Those things are just coincidences. I did not dress up for Sam. This is not a date.
Just an extremely awkward, nerve-wracking, so-far-tensely-silent jaunt to the local Tastee Freeze with an insanely attractive, incredibly appealing boy who makes me forget everything, including, but not limited to, how badly he hurt me, how I responded to that pain, and all the many reasons why we shouldn’t give this whole more-than-friends things a try.
I’m soooo glad I agreed to this! It isn’t uncomfortable or terrifying in the least!
Tugging on the hem of my skirt, I slide a very casual glance at the speedometer. Thirty-two mph. That’s not too fast. Not fast enough to do any major damage should someone…oh, I don’t know…jump out while we’re rounding a curve or something.
Hypothetically speaking.
But even as I reach for the door handle and remind myself to tuck and roll, a teeny tiny voice inside of me suggests that perhaps bolting out of a moving vehicle isn’t the best option.
Or the best way to prove I really do have faith like I told myself I’d have when Sam tossed out his I’m still in love with you yesterday morning in my kitchen.
I curl my fingers and rest my hand on my lap. Having faith is a lot easier said than done.
No wonder I haven’t tried it before.
Sam slows and turns into the Tastee Freeze parking lot. It’s packed, all the lined spaces taken, and we inch along, passing the dozen or so people in line to place their orders, then a few cars and two motorcycles parked at the edge of the grass. We drive behind the building and I see the picnic tables are crowded with people. Kids and dogs run around the grassy area.
Stopping by for a cone or sundae on a lazy, sunny, summer Sunday afternoon was such a freaking fabulous idea.
Sam’s waiting for a pickup to back out of a space, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel, when someone pounds on the back of the car, scaring the crap out of me and making Sam swear under his breath. A moment later, a grinning Graham appears at Sam’s side of the SUV, arms raised in victory. “Sammy!”
Graham has spotted Sam out in the wild. Back pats and high fives all around!
Sam nods at his friend then looks straight ahead, as if watching some guy take three times longer to exit a parking space than it should is the most riveting thing he’s ever seen.
Graham, though, will not be ignored.
He’s clueless like that.
“Sam-me, Sam-me, Sam-me!” Today’s chant is accompanied by raps on Sam’s window to the beat of a cha-cha.
Better than a hip thrust any day of the week.
Sam keeps looking out the windshield as if Graham hasn’t lifted his shirt (he has) and isn’t rubbing against the glass like a pasty human squeegee (he is).
“It’s like he’s made of play dough,” I say, horrified and enthralled as Graham does a full body roll, his stomach rippling against the glass. “I want to look away, but I can’t.”
Sam laughs, a short burst of sound that startles me. Makes me realize I haven’t heard him laugh in a long time.
Makes me want to hear it again.
He faces me, turning so his shoulders block most of the circus act outside his door. “Better?”
Graham now has his wide-open mouth on the window, like a fish stuck to the glass, and is puffing up his cheeks, his wiggling tongue in full, disturbing view. I wrinkle my nose. “Not really, no.”
Sam glances behind him then sighs and finally rolls down his window. “Dude, how many times have I told you not to lick my car? You’re washing off that spit mark.”
With a whatever flip of his floppy brown hair, Graham leans against the open window, arms crossed against the ledge. “Come on, we’ve got a table near the creek.”
“I’m with Hadley.”
Graham flicks a surprised glance my way, as if just noticing me sitting there.
Because I’m so hard to miss, what with my bright red hair and even brighter green shirt.
“We can make room for her,” he says with a shrug.
After an eleven-month banishment, I’ve once again been invited—with as little enthusiasm as possible, I might add—to the cool kids’ table.
Hooray.
The pickup finally vacates the parking spot and Sam pulls forward Graham, still leaning against the window, walks with us as we move. “I’ll save you a spot in line,” he tells Sam then straightens and gives the SUV one more slap before loping off.
Sam parks but leaves the engine running. The we Graham referred to at the table near the creek is Jackson, Travis, and Kenzie, Kenzie’s younger brother Ethan and Rachel Gerring, Melanie Reece and Wyatt Smith.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.
Whitney’s a new addition to that gang, sitting between Rachel and Kenzie, and she waves, all cheerful and smiling and, after our conversation yesterday morning, in full possession of many of my secrets.
That thought doesn’t terrify me like it should. Whitney is too honest, too honorable and just too nice to tell anyone what I told her in confidence.
Or maybe I’m delusional and she’s already told the entire table.
Guess we’ll find out.
At the moment, I’m going with me being a great judge of character. We’d hung out last night—me and Whitney. She’d insisted on coming over so my telling Sam I had plans with her wasn’t a lie. We hadn’t done much. Just watched TV and played with Taylor, but it was fun.
No, Whitney won’t tell my secrets. They’re safe.
Sam clears his throat. “We don’t have to sit with them if you don’t want to. We can eat in here.”
Eat in the Car of Silence? No thanks. I’d rather join the others. At least with them, I know what to expect: Everyone but Whitney will ignore me and I can eat my three scoops of mint chocolate chip in relative peace.
There’s no peace here. Not with Sam so close, smelling so good. Not when he’s acting so weird.
“I don’t mind sitting with them,” I say and his mouth thins. “Unless you don’t want to.”
He shrugs.
But he doesn’t get out. Doesn’t move except for his thumb, which is rubbing back and forth across the steering wheel.
“We don’t have to do this. Be” –I gesture between us— “here. Together. Like this…”
“You’re not changing your mind,” he says when I trail off. “You told me you’d give me a chance.” Leaning toward me, he takes my left hand. “Don’t back out on me now.”
My heart races. He’s still afraid I’ll run from him, and while I may have briefly considered doing just that, I wouldn’t have gone through with it.
And not just because it would have meant jumping out of the car.
I’ve spent the past seven years running from Sam, from how he makes me feel. It hasn’t worked.
Maybe it’s time to try something new.
Time to have that faith for real.
“I’m not. I haven’t.” I stare at our hands. His is so big and tan. So warm and steady. But his touch still has the power to unnerve me. To thrill me. “I thought you changed yours.”
“Are you ever going to trust me again?”
I lift my head. “What?”
“I told you I came back for you,” he reminds me, his quiet tone laced with an edge I don’t understand. He pulls his hand free and I have the strongest urge to grab it. To hold on to him. “Christ, Hadley, I told you I’m still in love with you! Did you think I was lying? That this is some game to me?”