“I’m gonna miss this place,” I said wistfully.
Liam stepped up next to me, laughing softly. “I’m looking forward to not banging my elbows and knees off the walls when I shower.”
“Oh please,” I said with an eye roll. “You’re going to miss it too. Admit it.”
I looked up at him, and our gazes snagged for one heartbeat—then two, then three.
Finally, he said, “Fine, Wildflower. You’re right. I’ll miss this place too.”
Somehow, I didn’t think he meant only the cabin.
Somehow, like me, I thought he meant the memories we’d made there.
But those memories proved to be the very reason I was squirming in my seat a couple hours down the road. The energy in the van was charged with electricity, being in such close proximity after all the revelations of South Dakota sending a current across my skin.
Liam wasn’t doing anything wrong. In fact, he was being his typical self. Mostly quiet, content to listen to the Steve Cavanagh legal thriller audiobook we’d started on the trip from Rochesterto the Badlands. But unlike him, I couldn’t focus on anything the narrator was saying, damn near going out of my mind with whatever was crawling through my veins.
Unable to stand it anymore, I slammed my finger into the pause button on his phone, sat up and turned in my seat to face him, saying, “Let’s play twenty questions.”
His left brow rose as he cut his eyes to me. “Alright…” he said slowly.
“I’ll go first!” I tapped my finger to my chin, trying to conjure a really good one from the depths of my mind. There were so many things I wanted to know about him—like…everything—and I had no idea where to begin.
So I started with a softball. “What’s your favorite gas station snack?”
“I don’t eat gas station snacks.”
I groaned. “Don’t be a spoil sport, Wills.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his beard. “Okay fine. I have a weakness for gas station hot dogs.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Gross.”
“They’re not like a foundational part of my diet,” he said, chuckling at my expression. “But every now and then, I get a hankering.”
“Ahankering?” I parroted. “What are you, fifty?”
He reached out and flicked my nose. “Thirty-four, thank you very much.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Brat.”
“Old man.”
Mouths stretched wide in matching grins, mine so big my cheeks hurt, Liam and I simply stared at each other for so long that he drifted toward the shoulder, the rumble strips vibrating under our tires finally snapping us out of it.
Fuck, I was in so much trouble where he was concerned.
“My turn,” he said roughly.
I shifted myself so I faced the road, deciding looking at him dead-on was too dangerous—for both of us.
“Shoot.”
“Which of your sisters is your favorite?”
“Liam!” I squeaked, turning to smack him on the arm. “You can’t ask me that!”
