“Don’t be so sure. The fumes might get me.”
He shot me a look. “Take shallow breaths.”
Dear God. No one should make me feel so good while being so absurd. That supposedly insurmountable wall around my heart was made of LEGOs, damn it. Thin plastic, full of cracks.
“The circumstances aren’t ideal at all,” he went on. “But we can still find a silver lining. Make something good come of it. I mean, it’s gotta mean something that our road trip mobile smells like a hundred Belindas in high heels and dresses packed into the Rock Gulch, Alabama, Twenty-Third Church of the Redeemer on a Sunday morning, right? That’s the scent of righteousness.”
“It’s choking me,” I gurgled.
He took a wrapped candy out of his pocket and held it over the console. “Honey drop?”
So I could start to smell like him? So I couldhelphim assault my senses? But when I coughed again, I grabbed the candy in desperation as I rolled the window open a bit again.
This trip was literally doomed.
“I order them specially from this organic place in Tennessee,” Jay went on, filling the silence like he thought it might stop me from arguing with him. “I’m kind of addicted to them. At first it was because I’d been playing a lot in smoky bars and I’d heard somewhere that they’d help my voice, but then it was just because I liked the taste. They remind me of your mom and how she’d make us honey tea on rainy afternoons. You know, I tried for a whole winterto figure out what kind of tea she used that tasted so good and always made me feel better? When I finally got to ask her the next summer, she said there was no tea at all, just a jar of orange and lemon slices covered in honey. Remember, Rafe?”
I stared at him, transfixed, letting the power of his voice wash over me. Even when he was chattering about nothing, listening to him speak was more soothing than all the honey in the world.Dangerouslysoothing.
This trip to Wyoming wasnotsupposed be about repairing our friendship, damn it, because that was impossible. It was about seeing through my obligation to Aimee.
Yet the temptation was incredible.
“I remember,” I admitted grudgingly. “She’d keep mason jars of it around all the time just for you.” I rubbed a hand over my face and tried again. “Jay…”
“You look tired,” he interrupted. “Did you sleep at all?” His eyes flashed toward me again, filled with concern. But was it concern about me or concern that I wouldn’t go along with his plan?
“Not much,” I admitted.
“Because you were worried about flying.”
“Partly.”
“And worried about Aimee.”
“That too.”
Jay nodded once. “Because youareresponsible, and youdocare. I knew it. Just rest, Rafe. Trust me to drive for a little while, alright? Let me do this. Everything else can wait.”
I sighed. Could it, though, when the other thing I’d been worrying about was sitting right next to me?
He was everything I’d ever wanted and wasalsothe man who’d walked away from our friendship. I couldn’t trust him for shit.
Before I could argue further, though, Jay turned up the radio on some Top 40 station and started humming along in his deep, lovely voice. It felt like a private concert—the kind people all over the world would kill to experience—sitting up close and personal withtheJayd Rollins, seeing him bite his lip and tuck his hair behind his ear, watching his long-fingered hands tap out a percussion solo on the steering wheel with a kind of effortless, graceful talent that I’d never admit to his face that he possessed.
There were really,reallygood reasons why I shouldn’t want any of this—the attraction, the doomed attempt at getting friendly again, the strolling down a thorny, rocky memory lane.
But I wasn’t thinking of any of them as I gave a jaw-cracking yawn and let my eyes drift shut.
“I can’t believe summer’s almost over.” Jay’s voice was as soft and lazy as the gentle swells that rocked our raft where it was docked in a little cove.
Neither could I. Mere days until Jay left again for nine whole months, back to his school and his friends, back to his real life. It was weird how fast the summers flew by and how long the winter dragged on without my favorite person around. I hated thinking about it.
“Someday, I’m gonna write a song about this summer. About you. It’s gonna be my breakout song. I’m gonna play it at Iron Pipes someday.”
I turned my chin toward him without opening my eyes.“Oh yeah? You’re gonna write a song about getting sunburnt, drinking cheap beer, swimming naked, and hiding from my annoying kid brother?” The alcohol had made me sleepy, and sunshine made colored fractals explode on the inside of my closed lids. “You think that’ll score you an invite to Iron Pipes?”
Jay laughed, and like always, my eyes forced themselves open so I could catch a glimpse of it, ’cause seeing my best friend happy made my own chest go tight with happiness. “Something like that. You’ll have to wait and see.” His eyes opened too, and his green gaze was curiously intense. “I hope you’ll like it.”
