This, quite understandably, resulted in his bemused silence. She wouldn’t blame him for thinking she was on some exotic big-city drug.
“Where are you going?” he asked shortly.
“Home.”
He nodded once, thoughtfully. Mulling her fate, perhaps.
“Seriously, how are you, Eli?” she said into the brief silence. More reasonably. “It’s good to see you, regardless.”
“Well, I’m great. I’m getting married.”
His words were evenly inflected, but they had a soft rosy glow all around them, just like the top of Whiplash Peak had right now.
She’d never in a million years thought she’d be one of those people who would feel diminished by someone else’s happiness. But right now, the rays of his joy felt like heat on a sunburn.
“Wow! That’s great! Congratulations.” That last syllable was cracked and delivered in a pitch probably only dolphins could hear.
She meant it, and he really deserved to be happy. But she didn’t like realizing she was still a long way from being the person she yearned to be: invulnerable, evolved, serene as a nun.
Eli was frowning in earnest now, thanks to her cracked dolphin squeak.
She’d forgotten how fast the night happened here in the county. In just a few minutes, the sky would be full dark. The sky would explode with stars.
“Do your folks know you’re on your way home?” he said finally.
She probably looked like someone who had fled the scene of a crime. There was a gym bag in her back seat and her purse on the seat next to her, and that was it, apart from those cutting-edge, not-yet-on-the-market Bluetooth speakers she’d received as a gift from a friend who’d meant for her to give them to Corbin. She couldn’t even remember what wasinher gym bag, apart from sweaty yoga pants and maybe a fossilized M&M.
She shook her head no.
He pressed his lips together. “You’re not, um, impaired in any way, right, Avalon? Because I know you’ll tell me the truth and I’ll give you a ride to your folks’ house.”
“Nope. Not impaired. Unless you count my judgment in men.”
His head went back a little, then came down in a sort of nod of comprehension. Then his mouth quirked wryly at one corner and he shook his head to and fro slowly. She was pretty sure she’d just answered his why-are-you-speeding question.
She tried an insouciant “what are ya gonna do?” one-shouldered shrug, but her body felt stiff from all her held-in emotion and she was a little worried it looked more like a death spasm.
“Call your parents now,” Eli ordered. Albeit kindly. “Tell them you’re on your way. And swear on your mom’s bright red head and your dad’s Glennburger that you won’t speed again around here, because I know a lot of people kind of like you and it would ruinmyday if I had to pull you out of an accordioned BMW.”
She half snorted, half sighed. And obeyed.
“Call Mom,” she told her car.
