“Our little Quinn finished at Notre Dame in three years,” he says proudly. “Runs Frosted over on High Street now.”
Lucas looks from my brother to me. “The bakery.”
“Yeah,” I reply.
He smiles again. “I remember your cooking. Missed your pizza.”
My whole body warms. It warms too much, and I’m boiling.
“You okay?” Madoc asks me.
“Yes,” I say, but it comes out as more of a pant. “I need a ride home. Since I’m not allowed to ride my bike or run in the dark.”
Madoc laughs and Jared and Jax walk up.
“We got you,” Jax says.
Yeah, I know. In the far recesses of my brain, maybe it would’ve been incredible for Lucas to give me a ride, but I know that wouldn’t have happened.
They start to walk out, and Lucas takes his drink but drops his straw. I bend down, but so does he, accidentally hitting the cap off my head. The long pieces of hair notsecured in my braid fall out, and we squat there, only inches between us. That afternoon at the lake comes back as clear as day when we were under the dock. I look at him through the locks hanging in my face.
He’s not smiling anymore. And I can’t breathe again.
I pick up the cap. “Here. You said to hold onto it until you got back.”
I hand it to him.
But he shakes his head, gently pushing it back to me. “Hang on to it for a little while longer. I’ll get it before I leave.”
So, I’m going to see him once more before he goes?
I rise and so does he. “Goodnight,” I say.
He doesn’t reply, just looks at me like he’s lost. His gaze lingers on me before his brow deepens and he swallows.
“Quinn?” Jax calls.
But my shoes sprout roots, keeping me locked in front of Lucas for another moment. Then two.You could give me a ride like you used to, I want to say to him.He could tell my brothers we need to catch up. Tell them he wants to see the bakery.
I don’t wait for him to say it, though. I turn and leave, resisting the urge to look back, because my brothers are watching, and I already know what they’ll think.
Lucas Morrow and I are too old to play together now.
Lucas
The muscles in my arms burn as I stare up at the ceiling of my old bedroom. That same branch outside scrapes against the window pane in the wind, and the scent of the vanilla candles my mom used to burn linger in the air.
I always remember stuff like that. The little things.
They stick in my memory more than faces or conversations.
More than any holiday.
More than my dad’s funeral. That was a blur. But I guess it would be. I was only eight.
I remember how the seatbelt smelled in his old Buick. The sounds of the heavy doors clicking shut. The argument he and Mom had over whether the light above the stove was a nightlight or not, and the crusty feel of my bath towel when I left it on the radiator to dry during a snowy December night.
I remember Madoc.
