of this place… you said that if you lived here, you’d sleep under the stars every night.” He shrugs. “So, that’s what we’re doing. Just sleeping.”
I turn to him, my heart in my throat. “You remember that?”
“I remember it all, Jamie,” he murmurs, offering me his hand to help climb onto the bed. But the truck is enormous, and he has to practically lift me onto it.
There’s more than just the mattress and blankets back here. There are bags of chips and candy and cans of soda. “I didn’t have time to prepare, so it’s the best I could do,” he says, effortlessly jumping on the bed. He settles in with his back against the cab, his knees up and apart. He taps the spot between his legs. “Come here.”
I don’t even hesitate. I just do as he asks. And I know that we’re blurring the lines, but I don’t seem to care. Just like I don’t care that he’s still damp from our water fight, especially when he envelops me in his warmth as he wraps his arms around me. He tucks me in closer, and I cozy in, resting my back against his hard chest.
“Do you remember The Question Game?” he asks, his chin on my shoulder.
I half turn to smile up at him. “I do.” The Question Game never belonged to us, though. It was always his and Mia’s. And even though we didn’t play it often, I still remember the rules. “You don’t have to answer every question, but you at least have to acknowledge it.”
“And if you do answer?” he asks.
“Then you have to answer in truth.”
His grin is stupid. “That’s some memory you got there, Jameson Taylor.”
I wonder if I should tell him that most of my memories consist of him.
“Want to play?” he asks. “Because I have a ton of questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like… did you ever go back to school like you’d planned?”
I shake my head, wrap his arms tighter around me. “No. I kind of focused on myself that first year after I got to Gina’s. I worked a few days a week serving at a restaurant, and then I found other work I could do from home or on the road.”
“What kind of work?”
“Transcribing audio, running social media accounts. That kind of thing. And speaking of, you guys have, like, no social media presence.”
“Stalk much?” he says through a chuckle.
“I was curious.” I shrug. “You should really get on that.”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about it.”
“Step one?” I say, “Set up an Instagram account for the company and post a shirtless picture of you in the greenhouse. The girls will come a-flocking.”
His laughter is deep, a slow rumble that I feel right in my chest. “You haven’t even seen me shirtless lately!”
“Oh, but I can imagine,” I mumble. “I bet you’re exactly the same but manlier. Just don’t make it look like a thirst trap. Make it look like you’re working, you know?”
His head moves from side to side as he stares me down.
“Want me to set it up for you?” I ask, hand out for his phone.
After reaching into his pocket for it, he unlocks it before handing it to me. The background picture is of him and the same little boy whose face and artwork cover his fridge. We work together to set up the account, including a short bio and links, and when I’m done, I hand his phone back to him and reveal my own. “Mind if I follow you from afar? I’m kind of excited to see what you do with the place.”
He nods, eyes right on mine. “Go ahead.”
I find the new account quickly and hit follow. “Okay, my turn. Question.”
He nods again.
“Why are you doing all this? The water fight and the sleeping under the stars?”
His shrug is lazy, as if the answer should be obvious. “I just want to make you happy.”
Those words alone create an undeniable ache in my chest. I look away, so he doesn’t catch my smile fading. This is the fault in our fate, our one undoing: All he’s ever wanted is my happiness, even when it costs him his own.
“What?” he asks, and I shake my head. “Did I say something wrong?”
I push down the knot in my throat. “No.”
“Jamie.” He lifts me until I’m sitting sideways, my legs over his. I’m not sitting on his lap, but I may as well be. He holds a hand to the side of my face as his eyes search mine. “I obviously hit a nerve.”
“You didn’t.” I remove his hand and hold it in both of mine. “It’s fine. Who’s turn is it?”
“Mine.” He watches me a second longer, and when I don’t give in to my hurt, he says, his voice low, “When did you stop drawing?”
“Wow. We’re going straight to the hard stuff, huh?”
“I have one night with you and five years’ worth of questions.”
“Right.” I suck in a breath, hold it, and try to come up with a response that’s just enough to satisfy him. “After Beaker died and the cops went through his house, the main thing they were focused on was the drug lab in his basement. I’d always known it was there, but I never really caught on to why. It’s obvious now that he was dealing. It turns out he was trying to create a new, affordable drug similar to oxycodone that wasn’t heroin or meth. So you can imagine what it was like living with daily drug trials…”