6. Lucy #2
Ty reached for my hand with easy certainty that had slowly settled between us. My fingers slipped into his. His hand was warm. Mine fit perfectly inside it.
Ty's truck sat in its usual crooked spot near the edge of the parking lot. Betsy. The world's loudest vehicle.
The passenger door squealed in protest when he opened it for me.
"One day that thing is going to fall off."
Ty looked offended. "Don't say that where she can hear you."
I climbed into the truck laughing. The familiar scent wrapped around me immediately. Peppermint gum. Old hockey gear. Cold air.
Ty.
The truck rumbled to life beneath us.
A song played quietly through the speakers. Something classic and familiar. The kind of music that always seemed to live inside his truck.
He backed out of the parking spot one-handed.
I watched him for a second. The relaxed grin. The way he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.
He caught me looking. "What?"
I looked away instantly. "Nothing."
"You're doing the thing."
I frowned. "What thing?"
"The staring thing."
Heat immediately rushed into my cheeks. "I was not staring."
"Uh-huh."
I grabbed the nearest note card and tossed it at him.
Ty batted it effortlessly as it floated to the floorboard before reaching him. "She likes me."
"Oh my God."
"She's impressed and she thinks I'm handsome."
I groaned into my hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Ty looked entirely too pleased with himself. When I finally peeked back up, he was smiling at me in that way that still made my stomach feel weird.
Ty reached for my hand, lacing our fingers together. His hand guided mine to his mouth as he kissed the back of it gently, never taking his eyes off the wet road.
“Fine, I was staring,” I admitted softly.
Ty looked completely vindicated.
"I've accepted that I have a problem." I laughed.
"Admitting it is the first step," he chuckled.
"I don't want help." My laugh echoed through the chilled truck as the heat failed to keep up with the melting weather. Ty immediately looked smug about being responsible for it.
The city lights blurred softly beyond the windshield as Betsy rumbled through the evening traffic.
For once, neither of us seemed particularly interested in getting anywhere. Every red light became another excuse to keep talking. Every turn became another reason not to say goodnight yet.
Ty drove with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped loosely around mine across the center console. Every so often his thumb brushed against my skin absentmindedly. The simple contact had become so familiar over the last few months that I barely thought about it anymore.
Which was a lie. I thought about it every single time. I just pretended I didn't.
Outside, Northbend glowed beneath the last traces of daylight. Storefronts flickered to life along Main Street. Restaurant windows cast warm pools of light onto the sidewalks. Cars drifted past in the opposite direction while the radio hummed quietly beneath our conversation.
"This is weird."
Ty glanced over. "What is?"
I looked down at our joined hands. "You."
He gasped dramatically. "I take offense to that."
"I mean the studying thing."
"Oh."
I shook my head. "You know, a few months ago I genuinely thought there was no hope for you."
Ty looked personally offended. "That's hurtful."
"You forgot your notebook three times in one week."
"That happened one time."
"It happened three times."
"Allegedly."
I rolled my eyes. Beside me, he smiled. The kind of happy that still caught me off guard sometimes. Because it happened so easily around me.
"You know what the weirdest part is?" I asked.
"What?"
"You actually care now."
For the first time since we'd left school, Ty went quiet. The city moved around us. Headlights. Streetlights. The low hum of tires against pavement.
"I guess."
I looked over. "You guess?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know."
I nudged his arm. "Very insightful."
"Thank you." Ty huffed out a long breath before looking back toward the road. "I think I just got tired of being the dumb guy."
I turned toward him fully. "Nobody thinks you're dumb."
Ty snorted. "Shortcake."
"I'm serious."
"You spend enough time around people and you figure out what they expect from you." His fingers tightened slightly around mine. "Hockey's easy."
That caught me off guard. Ty Burns had never described hockey as easy. Not once.
"You spend your whole life doing one thing," he continued. "Eventually people stop asking about anything else." The teasing had disappeared from his voice completely. "I walk into a room and people already know who they think I am."
Ty glanced over briefly. Then sighed. "The annoying part is you didn't."
My chest squeezed unexpectedly. "What does that mean?"
"It means everybody else sees the golden boy." His eyes flicked toward me again. "You never did."
The air between us somehow grew softer than it had been a minute earlier. I looked out the window before he could see how much that affected me. Because the truth was, I had always seen more.
The kindness. The ridiculous sense of humor. The way he remembered things people told him. The way he noticed when someone wasn't okay. The way he cared far more deeply than he let anybody realize.
The boy underneath all the noise.
Ty squeezed my hand. "You got quiet."
"So did you."
"Yeah, but mine was mysterious."
I laughed. "Of course it was."
His grin returned immediately. The comfortable rhythm settled back between us. The kind of conversation that wandered wherever it wanted.
For a while we talked about teachers. Friends. The upcoming hockey game. A movie neither of us had finished because we'd spent most of it talking instead of watching.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, without warning, the conversation drifted toward home. Toward parents. Toward all the things neither of us usually talked about.
The radio continued playing softly in the background. The city lights stretched endlessly ahead of us. And for the first time, I found myself telling him things I hadn't meant to say out loud ever, to anyone.
"I don't know," I admitted quietly, tracing my thumb against the back of his hand. "Everything just feels... weird lately."
Ty glanced over. "Weird how?"
I stared through the windshield. “It’ll sound crazy if I try to explain it.” That was the problem. I couldn't explain it. Nothing was wrong. Not exactly. There hadn't been some giant fight. Nobody was yelling. Nobody was getting divorced. At least not that I knew of.
But lately it felt like something had shifted inside our house. Like somebody had moved all the furniture two inches to the left and I was the only person who noticed.
"My mom's just..." I hesitated. "Different."
Ty didn't interrupt. Didn't rush to fill the silence. Didn't immediately tell me I was overthinking.