Reminders of Him(11)

I move her panties aside with my fingers, and I’m met with smooth skin and heat and a whimper. When I inhale, I can hear the shakiness of my own breaths.

I bury my mouth against her neck just as headlights turn onto the street next to us.

“Shit.” My truck is parked in the alley, but we aren’t hidden from the view of the street. We suddenly find ourselves scrambling as we’re snapped back to reality. I pull my hand out of her jeans, and she buttons them. I help her up, and then she faces forward while straightening out her hair.

I close her door and walk around the truck as the car approaches and comes to a slow roll, then a stop, right in front of the alley. I glance up at the car and see Grady in his cruiser. He’s rolling down the window, so I walk away from my truck and up to his car.

“Busy night?” he asks as he leans toward the passenger seat so that he can see me from the driver’s side of the car.

I look behind me at Nicole in the truck and then back at him. “Yep. Just closed. You on until morning?”

He turns down his radio. “Whitney took a new shift at the hospital, so I’m back on nights for now. I like it. It’s quiet.”

I tap his hood and then take a step back. “Good to hear. I gotta go. See you tomorrow on the field?”

Grady can tell something is up. I’m usually not this quick to brush him off. He leans forward, looking around me, attempting to see whoever is in my truck. I lean to the right and block his view. “Have a good night, Grady.” I point down the road, letting him know he’s welcome to continue his patrol.

He grins. “Yep. You too.”

I’m not trying to hide her. I just know his wife is a gossip, and I don’t really want to be the talk of the T-ball field tomorrow.

I climb into my truck, and she’s got her feet up on the dash. She’s looking out her window, avoiding eye contact with me. I don’t want her to feel awkward. That’s the last thing I want. I reach over and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You okay?”

She nods, but the nod is stiff, and so is she, and so is her smile. “I live next to Cefco.”

That gas station is almost two miles away. She told me earlier she lived close by, but two miles at midnight isn’t close. “Cefco off Bellview?”

She shrugs. “I think so. I can’t remember all the street names. I just moved here today.”

That explains why she isn’t familiar to me. I want to say something like, “Where’d you come from? What brings you to town?” But I say nothing, because she seems to want me to say nothing.

Two miles only takes two minutes when there’s no traffic, and two minutes isn’t all that long, but it sure does feel like an eternity when you’re spending it in a truck with a girl you almost fucked. And it wouldn’t have been a good fuck. It most certainly would have been a quick, sloppy, selfish, couldn’t-have-been-good-for-her fuck.

I want to apologize, but I’m not sure what I’d be apologizing for, and I don’t want her to think I regret it. The only thing I regret is that I’m taking her home and not to my house.

“I live there,” she says, pointing at Paradise Apartments.

I don’t come to this part of town very often. It’s in the opposite direction of my house, so I rarely drive down this road. I honestly thought they condemned this place.

I pull into the parking lot, and I intend to kill the engine and open her door for her, but she’s already out of the truck before I even get it turned off.

“Thanks for the ride,” she says. “And . . . for the coffee.” She closes the door and spins around like that’s how we’re supposed to part.

I open my door. “Hey. Wait.”

She pauses but waits to turn around until I’ve reached her. She’s hugging herself, chewing on her lip, scratching nervously at her arm. She looks up at me. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . I know what that was.” She waves a hand at my truck. “You don’t have to ask for my number, I don’t even have one.”

How does she know what that was? I don’t know what that was. My mind is still trying to process it. Maybe I should ask her. “What was that? What does it mean? Can it happen again?”

I’m in uncharted territory. I’ve had one-night stands before, but things were discussed and agreed to prior to the sex. And it’s always happened in a bed, or something close to it.

But with her, the make-out just happened, and then it was interrupted, and it was in an alley of all places. I feel like an asshole.

I have no idea what to say. I don’t know where to put my hands because I feel like I should be hugging her goodbye, but it seems like she doesn’t want me near her now. I slip my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I want to see you again.” It’s not a lie.

Her eyes flicker from mine to her apartment building. “I’m not . . .” She sighs, and then she just says, “No, thank you.”

She says it so politely, I can’t even be upset.

I stand in front of her apartment building and watch her walk away until she goes up the stairs and into an apartment and I can’t see her anymore. And even then, I stay in the same spot because I think I’m shocked or, at the least, jarred.

I don’t know her at all, but I find her more intriguing than anyone else I’ve met in a long time. I want to ask her more questions. She never even answered the one question I asked about her life. Who the hell is she?