CHAPTER 20
Last month, Nellie had left her house without her phone after having an argument with her dad.
Back then, Jamie and I had been worried—we both knew how much pressure she put on herself, and were afraid of her snapping—but I understood her a bit more now.
When confronted with my failure, I wanted to run away, too.
So that’s what I did. But I at least brought my phone with me.
Except it died, the battery drained from Theo playing his game. Ugh.
I walked along the cracked sidewalks, relieved I’d at least been wearing good sneakers, but furious with myself for not having thought to grab sunscreen. I could feel the skin on my shoulders tightening under the sun, freckles burning.
Idiot, I thought bitterly. Check that box for another way you’ve been dropping the ball.
And furious for another reason, because I wasn’t supposed to be walking this long, anyway.
I kept my eyes on the road, but it took forever for the black car I knew to find me.
Five minutes passed into ten, and then ten turned into twenty, and I could feel my irritation mount with every bead of sweat that slipped down my spine.
Idiot, I thought bitterly, but this time, not at myself.
And then—finally. A black car took a left ahead of me, slowing down along the sidewalk as it approached. The passenger’s window rolled down. “There she is,” Dalton greeted with a warm smile, lowering his sunglasses. “Looking like a tomato in the sun.”
“Where the heck have you been?” I demanded, reaching for his door handle. “I texted you, like, a half hour ago.”
“In my defense, I thought you’d be walking toward town, not away from it.
” Dalton still hadn’t lost his cheerful little attitude despite the tone I’d greeted him with.
Probably because he was over the moon that I’d texted in the first place.
“You should’ve told me you were going south on Hawthorne. ”
“Oh, gee, sorry I’m not a better Google Maps.”
“I forgive you.”
I buckled myself into the seat and angled the air vent on me, feeling the AC dry the sweat on my skin.
Dalton didn’t immediately pull away from the curb, instead tapping his fingers along the steering wheel. “So, not to look a gift horse in the mouth—or whatever that whacko statement is,” he began, looking at me closely, “but why did you call me to pick you up?”
“No questions.”
“Why didn’t you call Jamie?”
My mind immediately went back to the drawing I’d been working on, the one that’d dissolved into pulp. “I said no questions.”
“Did you have a fight?” Something sparkled in Dalton’s eyes. “Because I—”
“If you’re going to keep asking questions, I’m going to get out of the car.”
Dalton pressed the lock button, and the button on my door flipped. “No questions,” he said, nudging his sunglasses back up his nose and reaching for the gearshift. “It doesn’t really matter anyway. I don’t care why you want to spend time with me, just that you do.”
I folded my arms across my chest, wanting to argue with him on that particular point, but he was right. I had reached out to him. Willingly. But not for the reason I knew he was hoping for.
Dalton pulled away from the curb, propping his elbow on the door. “I can’t ask you questions,” he went on. “But how am I supposed to know if you want ice cream? Wait, crap, that was a question. Strike it from the record, DD.”
I couldn’t help it—I snorted. “It’s a rhetorical question, anyway. You know the answer to it.”
Dalton’s lips stretched into a grin as he pulled into a driveway to turn around, now heading south on Hawthorne.
When we drove past my house, Dalton didn’t even glance over.
He didn’t check to see if Mom’s car was home, and he didn’t ask me about the kids.
He just drove, his smile still on his lips.
It was strange sitting in the exact same seat I’d sat in when we had our first kiss.
It still smelled like him, and there were still empty pop bottles rolling on the floor of the passenger seat, and he still only drove with one hand.
The other rested uselessly on the console between us, fingers dangling like he was waiting for me to reach out and take them. Just how I used to.
I looked out the window, knotting my hands in my lap. “What place are we going to?”
“I was thinking Freezing Fred’s.”
That was over in Greenville, just past Bayview. A thirty-minute drive. “We can just go to the one in town—”
“Nah. I’ve finally got you in my car—no way am I only driving five minutes.”
Well, that sounded vaguely kidnapper-y. Greenville was probably for the best, anyway.
Jamie was supposed to be going to book club, and Nellie normally went with him, but with how biased the universe seemed to be lately, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d stumbled into them somehow.
But no way would the twins be in Greenville.
That’s not a test, I thought to the universe. Don’t jinx it.
I still felt sick, the guilt from what happened back at the house following me like a shadow. It gnawed at me, only intensified by the warm leather of Dalton’s car seats. If he noticed something was off about me, though, he didn’t comment on it.
Instead, he cleared his throat. “I feel like I need to apologize for Wednesday.”
“You mean when you got all grabby-handy after I told you no?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
“I’m sorry for touching you without your permission.” To his credit, he did sound genuinely apologetic. “I guess I just got… caught up in the atmosphere.”
I hated that I understood him, but for an entirely different reason.
The pulsing lights flashed through my mind, as did the memory of dancing with Jamie.
Caught up in the atmosphere was a great way to put it.
“Jamie warned you that was your last chance. But it won’t be him beating you up. It’ll be me.”
Dalton scrubbed a hand across his mouth, hiding a smile. “Got it. From now on, I’ll only touch you if you ask.” And he spread his palms out level with his shoulders.
I bristled. “I’m not going to ask.”
Dalton ignored me. “And I’m sorry for not listening to you more on Monday when we couldn’t find Theo. I shouldn’t have tried to…” He hesitated, eyes darting to the side, like he was trying to draw on a memory. “Minimize your feelings.”
“Did you script this conversation with me?”
“What? No.” Then he shook his head. “C’mon, DD, I’m being sincere.”
I drew in a breath, the air pressing down on my lungs. Sincerity felt risky with Dalton Giovanni. Rare. Suspicious. “I accept your apology.”
He smiled at that, like a little boy complimented.
I turned back out the windshield, watching as we left the city limits of Addison, into the brief stretch of country road before we crossed into Bayview.
The further we’d gotten from town, the less guilty I’d begun to feel, like distance between Jamie and me made the tryst with my ex all okay.
But I kept thinking of Jamie, of my plans now gone up in smoke—or, well, drowned in water.
My thoughts circled him, unable to let go.
We got to the ice cream parlor, and it was much busier than I’d been expecting for a Wednesday.
Almost every picnic table was full, so after ordering two vanilla and chocolate swirls, we had to continue off down the sidewalk to a park bench underneath a shade tree.
It put Dalton closer to me than he would’ve been across a table, but I placed a stack of napkins between us as a boundary.
I swiped my spoon through my perfect ice cream swirl, trying not to feel weird about the whole situation. I wasn’t doing a very good job.
“I should’ve ordered a cup,” Dalton murmured as he licked his ice cream cone, trying to catch it before it dripped down his hand. “This is melting too fast.”
“On the bright side, it means you can’t talk much.”
Dalton shook his head at my smirk. “Oh, she’s got jokes.” He twisted his cone to get the other side. “Why don’t you do the talking then, huh? How has life been lately?”
“I said no questions—”
“What are you going to do?” Dalton arched a brow. “Refuse to let me drive you home?”
Right. I couldn’t really wield the threat of getting out of his car now. Instead, I took another bite of ice cream, filling my own mouth so I couldn’t speak.
Dalton, surprisingly, didn’t push. Maybe he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. After all, he’d had two years to learn me like an instruction manual—maybe he knew all he needed to do was wait my silence out.
And, truth be told, I hadn’t texted him for no reason. It was a conversation, though, that I wasn’t sure I wanted to wade my feet into. “Remember last summer, on the Fourth of July, when you got that bad nosebleed right before the fireworks started?”
“Oh, gosh, yeah.” Dalton laughed. “We missed the entire show. But I made it up to you, didn’t I? I bought those fireworks from a stand in Hallow and illegally set them off in my backyard.”
“And you nearly burned your eyebrows off in the process.”
Dalton let out a loud laugh. “Yeah. And nearly set my mom’s azaleas on fire. She was ticked.”
We both laughed at the sweet-and-sour memory. “You didn’t let me bring the kids to see,” I murmured, a soft curve to my lips. “They wanted to see more fireworks, but you didn’t want me to bring them.”
“I—I was worried about their safety. I’d never shot off fireworks before. I’d have felt horrible if something happened.”
We both knew that hadn’t been why. He hadn’t wanted them there to distract me from him. “Do you remember Junie asking you to help her pull her last tooth?” I asked instead, staring into my ice cream as I stirred through the swirls. “It was loose in the back of her mouth, and she couldn’t reach it.”
Dalton immediately cringed. “I still can’t believe she asked me to help with that. What, was I supposed to stick my entire hand in her mouth?”