Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(80)
“How come you never bring that pretty girl of yours around?” Camille asked Easton as he made his way past her office.
“Stingy with time, I suppose. Your boy around? He’s been M.I.A. forever now.”
Harley stepped out of Danny Boy’s stall, curious as to what girl Easton had that he was hiding and what boy he was looking for.
Wyatt was right about Easton not coming out much, and if he did it was late. As many times as she had been out with the boys from Station 32 and Ava and her friends, she had only seen Easton twice, and he was alone each time. A walking mystery, that one was.
“Is he with you?” Easton said with a slow smile, looking in the stall she just came out of.
“Should be here soon. What do you mean M.I.A.?” Harley asked, moving to the hose to wash off the dust of her day. “You’re the one that’s M.I.A. You owe me a dance.”
“You want me to dance?” Easton said, widening his bright green eyes as he pointed his finger at his broad chest. “Not enough beer in the world.”
Harley busted out laughing. “What are you and Wyatt up to?”
She could have sworn that she saw him pull up hours ago.
“Fixing that pump in his truck. But he was supposed to be getting a part that was sent here for that Mustang of Memphis’ we’re building when we get the chance. He vanished on me, and I gotta get going.”
“Hold your horses, Daddy-O. It was at the house,” Harley heard Wyatt say. He had emerged from the side aisle way.
“What did you do? Take a bubble bath?” Easton said, noting that Wyatt’s hair was still damp. His clothes had not been touched by the summer heat or whatever project he’d been working on that day.
“It’s called a shower. You didn’t think I was going to get oil all over Harley, now did you? Come on, Memphis’ part is on the four-wheeler.”
Harley glanced at Camille. She had only looked up from her desk for an instant, but a lingering smile was on her lips. Harley knew why; Easton and Wyatt, even Memphis and Truman, they were the definition of best friends. Always there, always had been. Shared the same passions, in more than one avenue of life.
Harley went to follow them, sure that she and Wyatt were going to take off for a bit before dinner was ready, but she doubled back and walked into the office. She had printed out a few papers she wanted to show Wyatt and had left them in there just so they wouldn’t get wet. She had folded them up and pushed them into her back pocket and was walking out again when Camille shifted the calendar on her desk toward Harley. “I’m setting up a schedule for the next shows. Are you going to be at all of these?”
Harley felt her heart pick up. Camille always knew more than she said but expected you to tell her something before she acknowledged it. One of the shows was across the days she was due home.
“Not this one,” Harley said in a ghost of a whisper.
Camille wrote something down. “Wyatt was due to train for these riders. I can shift them.”
“He still can, as far as I know. I mean, I don’t know about his schedule with the fire department.”
Camille looked up at Harley over the reading glasses she only used at her desk. “I suppose I assumed if you were going home that Wyatt would want to go, that you would want him to go.”
Harley was sure she was flushing. She was going home to fake break up with Collin, or at least break that news silently to their fathers just before the birthday celebration. In all truth, Collin was still hashing out the details. Harley had been too enchanted with her life now to follow through, but she knew that Collin had already had a few lunches with his father, even planned to introduce Quinn to him in a few weeks’ time.
Before Harley was forced to answer that hard question, that knowing stare, Wyatt came up behind her. “All set?”
Harley nodded.
“We’re going to have dinner at home. I let Dad and Grams know already,” he said to his mom.
“See you in the morning, son.” She always said that to him, but never to Harley. It was little things like that that Harley found herself reading far too deep into. It almost felt like the only one that trusted her beyond a shadow of a doubt was Wyatt, but at times he even seemed to hold her a little tighter, especially after her nightly calls with her dad or when Collin called out of their normal routine.
Harley was so deep in the guilt trip that Camille purposely wrapped her in that she didn’t notice where Wyatt was taking her. Her head was against his back, her eyes closed, her arms clenched around him, wanting to stretch every moment alone with him, not to think about home. She wanted to get past it, but she didn’t want to face it.
It was going to cause a fight somewhere; Camille had clearly already alluded to that, and she was right. So far, Wyatt hadn’t mentioned a thing about her going to that birthday party, but that didn’t mean that when he figured out that Collin was her date to it that he would be okay with it, even if the entire deal was just a ruse.
Wyatt had stopped, turned off the four-wheeler, but noticed that Harley was still holding on to him for dear life. He still found himself reading every silent gesture of hers, sometimes flashing back to their past. Right now, how she held him a little tighter, how she smiled and changed the subject when he asked her a random question about some tomorrow they had planned reminded him of when they were kids, when she would turn inward weeks before she was set to leave his side for months at a time.