“Brayden, before you leave, take Leleila for a spin around the floor,” his father calls out.
“Dad, we’re not dancers.”
“Well, neither are we,” he says as he nearly runs his wife into the fireplace because he’s so busy looking over his shoulder at us. “Get on up here and let Leleila practice for one song.”
Brayden’s eyes are apologetic as he turns to me. “He won’t let up until we do it.” He holds out his hand. “Just one song?”
I inhale and take his hand. Luke’s words are haunting me, and I feel like I’m in a twilight zone as I follow Brayden onto the floor.
As we start to dance, I’m so focused on not messing up the steps that I don’t pick my head up once. I’ve got my eyes set squarely on my feet, and it’s working out all right. Brayden and I haven’t run into each other yet.
“Eye contact is the key, dear,” Edna says to me. “The connection between partners is what makes a great dance.”
I bring my gaze up reluctantly to meet Brayden’s.
“Excellent!” Brayden’s dad says when the song mercifully ends.
He sounds like a dance instructor. I thank him and step back awkwardly.
And then we say our goodbyes.
Brayden’s mother insists on giving me a bag of chocolate chip cookies to take home with me.
“But you should keep them,” I protest.
“You appreciate them so much,” she says. “It’s like you’ve never had a homemade chocolate chip cookie before! It thrills me to give them to you.”
I take them from her and impulsively hug her goodbye. Brayden follows me out the door and down the path to his truck.
I comment on the beautiful garden as we pass it.
“Now that my dad’s retired, they have more time to do things like grow a garden.” He chuckles. “They used to say all they had time to do before was grow kids and a family.”
I get into the truck and bite my lip. My parents’ yard is filled with weeds like nobody’s ever walked in it. Mom and Dad travel too much to spend any time taking care of the land. And my parents’ house felt nothing like Brayden’s. It was always freezing because Dad believed that spending money on heat was a waste of finances. He said we were a tough bunch, and if he could live on a beach in a tent with no running water for three weeks, then he could surely live in an insulated home without jacking up the heat just to feed the gas company.
I wait until we’re out of sight of the house before I speak.
“Did you tip off the authorities about Noah?”
Brayden’s hands tighten on the wheel, and he pulls off to the side of the ranch road.
He puts the truck in park and turns to face me.
“Yes,” he says simply.
I stare at him, torn between wanting to kiss him and question him.
“Why?” I ask him. “I was a stranger to you, and it was a risk to alert the authorities. What if he found out you’d done that and tried to get revenge somehow?”
“I made sure my tip couldn’t be traced,” he says. “And you were never a stranger to me, Leleila. You always felt familiar. I would never have betrayed your trust by telling your story, but I wanted that jerk to be punished for what he did. More than that, though, I wanted you safe.”
“So you found a way to get him kicked out of my school and out of town.”
Brayden’s jaw ticks. “I didn’t know your name or where you lived. I couldn’t be sure if you went to school in Mountainview. But because of football, I knew who he was. And so I figured if he left the area, he’d leave you alone.”
We sit in silence for a moment until Brayden says, “Well, I’d better get you back.”
“Brayden.” Emotion clogs my throat as I reach out and grab his arm. He turns back, and without thinking about it, I pull him toward me and kiss him quickly on the cheek. I can feel him trembling underneath me, and I rein my lips back from going to his mouth and touching every part of him I can reach.
