“You’re sitting up front,” she told me. “My house is first.”
Huh—?
But she shoved me at the door of the huge, black Ford Raptor and pulled open the back door, climbing into the truck before I could utter an argument.
Seriously?
I yanked open the door and stepped up into the truck, ignoring Will’s eyes as I plopped my ass down and slammed the door.
But just then, the back door opened again, and I shot a glance over my shoulder, watching Elle quickly exit the truck again and close the door.
“What are you…?”
She walked past my window, swinging around and moving backward as she winked at me. “Have a safe ride!” she sing-songed, doing a taunting little wave.
What the…? I stopped breathing as realization dawned. This was a trick. Dammit.
The locks clicked, the parking lot still swarmed with people, and I was officially done for the day, shaking my head as I watched her disappear into the crowd.
“That’s what I get for trying to make a friend,” I grumbled.
I pulled my seatbelt on, glaring over at Will as a smile curled his lips and he started the engine.
So clever, wasn’t he? Must’ve worked that out with her in the thirty seconds it took for me to get off the bus.
He pulled ahead, driving through the empty space ahead of us, and exited the parking lot, turning up the volume as “In Your Room” played on the stereo.
We drove down the road, heading back toward the village, and I clasped my hands in my lap as my bag and flute sat on the floor.
It smelled good in here. The leather seats cooled the backside of my thighs, and my stomach dropped a little as he went over the bumps and dips.
The darkness of the cab engulfed us, hiding us, and it felt private. Like we were alone somewhere we shouldn’t be.
Sneaking a glance, I watched his long fingers drape over the T of the steering wheel and then looked up to his face, seeing his eyes narrowed on the road ahead and the unusually stern expression on his face.
His chest rose and fell, steady and controlled, and if there was one thing I knew about Will Grayson III, it was that when he was in control you should worry.
Like in the pool last night.
When he got serious, he got to me.
I looked back down at my lap, breathing hard and feeling a little sick because my body was raging with a lot of different things.
I liked it.
We crawled closer to my house, and he hadn’t said a word, but I didn’t care. I just soaked up the feeling for as long as I could. Feeling him next to me. Riding with him. The goosebumps on my legs, because I felt kind of pretty in the skirt now. Did he like it?
He turned onto my street, and I clutched the hem of my shirt, seeing my house ahead, but I didn’t want to leave him.
He drove too fast, though. Why was he driving so fast? He had to stop in a second.
But we passed my house, not stopping or even slowing, and I popped my head up, looking back at my place through his back window.
He maintained speed, not slowing as my house came and went, disappearing again.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, despite my heart leaping a little. “You have to take me home,” I said. “I can’t be late.”
I couldn’t muster any more than a soft voice, because I really didn’t want to go home. I just knew I had to.
Finally, he glanced over at me. “What are you afraid will happen? You’re good at saying no to me, right? You can stay with me for another hour.”
I arched a brow. What the hell was he going to try that would make me need to say no?
I checked the clock on the dash. It was only 9:19. As long as I was home by ten, Martin probably wouldn’t ask questions. Probably.
He would know the bus had arrived already, though.
Will drove us through the neighborhood and pulled onto Old Pointe Road, heading toward Adventure Cove.
I tensed. What was he up to? The place closed at eight, and there was nothing else out here.
He turned and pulled into the parking lot of the theme park, the whole place empty for the night. He stopped the truck, not really bothering to fit into any particular space, but he kept the engine running and turned down the radio.
I let my eyes trail around the deserted lot, the empty ticket booths and darkened rides looming beyond the entrance gates. One single overhead light shone on the parking lot.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as he leaned back in his seat, staring out the window as the weight of the silence made my heart skip a beat.
“Do you see the Ferris wheel?” he finally asked.
I followed his gaze, looking out my window and finding the Ferris wheel to the right, on the edge of the theme park.
“If you head past it,” he said, “about five-hundred yards east, you’ll come to Cold Point.”
Cold Point was a part of the cliffs that jutted out into the sea a little more than the rest of the coastline between here and Falcon’s Well. With the theme park in the way, it was nearly inaccessible now.
And for good reason, given its history.
“Do you know that story?” he asked me.
“Murder-suicide,” I muttered.
He was quiet, and then I heard his soft, “Maybe.”
I turned my eyes to him as he leaned his head on his hand and stared ahead.
“In 1954, Edward McClanahan was my age,” he told me. “Senior, basketball star, bit of a bad boy, but only where it counted…” He smiled, teasing me. “He was good to people. He showed up for people, you know?”
I didn’t know much about Edward McClanahan, other than the basketball team made an annual pilgrimage to his grave. I never really cared.
But I stayed quiet.
“That season was supposed to be their greatest,” he said. “They had the team, the coach, the years of training… They could anticipate each other’s moves, even their thoughts.” He met my eyes. “That’s what years of playing together had brought them to. They were a family. More than family. They were in perfect symbiosis.”
Like the Horsemen. Watching them sometimes, the other players didn’t exist. Michael, Kai, Damon, and Will were like the four limbs of a single body.
“And that rarely happens,” he continued. “They relied on each other and would do anything for each other, and they were going all-conference. Everyone was hyped for what was coming that season. The games, the parties, the celebrations…”
I wondered how true all of that was. He painted a nice picture, but we believe what it suits us to believe, and nothing more. Everything seemed better in hindsight.
He smiled. “Elvis had just hit the scene, everyone wanted a Chevy Bel Air, and “Sh-Boom” by the Crew-Cuts was the number one song in America.” His face fell a little, and he continued, “Homecoming Night, a girl from Falcon’s Well—one of our rivals—showed up at our high school dance. Alone and wearing a pink dress of lace and tulle. The twinkle lights above the dance floor glittered across her hair and bare shoulders as she walked in, and no one could take their eyes off her. She was so nervous, knowing she didn’t belong there.” He paused, turning his head and holding my eyes. “Feeling like a mouse in a snake pit. She kept holding her stomach like she was going to throw up or something. But she was pretty. So pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.”