“What’re you reading?” I ask.
Amy looks up at me from her book and smiles. “Just some book I bought a while ago, not had chance to read it until now.”
“Any good?”
“Yeah, it’s actually really good. It’s calledLady Chatterley’s Lover.”
Romance.However did I guess?
“Have you always loved reading?”
“Always. My dad read to me a lot when I was little, he was great at doing all the different voices of all the characters. My mom would get mad because whenever my dad read to me before bed, he’d have me laughing so much that I’d be too hyper and awake to go to sleep.”
I laugh softly. “It’s good you have all these memories of him. Hold onto them. My sister used to read a lot too, had a whole wall of shelves filled with books in her bedroom.” The sheer mention of my sister’s name still has a sharp twinge of pain coursing through my body.
“Quinn told me about Grace. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, babygirl. Just one of those things, I guess. But when she died, I didn’t just lose her, I lost Dwight too. He took her death hard and he left right after the funeral. It fucking killed me when he left. He’s like a brother to me, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it.” She closes her book and sets it down, stands up and makes her way over to me, and she takes me by surprise when she wraps her arms around me, resting her head on my chest. My arms go around her instantly, loving the feel of her against my body, it’s a feeling I could quickly get used to.
“When you left, after your dad died, it um… it hurt,” I confess, cringing from how fucking selfish it sounds out loud.
“It did?”
I nod. “I know it sounds selfish as fuck, given what happened but... it felt like you were leaving me too. I guess I just wanted to be there for you. Wanted to comfort you. Be there if you needed me.”
“And you did. When you texted me, to check in, just those few words meant the world to me, to know you were thinking of me...”
“Always.” I tighten my arms around her, dropping my chin onto the top of her hair. “Always,” I repeat in a whisper.
“What are you doing now?” she asks.
“Attempting to fix the cooling system, and it’s a royal pain in my ass.”
“Need any help?”
“With the pain in my ass? You can rub it better if you like.”
“Fuck you,” she giggles, shoving me playfully and I can’t help but laugh.
“Come on, you can give me a hand.”
For the better part of the next hour and a half, I show how to fix the cooling system, and Amy stands beside me, peering under the hood of the GTO with a vacant expression which makes me think she hasn’t understood a single thing I’ve showed her. She simply nods her head, pretending to know what I’m talking about.
“I still don’t understand how you can remember all this. How do you know exactly what to do?” she asks.
“As withmanythings, years of practice and experience, baby.” I smirk, and she rolls her eyes, giggling while her cheeks redden slightly.
“Does everything you say have to have a double meaning?” She cocks an eyebrow.
“Nah, that’s just you and your dirty mind, babygirl. I was talking about the cooling system, what didyouthink I was talking about?”
“You know exactly what I was referring to.”
A smile stretches across my face. “Guilty.”
She laughs, shaking her head while rolling her eyes, and if that isn’t the most beautiful sight, a sight that has me wanting to put her over my knee and spank her.
