“I can't believe our first kiss was in a dive bar,” I say on a sigh.
A laugh moves through him, low and a little ragged. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Rest of my life.
Notthe next few weeks.Notwhile you're here.
I look at him. He doesn't seem to have noticed. His eyes are on my lips.
Then his hands are in my hair and his mouth crashes back into mine, urgent and warm and tasting of whiskey and sugar, and I let him. I pull him in. I stop worrying about what hemeant and just take this, right now, this moment in the pink glow of a neon light with the music thrumming through the walls.
“Let's get out of here,” he says.
He holds out his hand.
And I take it.
Chapter 25
Cherry
SADIE
Walker makes quite a scene leading me out of Sutton's.
Not by being showy about it. Just by leading me by the hand through the crowd like it's the most natural thing in the world, like we've been doing this for years, like every person we pass isn't clocking exactly what they're seeing.
Of course, they are. This is Marble Falls. Walker Rhodes leaving Sutton's on a Saturday night holding my hand will be all over town by morning and we both know it.
Not to mention, I sat at a table with one man and now I’m leaving with another, and oh Lord, when I burn my reputation down, apparently I do it all the way to the cinders.
But I don’t care anymore. Not even a little.
I’m done caring what any of these people think of me.Caring about anyone else’s opinion never brought me any happiness or peace of mind. Quite the opposite, if anything.
Having Walker’s hand in mine makes me happy, though.
And I’m gone at summer’s end anyway.
Then we're through the door and out into the night air. The difference between inside and outside is immediate. The noise drops away. The air is cool and smells like pine and the parking lot gravel crunches under my boots. Above us the Montana sky is strewn with stars, the kind of sky you can't see anywhere with too many lights, the kind that makes you feel very small and very lucky simultaneously.
He pushes me up against his truck and kisses me again, brief but deep. “Home, baby?”
Yes, I’ve been living with Walker for a while now. But the way he says home, like its ours…
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Let’s go home.”
We don’t talk on the drive. His hand finds mine before he's even shifted out of park. He holds it the whole way, occasionally bringing it to his lips.
I watch the dark fields roll past and think: this is really happening.
This is really, actually happening.
The truck slows as we turn onto the long drive, the house coming into view at the end of it, dark except for the porch light. The gravel pops and crunches under the tires. He pulls up in front and cuts the engine and the headlights go out.
And then there’s silence.
This is it. This is where everything changes.
