She shifts in her seat, rummages around in the crinkly snack bag again. “I’m still hungry. Do you want anything? There’s a taco truck down the block. We could run and grab?—”
“Lola.” My voice is thin. I check the time on the dash again and exhale. “We’re almost done,” I say. “If the delivery doesn’t show in the next ten minutes, we'll pack it up and come back tomorrow.”
Lola sighs dramatically. “I’m withering away. My organs are eating themselves.”
“Good. Maybe they’ll start with your mouth.”
She flips me off with cheese-dusted fingers.
I look past her, toying with the end of my straw, and letting my attention drag across the surrounding landscape. A couple of dumpsters and a fire escape in the alley to Otto’s Music, a faded mural on the rear entrance of an old apothecary, a line of parked cars down the street, and an overnight parking lot.
A dark truck rolls by, slow enough that the unicorn skull and crossbones bumper sticker grabs my attention.
What are the chances that someone else’s brothers had a custom-made sticker that specific? And it just so happens to be on the same SUV I saw in the Calloway driveway the other day?
My gaze flies to the driver. My pulse detonates at the familiar profile.
Gage.
I blink twice, as if that’ll change it. It doesn’t.
The truck turns the corner and disappears from my line of sight, but I know how these streets curve, how this road ends abruptly in a dead end that leads to a wide walking trail a block down.
If I don’t see his truck in thirty seconds, then I know he parked somewhere behind us. My mind spins with the implications.
Lola crumples the snack bag and shoves it between the seats. “I’m serious, Bells. I’m gonna go in there and pretend to buy a ukulele and find the delivery schedule if?—”
“I’m hungry,” I announce.
She blinks. “That’s my line.”
“I’m stealing it,” I say, setting my iced coffee in the cupholder. “You want anything? I’ll go to one of the food trucks and grab something.”
She stares at me for a second, suspicious. “Nowyou’re hungry?”
“Apparently my stomach needs attention, too.” I shove my sunglasses up onto my nose to avoid her gaze. “Do you want something or not?”
“Fries,” she decides. “And a soda. And if you don’t come back, I’m calling Beck.”
“Duly noted.”
I slip out of the SUV before she can ask any more questions and shut the door gently, like that will somehow muffle the sound of my heartbeat.
The heat hits me first—heavy, baked concrete and faint oil, the hum of an AC unit working double-time. I stroll down the sidewalk, just a girl casually going to get fries and whatever else my sister said.
I spot the truck half a block down, tucked along the curb on the side street. Same dent. Same faded sticker on the bumper. Same ache under my ribs.
I could keep walking, pretend I never saw it.
Instead, my feet carry me straight to the passenger side.
He’s in the driver’s seat, profile tipped slightly down, one hand on the wheel, the other resting loose on his thigh. He’s not even looking at me when I yank the door open and slide into the passenger seat.
The passenger door thunks shut behind me, sealing in the hum of the A/C and the scent of him—citrus, sun, and something darker, something I never forgot even when I swore I had.
He doesn’t startle. Of course he doesn’t.
He just flicks his eyes from his phone to me, lazy as sin, like he knew I’d climb into this truck. I hate the idea of being a foregone conclusion.
