“Don’t you dare,” he said, sitting up and leaning against the bed’s headboard.
I felt his eyes on me as I walked to the kitchen. “You coming?”
“I need a minute … or a cold shower.” He gestured to the blanket over his lap
When I bent over to pull the dish out of the oven, he corrected, “Nope, it’s definitely going to have to be a cold shower.”
“Make it quick, I need to leave in 20 minutes for yoga class. Are you coming?”
He arched a brow. “If I come, can we pick up where we left off afterwards?”
My cheeks flushed at the sexy look on his face, and I suddenly felt shy as I nodded. He brought the flat of his hand to press down over the blankets, and said, “If you keep looking so sweet, then the cold shower might not be enough.”
“Towels are under the sink,” I said as I took my first bite of eggs made from the leftover burritos he’d brought the previous night.
When he stood, his boxers strained with his erection as he stretched his arms overhead, then paused briefly for a deep laugh.
When I looked alarm and wiped my mouth in case he was laughing at crumbs, he looked me over, head to toe. “I don’t think I’ve been this worked up from making out with a beautiful girl since I was in high school. This town does weird things to me.”
I tried not to think of his visit to my apartment as a high schooler, when he’d had unmemorable sex with a woman whose name he couldn’t remember. But before I could wonder if soon I’d be another forgotten notch on his bedpost, he veered off his path to the bathroom, bent to kiss me on the cheek, and murmured, “You make me feel young, Gracie.”
At the bottom of the stairs, we both reached for the keys to the truck. I'd let him drive it last night, the first person to sit behind the wheel and put it into gear in eight years … but that didn't mean —
"Please? I haven't driven a manual transmission in years, I forgot how much I love it."
I imagined the last time he'd driven stick, probably a convertible down the Pacific Coast Highway with the wind in his hair and a gorgeous redhead next to him wearing oversized sunglasses and a glamorous scarf like a Hollywood icon.
It felt strange that he was excited about driving my Silverado … but his eyes held such boyish excitement that I let him take the keys.
A light flurry of snow dotted the window as he reversed out of the driveway, giving me time to ogle his aunt's dreamy Victorian house. I let out a wistful sigh at its beauty before I asked, “So how many questions do you have?”
He arched his brow mischievously. “Hundreds.”
“We’ve got time for one, maybe two. Better make them count.”
He tilted his head back and forth, weighing his options. His gaze landed on Yolanda, who shimmied her grass skirt at him. He muttered about the truck’s Patronus, then said, “When Mallory said you’re the only one who drives your truck, you blamed the transmission.”
I tensed in anticipation but decided to play it lightly, correcting him like a Jeopardy contestant: “Please phrase it in the form of a question.”
He smirked, shifting gears. “Why don’t you let anybody drive your truck?”
I opened the glove box and rooted past a bunch of stuff Mallory had stashed: pale pink lipstick, vegan Takis Fuego, a pleasure pack of condoms, and for some inexplicable reason, a kaleidoscope. Conveniently, looking for those papers meant I could avoid his eyes as I said, “After my dad kicked me out, I petitioned the judge for a sealed name change.”
“Sealed name change, smart,” he said casually, knowing that most court-approved name changes have to be listed in public records unless there’s a threat to the person’s privacy.
“The paperwork was a nightmare. I got almost everything changed over.”
At a red light, I handed two papers to Alexander: my name change court order and the truck’s registration with two names listed: Elijah Heywood listed above my dead name.
Alex nodded in understanding: If another driver got pulled over and the cops ran the plates, they might need to contact my brother. As far as I knew, the truck had never been reported as stolen, but …
“So you don’t let anybody else drive it,” he said with a cocky grin, “except me.”
“Except you,” I repeated, tucking the paperwork away. “Plus if you got pulled over, the cop would let you off.”
His crooked grin grew. “What makes you assume that?”
Cishet white men really didn’t get it, did they?
“You’re you, Alex. You’d give that cop hell. By the time you were done chewing him out, he’d be paying you a fine for the inconvenience.”
His head tilted back into a big, throaty roar of laughter as he pulled into a parking spot behind the yoga studio. When his legs tilted to me, his expression was soft. “The sealed name change was smart, to make yourself untraceable to your dad. But what if people want to find you and can't?”
In the two days between when Dad kicked me out and when he disconnected my phone from the family plan, nobody called me. Not my mom, or grandma, or any of my brothers. Dad declared that I was no longer a member of their family, and they all followed suit.
“Grace, you always talk so fondly about Elijah. What if he’s looking for you?”
I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t realize I talked about Elijah that much.
I didn’t realize Alex had been paying attention.
It's not like I hadn't considered it. For the first year, it had been hard to stop considering it. Maybe Elijah would have been supportive … but maybe not.
When I said goodbye to him at the airport, I thought it would only be for our junior year. Eight months apart felt like it would be torture. Now eight years had passed. I had no idea when he tapped the roof of our truck and told me to keep it in good shape for him that we might never see each other again.
“I could call him,” Alex offered. My breath hitched as my hand reached to wrap around the door handle. He quickly added, “Not today. But I could use the firm's resources to get his number, then fake a problem with the truck to find out how he reacts.”
