Where the Stars Still Shine(58)

“Is it scary?” I kick my flip-flops off and prop my bare feet on the open window frame. I can see the dirt on my soles in the side mirror. “Snorkeling, I mean.”

“Nah.” Alex’s nose crinkles a little as he shakes his head. “Well, it might be a little at first because you’ve never done it before, but once you’re in the water—it’s better than sex.”

“Better?”

His laugh is the slightly wicked one that does warm things to my stomach. “Okay, maybe not, but it’s better than everything else.”

“Will there be sharks?”

“It’s possible.” He shrugs. “We’re more likely to see a ton of fish, and maybe some rays and seahorses. It’s a good reef for this part of the state, but the Keys are so much better. I’ll have to take you there sometime.”

Happiness gives my heart a little squeeze. My life feels so tentative that I like that he’s thinking of a future with me in it. Even if it never happens, it feels good right now. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” I say. “Then again, I really haven’t done much of anything.”

“Nothing?”

“When you live a transient life in a lot of little nowheres … it’s not really an adventure,” I say. “My mom always pretended it was, or—I don’t know, maybe she believed it, but all we’ve ever done is existed. She worked one crappy job after another, and I didn’t have time to make new friends and I couldn’t go to school, so I just marked time from one move to the next. I taught myself guitar and—”

“You didn’t go to school?”

“Just kindergarten.”

“No wonder Greg thinks I’m too old for you.”

I push his shoulder, laughing. “Shut up.”

Alex’s hand wraps around my upper arm and pulls me across the bench seat, until my feet are in the cab and I’m against him. With his eyes still on the road, he kisses me.

“Didn’t Einstein say something about driving and kissing?” I ask.

The tires squeal as he turns into the parking lot of a mostly vacant strip mall, puts the truck in park, and shifts me onto his lap. “To paraphrase, he said if you can do both at the same time …” His lips find a spot on my neck, below my ear, and send heat rushing … everywhere, making me wonder if it’s possible to be addicted to a person, like drugs, or cigarettes, or sadness. “… you’re doing it wrong.”

His mouth tastes faintly of the sea, as if he’s so steeped in it that it’s permeated his blood. Flooded his cells. And even if I’m imagining it—which I think I am—I want it. Want him so much.

My shirt is completely unbuttoned when I open my eyes and my brain reenters the atmosphere. We’re in a parking lot. The highway is only yards away and the whoosh of passing cars is unrelenting.

“We shouldn’t do this,” I say. His lips touch mine again. “Not here.”

“Why?”

“Greg doesn’t know I’m with you.” I refasten the bottom button, suddenly sober. “Can you imagine his reaction if he finds out not only that we’re together, but that we got arrested for having sex in a parking lot in Pinellas Park?”

Alex blows out a breath laced with frustration. “Mentioning your dad has exactly the same effect as a cold shower.”

From my own side of the cab, I button up my shirt as he merges back into traffic. I watch him from the corner of my eye. I’ve never turned down anyone for sex, so I’m not sure how this works. His sunglasses are back on and I can’t see his eyes, but his mouth is set in a smile and his thumbs tap the steering wheel in time with the music. He seems unbothered.

Alex catches me looking. “What?”

“Are, you, um—is it okay that we didn’t—?”

He presses the tip of his finger to the middle of my forehead. “Only one of us was thinking and it was not me.”

“So, we’re all good?”

Alex grins. “You are here, right now, with me, so yeah … all good.”

Relieved, I return to my pre-parking-lot position with my feet out the window. Except this time I lie back on the seat, looking at him from upside down, and wonder if this is how my mom felt when she first met Greg. About how quickly someone can go from being a stranger to someone you feel as if you can’t do without. But mostly how, when I’m with Alex, I feel like a normal girl. Like my whole world is right here in the cab of this pickup truck and that’s enough.

I stay in this position—with my head against his thigh and his fingertips on my cheek—until we reach the Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay. Bright-yellow cables angle down to the deck from two huge support pillars, making it seem like rays of sunshine are beaming down on the bridge. I scramble for my phone and Alex laughs. “Tourist.”

I reach back to give him the finger as I stick my head out the window like a happy dog and tilt my phone up to capture a picture of the bridge. The result on the screen is a series of slanted yellow bars with the vivid blue of the sea and sky in contrast.

“Can’t tell it’s a bridge,” Alex says.

“I know.” I press the button to put the phone to sleep. “But I’ll always know what it’s meant to be.”