Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2)(10)
“You said brother. But before…you said you learned to skate from your brothers. So that’s…that’s also true?” Her voice breaks slightly when she asks. I lean back into my seat and stretch my arms forward to flex my muscles before letting my hands fall to my knees.
“Yeah. That one…I have more of a memory of. But…” I stop, holding my breath.
“But it’s not a memory you want to share,” she finishes for me.
I nod slowly, then look up to her waiting gaze, her stormy eyes lit by the moon. If she was the ocean, I would be happy to be lost at sea. “If that’s okay, I think I’ll just let the rumors fill that one in for you,” I exhale.
Her freckles. Her small nose. The waves of brown of her hair. Her long lashes, and the way her fingers search for something to do when she’s nervous. I watch it all; I savor it. “I’d rather just leave it blank…until you want to share,” she says, her lip curling briefly on one side. I take that small movement in too. “I don’t much care for rumors,” she says, her grin stretching just a hint wider.
The radio is barely audible in the car, and part of me wants to turn the music louder to fill the silence taking up too much space between us. Another part of me, though, wants to leave the silence alone, because when it’s quiet like this, and she’s close, I can hear every breath she takes.
Her phone steals away my choice, buzzing regularly in her pocket until she pulls it out and answers a call from her dad. I only hear her end of the conversation, but her answers are clipped, relegated to single words. Without asking, I shift the car into reverse and back away from the orchard and onto the road. Emma needs to go home; this much I’m sure of.
“Sorry, my dad doesn’t like me out late,” she says as she puts her phone into the side pocket of her purse, not adding the part where I’m sure her father said he didn’t like his daughter out late with me.
“It’s okay. I’m getting up early to drive to Champaign with my mom and her boyfriend. I should get home too. He’ll want me to gas up the car,” I say, not wanting her to feel guilty about her parents’ opinion of me.
It takes us twenty minutes to get back to our neighborhood, and instead of finding out more about her, I give into my insecurities and turn the music up loud enough to give both of our minds something else to play with. There are a few times, though, where I catch her lips moving with the lyrics of one of the songs, and I tell myself that visual is almost as good as finding out more of her story.
As I sit in the car next to her in front of her ornate, giant house, I know that there’s no way I’m going to sleep tonight. There’s no guarantee that if I dream, I’ll dream of her.
“Thank you for teaching me to skate,” she says, pausing with one leg out of the car, the other still here with me.
“I’m not sure we can call it skating yet, but…” I tease, and she pushes my arm with a tiny grunt in dissent. Yeah, I lock that touch away, too. “I’m joking. You did great.”
“Well…I’m no hockey phenom,” she says, her voice dragging out that last word.
“Neither am I,” I sigh. I don’t know why it makes me uncomfortable, but I just don’t want her thinking I’m more special than I am.
Our silence is drowned out by the ad for legal advice blaring through Dwayne’s car speakers, and I watch, helplessly, as she finally steps from my car. There are so many things that I could do right now. But just beyond her, the front door to her house has cracked open, and the porch light has flipped on, the blinds to the front window wide as well.
“I hope this was as good as some school dance,” I say, every drum of my heart rattling my insides. I’m not sure how I’m going to drive home unable to feel my feet and fingers.
Her feet on the curb, and her purse pulled across her body, Emma stops just before closing the car door, leaning in just enough so I can hear her, and whoever is standing at the doorway behind her can’t.
“I’m not sure,” she says, squinting one eye as a smile breaks through slowly. “I think we’re going to need to try it again so I can be sure. Skating or dancing…it’s a tough one.”
“You’re on. I play Sunday morning, and I’m all yours after noon.” When I realize how my words sound, my stomach drops. Emma’s smile pushes further into her cheeks, though, and suddenly I don’t care so much about sounding desperate for her. I am desperate, and I want nothing but more seconds with her.
“I’ll meet you at the rink. I’ll come watch you play,” she says, winking as she shuts the door finally and skips up her walkway. She quickly passes a man I assume is her father, and he lingers in the light of the porch, his arms crossed in front of his body, until I pull completely out of view.
When I get home, Dwayne and my mom are both up and at the kitchen table eating bowls of cereal. I can sense my mom’s desire to ask me a million questions as I grab a soda from the refrigerator and move down the hallway, but I catch the subtle look from Dwayne telling her not to pry, and I’m grateful for him.
With my lights off, I crawl into bed, kicking off my jeans and shoes, and pulling my pillow over my eyes so I can imagine Emma in my mind. Eventually, I fall asleep, but not before I make a list of the million things I need to learn about her—top of that list: what her lips taste like.