The admission hangs in the air between us, loaded with possibility and danger.
“That’s impossible, Boone. You know it,” she breathes.
“We seem to specialize in impossible,” Jesse points out.
“People will see.”
“There’s no one here but us,” I say, gesturing to the nearly empty parking lot.
“Someone could drive by.”
“Someone could,” Wyatt agrees. “But they haven’t.”
She looks at the three of us, unable to hide the war going on behind her eyes. Want versus logic. Desire versus safety.
“Not sure about this,” she says finally.
Okay,” Jesse replies.
“I should go home.”
“Probably,” I agree. “But do you want to?”
She opens her mouth to answer, then closes it.
“Because the way I see it,” Jesse continues, “you have two choices. You can go home, climb into your safe little bed, and pretend none of this ever happened.”
“Or?” she asks.
“Or you can come with us and see what happens when you stop fighting what you want.”
“Where would we go?”
“Somewhere we can talk without worrying about who might see us,” Wyatt says.
“Just talk?”
“For now,” I say. “Unless you want more.”
Her cheeks flush pink in the streetlight.
“One hour,” she says finally. “And then I go home.”
“One hour,” Jesse agrees, but his smile suggests he’s planning on making that hour count.
“Where?” she asks.
“Leave your truck here,” Wyatt says. “Ride with us.”
“Is that safe?”
“Probably not,” I admit.
She considers this for a moment, then drops her keys back into her purse. “Let’s go,” she says.
“Let’s go.”
Wyatt drivesus up to Miller’s Ridge, a spot about fifteen minutes outside town where you can see for miles in every direction. It’s where teenagers come to park and where adults come when they need to think, far enough from everything to feel like you’re alone in the world.
