He doesn’t tell me to move them.
He doesn’t tell me not to.
When we turn down my road, the lights thin out fast. Daddy’s place sits back from the highway, porch light burned out because he keeps meaning to fix it and never does.
His rig won’t be back until Sunday. Maybe later.
Oaks kills the engine and the sudden quiet feels loud.
I slide off slow. My legs are shaky. My palms tingle.
“Thanks,” I say.
Weak word.
“You shouldn’t be by yourself right now,” he replies.
I try for humor. “It ain’t like I murdered someone.”
He turns his head just enough that I see the corner of his mouth move.
“I danced with you.” I blink. “That ain’t a crime.”
“In this world,” he says calm, “depends who’s watching.”
The night smells like cut grass and hot asphalt and leftover fear.
“I wasn’t sure you remembered,” he says.
He studies me through the dark.
“It was nothing,” I lie, and my voice comes out too quick.
He says it like he’s trying to convince himself. “It was nothing.”
It lands harder than it should.
“She thinks I’m attached,” he continues. “And when Bethany thinks she’s losing something, she doesn’t get sad. She gets even.”
“I heard you’re not exactly faithful,” I say, and I hate myself for sounding like I’m fishing.
He doesn’t flinch. “I haven’t been.”
My chest tightens anyway.
“But I don’t cheat with my heart,” he adds.
My breath catches.
“That’s what she’s mad about,” he says, quieter.
“That we didn’t?” I ask.
“Yeah.” His voice drops lower. “That I didn’t fuck you. She knows I could’ve.”
I cross my arms. “You would’ve?”
“Not that night,” he says. “Not with you drunk as a skunk. But under different circumstances? Yeah.”
