He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“This,” I echoed softly.I wasn’t expecting you, he meant. His eyes searched mine, his conflict so obvious, it felt like a living thing screaming between us.
“I’m trying so hard to focus on what I need to do while what I want is getting louder. And then that goddamn letter,” he said, his voice rough. “What am I supposed to do, Vi?”
The wind whispered Catalina’s name, her presence haunting from miles away. The way Dex looked at me made the idea of him being hung up on her almost silly, but his insistence that we keep our distance said otherwise. I wanted to believe he was in this. I couldn’t trust my optimistic heart.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. His throat bobbed and his finger brushed my bare shin. It landed like a punch. “So, we… yeah. All settled?”
Another brush, this time his knuckle scorching a circle into the side of my knee. “I have no idea what I’m doing here,” he murmured. “I look at you and I can’t get a hold of myself.”
“Oh.” I swallowed hard, watching his knuckle drag up the skin of my thigh and back down again. “Well. Maybe we give in, just once. We get it out of our system and…” Eyes locked, he shook his head before the full thought left my lips. “No, yeah. Bad idea.”
“That’s not something I can do,” he said. “Once.”
I inhaled sharply. His eyes dipped to my mouth. I remembered what it was like to kiss him, how the world crashed to a halt to accommodate the moment, how it felt deeper than fucking anyone else.
I caught a glimpse of something pink over his shoulder and recoiled, my foot jabbing him in the ribs. “Phoebe!” I exclaimed as he doubled over in a groan. Phoebe approached, eyes narrow as she took us in. “I may have incapacitated Dex. Accidentally.”
“Okay,” she said, sliding her gaze between us. He stood up, rubbing his side. “You good, man?”
“Did you get everything?”
She held a plastic bag aloft. “Yup. I also got Gatorade, ’causeI thought you might be dehydrated,” she said, moving toward me. “And some donuts in case your blood sugar’s low. I don’t know if that’s a thing if you’re not diabetic, but I was covering the bases.”
“Thanks, Bee,” I said, my bruised heart melting into a puddle in my chest. She handed me the Gatorade. It was the lemonade flavor she always made fun of me for getting because it looked like pee.
Phoebe swiveled to Dex, pulling a pair of neon green plastic sunglasses out of the bag. “Here you go.”
He stared at them. “What is that.”
“Your new sunglasses.” She moved up on her toes to slip them on him, biting back a grin. “Wow. You lookcool.”
He turned his gaze to me, a glare from the sun bouncing off the neon frame.
“Gorgeous,” I said.
His jaw flexed. “We ready?” He rounded the front of the car without waiting for an answer.
“Good call on the sunglasses,” I said, shooting Phoebe a smile. She eyed me for a moment and for a split second, a spike of anxiety drilled its way behind my ribs, certain she’d figured out my feelings for Dex. But then her face softened into a smile and she produced two more pairs from the bag, neon purple and neon pink.
Somehow, Wyoming looked even better through a lilac hue.
Eighteen
ROCK SPRING, WY
“Is that it?” Phoebe leaned in, practically pressing her nose up to the glass of the bakery. “It looks sort of like it.”
I tilted my head for a new angle of the pastry. The window display was full of desserts, most of which were topped with chocolate or fruit, definitely not what my sister dragged me out of bed at 6A.M.to track down.
“I think that’s a chocolate croissant,” I said. She threw her head back in a groan. A man jogging down the sidewalk in short shorts shot us a strange look on his way by.
“I hate this. Why can’t Google ever tell the truth? I’ll be all, ‘Hey, Google, where’s the nearest public bathroom?’ And it’ll be like, ‘Here’s an ad for toilet seats. Wet your pants, pussy.’?”
I choked on a laugh. “Phoebe.”
“It’s not funny.” She glared at Mama Sheridan’s bakery, folding her arms over her chest. I looped my arm around her shoulders, gently guiding her away in case Mama Sheridan herself emerged to square up. “There’s supposed to be an Italian bakery here. I looked it up. Why can’t Dex like something normal, like cinnamon rolls?”
