An hour later, we were both showered, dressed and ready for my planned day of hooky but I threw him a curveball that immediately made him look endearingly apprehensive.
“I’m driving,” I announced.
“You?”
“That’s right. You need to relax. Let me show you a good time for a change.”
He grinned. “You did a pretty good job of that already…I thoroughly enjoyed the way you?—”
I mock gasped and shushed him with a finger against his lips. “Shoosh!” He grinned and kissed my finger but the devilish look in his eye remained as he quipped, “I guess it’s a good thing I just got my tetanus shot booster.”
I laughed, then stuck my tongue out.
My Honda Accord was not winning any awards in the aesthetic department but she was reliable, if not pretty.
And, if I’m being honest, a little smelly.
The passenger seat still harbored a rogue French fry from its archaeological period. The dashboard bore a crack that I'd been covering with asunflower sticker since last spring. The radio worked on three of its six preset buttons. And the air freshener I'd hung from the rearview mirror—a tiny pine tree, optimistically labeled "Forest Breeze"—had long since surrendered to the prevailing aroma of drive-through heritage.
Callum folded himself into the passenger seat with the careful movements of a man entering a structure he suspected was not up to code.
He wore jeans. Actual denim. Dark wash, well-fitting, paired with a navy pullover that made his gray eyes look almost blue. I'd never seen him in jeans. The effect was disorienting—less architect, more human. A dad at a Saturday farmer's market. A guy you'd see carrying groceries. A man who knew how to make a woman come six ways from Sunday and enjoyed the process.
I wanted to eat him alive.
"Your seat belt mechanism is broken," he observed.
"It's not broken. You have to jiggle it."
He jiggled. The belt clicked. His gaze swept the interior with the barely contained anguish of a man whose own vehicle had never seen a crumb.
"Don't say it," I warned, starting the engine. It coughed twice before catching.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Liar. You’re dying to make some comment. I can see it on your face.” I pulled out of the parkinggarage, merging into Saturday traffic with the aggressive optimism of a woman whose car had questionable brakes. "Buckle up, buttercup. We're going on an adventure."
"Where?"
"You'll see."
"I hate surprises."
“Too bad. Now, get comfy and enjoy the ride.”
He settled into the seat, and I caught the micro-adjustment—the moment he decided to stop resisting and let the current take him. His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. His hand found my thigh, resting there with casual possession.
I was driving a rusted Honda through downtown with Callum Hayes's hand on my leg and the windows cracked to dilute the fry smell. This was either the most ridiculous morning of my life or the most honest one.
Both, probably.
I took him to the Eastside.
Not the curated, gentrified Eastside where craft cocktail bars charged eighteen dollars for a drink served in a mason jar. The real Eastside—six blocks of food vendors and vintage shops anda weekend flea market that sprawled across a parking lot behind an old warehouse.
Callum got out of my car and surveyed the scene with the controlled alarm of a man who'd wandered into a foreign country without a phrasebook.
"Is that a man selling taxidermy from a folding table?" he asked.
