“Hey,” he says, mouth tugging into that crooked smile probably responsible for at least seventy percent of my worst decisions in life, including theRadioheadtattoo on my shoulder—his favorite band, which I pretended to like.
“Hey yourself,” I say, somehow keeping my voice steady. “Car trouble?”
Thomas nods, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it just died on me. One minute I was turning the engine, the next—nothing. All the dash lights came on, then everything went dark.”
“Sounds like it could be the alternator,” I say, easing back onto the road. “Or maybe the battery.”
Look at me. I know car stuff. I’m a grown-up now.
“Yeah, maybe,” Thomas says, clearly not all that invested in car diagnostics.
“You gonna leave it here for the night?” I ask, mostly to fill the silence.
“Yeah, I’ll call the tow tomorrow,” he says, nodding—and I can feel him looking at me, studying my face like he’s trying to figure out if I’ve changed. “You look good, Carter.”
My traitorous heart skips a beat. And great—now my cheeks are burning.
I snort awkwardly, trying to cover how flustered I suddenly am. It was just a comment. A simple, stupid comment.
“Thanks,” I say, eyes on the road.
But he’s still looking at me.
“It’s good to see you,” he says.
My heart stutters again. God. What does he want from me? Is he waiting for me to wag my tail just because he said something nice?
“Yeah, you too,” I say, though the words feel foreign in my mouth—clunky and off.
Silence hits right after. Guess that didn’t come off as chill as I thought it would.
I keep my eyes on the road, on the snow piling up around us, on anything but Thomas.
Well. Almost. I still catch everything he’s doing out of the corner of my eye.
He shifts, adjusts his seatbelt, checks his phone—classic moves from someone who doesn’t know what to say. Which is wild, because this is Thomas Moore. The guy who once talked for forty-five minutes about the structural integrity of waffle cones.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, my brain refusing to come up with anything useful to say. I’m not about to start inventing small talk just to make this less awkward. The quiet makes every sound in the car feel loud—the wet swipe of the wipers, the low hum of the heater, the tick of the blinker as I signal for the main road.
“Oh, I, uh, called the restaurant,” Thomas says after a second. “Asked them to send the photos of the decorations.”
“Yeah? Does it look good?” I ask, just to keep him talking.
“Yeah, looks great,” he says. Then, “Here,” and tilts his phone toward me.
I glance at the screen, but I barely catch a glimpse before turning back to the road. Visibility’s garbage right now—I don’t need to end our reunion by crashing into a mailbox.
“Great,” I say, even though I barely saw anything. “Perfect.”
Wonderful. Amazing. All the adjectives.
“So we should be fine if we’re a little late,” Thomas says.
“That’s good,” I say.
And just like that, we’re back to silence.
I don't remember it ever being this hard to talk to him. Even during those first few awkward teenage years—when I was stumbling through puberty and nursing a massive crush—conversations always came easily between us. Now it’s as if we’re strangers who just happened to get stuck in a car.
