“Hurry up and go get your jackets if you want to go to the movies,” I told them, eyeing the boxes one last time.
They must have immediately forgotten our conversation in the car where we’d agreed to go to the movies, because both boys nodded and headed toward the front door. While they dropped off their backpacks, I let Mac outside even though he could let himself in and out through the doggy door, and refilled his bowl with water and food. Still in my work clothes, I didn’t feel like changing. Plus, we were going to the movies to watch the new Marvel movie, not to go husband hunting.
I was tired already. It’d be a miracle if I didn’t take a nap halfway through the film, no matter how good it was. But we didn’t get chances like these all the time. We probably went to the movies six times in a year with how busy things always were.
On the kitchen stoop, calling out for Mac to come back inside, I heard the loud sound of what could only be a big pickup truck rumbling down the street. It had to be Dallas. That made me smile. With no baseball this weekend, I wondered what he was planning on doing. He’d come home with us a couple of days ago to have dinner as a thank-you for helping out with our lice incident. That was the last time I’d seen him.
Back inside, I rushed the boys out the door, giving Mac a kiss and a promise that we didn’t have any plans for the weekend, for once. I couldn’t believe how much I was looking forward to just hanging out at home. But as I was locking the front door, I heard the boys yelling. And I heard grown men yelling back at them.
Dallas and Trip were outside, hanging out by the front of Trip’s motorcycle. It was the first time I’d seen the shiny Harley. It might have been because he was always lugging around Dean and sports equipment that he didn’t drive it to practice, but I figured a man in a motorcycle club would probably ride it often.
“You wanna come with us?” That was Louie hollering.
Hollering and inviting people as always.
“You’re going to the movies?” Dallas asked, diagonally crossing the street.
Louie rattled off the name of the movie we were watching, and our neighbor, still in his work clothes, glanced at his cousin and tipped his chin up. “What do you say? You wanna go, Trip?”
Trip straightened, catching my eye and winking. “Hey, honey. Mind if we tag along?”
I glanced at Dallas and exchanged a smile with him. He was so scruffy looking. I’d swear there was paint all over his forearms. “If you guys want to, we can squeeze into my car.”
The “hmm” that went through both men had me frowning. “What movie theater were you planning on going to?” Trip asked, and I answered. “Dean’s mom’s place is on the way. J, we could pick him up if you want.”
Like Josh was ever going to say no to hanging out with Dean. “Okay.”
“We won’t fit in your car, but we can go in mine,” Dallas offered.
I didn’t miss Trip’s slight wince.
Dallas didn’t miss his expression either because he gave him a frown. “What? My truck’s clean.”
“I don’t care what we go in,” I told them. “But we should probably go because the movie starts in an hour.”
Dallas glanced down at his clothes for a moment, but I waved him on. “You look fine. Let’s go.”
Trip and Dallas agreed to swap vehicles in the driveway, and in the next few minutes, Louie, Josh, and I loaded into the back, with Trip jumping into the front passenger seat after parking his bike in the driveway. Dean’s mom’s house really was on the way to the movie theater. Trip called her on the way over and Dean was already waiting outside when we pulled up.
“Diana, come ride up here so he can ride in the back with the boys,” Dallas suggested as he put the truck into park.
With another quick swap around of human bodies, I found myself in the center of Dallas’s bench seat, admiring how clean he managed to keep his truck. He wasn’t lying. Unlike his house, there were no wrappers anywhere and no signs of layers of dust. It was a miracle. The only things he had up front was an air freshener in the shape of a pine tree hanging off his rearview mirror and a pack of yellow Post-it notes sitting on the dashboard.
“It’s old, but it works,” the man in the driver seat said to me.
I glanced at him. “I didn’t say anything. I was just admiring how clean it is.”
“You can afford a new one,” Trip muttered.
Something about the way Dallas shook his head at the comment told me this was an old argument between them. The hand he had on the steering wheel gave the worn leather a long, gentle rub. “I don’t need to get another truck the second a new model comes out.”
“You’ve had this one for… what is this? A 1996?”
“A 1998,” came Dallas’s response.
I fidgeted in my seat, keeping my legs closed so that they wouldn’t touch either of theirs. “When did you get her?” I asked.
He nodded, his hand back at the top of the steering wheel, his other palm flat on the thigh furthest away from me. “Bought her brand new. She was my first.”
