Origins: The Fire (MILA 2.0, #0.5)(18)

SEVEN


Kaylee’s decrepit old truck bounced us down the dirt road, away from Clearwater High. Between the tires crunching over uneven terrain and the ancient engine’s stuttering roar, the noise level was pretty high. Inside the cab, though, the silence was deafening. Kaylee clutched the zebra-striped steering wheel cover and refused to acknowledge me, her gaze directed straight ahead.

“Kaylee, I swear—I had nothing to do with Hunter transferring into my English class.” Of course, I’d been pleading my innocence for the past ten minutes, and none of it had yet to make a dent in Kaylee’s stony expression.

So much for her “healthy” competition.

I sighed and looked out the passenger window. From far off on the hillside, I saw flickering black strands slap a gleaming mahogany neck. The gorgeous stallion threw his head again before rearing up and launching his massive body into an explosive gallop.

Horses. Horses were one of two things that had kept me from losing my mind when I first moved here.

The other thing was Kaylee.

I peeked at her face again, but her usual smiling mouth remained tight and silent. I couldn’t remember a single ride in this truck without a soundtrack of relentless Kaylee babble to make me laugh. Not until now.

A perfect image of Hunter’s face, with his careless fall of soft brown waves framing a pair of intense blue eyes, crystallized in my head. Stupid. Picturing him right now only made this harder. But, even if Hunter Lowe was the most interesting thing to happen to Clearwater in, well, ever—at least since I’d lived here—a silly crush couldn’t take precedence over a friendship. That wasn’t the kind of person Mom had raised me to be.

I needed to put a stop to this. I wanted babbling Kaylee back. After all, she was the only thing that had kept me from being a complete outcast at school. Surely I owed her for that.

“Look, this is ridiculous. We shouldn’t be fighting over some guy…just because he’s not into Carhartt and partying down by the river,” I added, to lighten the mood. Though there was much more to Hunter than that. Something about the quiet way he studied me with those blue eyes when I talked, like he really cared about what I was saying, made the rest of the world just melt away.

And I needed that right now, the world melting away. But not at someone else’s expense.

I thought I saw Kaylee’s death grip on the wheel relax, just a teensy bit. Springs creaked as she adjusted her position. But no smile.

“I’m not sure, Mila,” Kaylee said, finally glancing my way. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Look, I swear—I did not tell him to switch to my English class. You can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”

While I would have loved to believe that he’d transferred because of me, he’d told me the move was solely based on his desire for a more ambitious reading list.

She released the wheel with one hand to smooth the neck of her aqua cowl-necked sweater, one of her amazing-do-it-yourself creations. “Please. He’d think I was an idiot.” But her voice didn’t hold quite the edge it had just moments ago.

She peeked at me, nibbling her lower lip. Then her shoulders deflated. “Though I’m doing a pretty good job of acting like one on my own, aren’t I?”

“Hey, me too,” I said. Not thinking so much of Hunter as I was that time when I’d grabbed her arm.

Her smile was timid, not the carefree Kaylee smile I was used to. Nevertheless, I’d take what I could get.



“So, let’s just—wait! Oh my god, there he is!” Kaylee yelled.

For an instant, my logic deserted me. No…she couldn’t mean…

My eyes flew open as the brakes squealed. I turned my head, searched for the object of Kaylee’s pointing finger. Confusion hit first, followed by a flood of disappointment. Hunter. She’d meant Hunter.

Of course she had.

I grabbed hold of my fleeing composure while we bump-bump-bumped our way to the side of the road.

“Roll down your window, hurry!” Kaylee said, finger combing a few flyaway pieces of hair into order. Hunter was just turning to see who approached, his hands rammed into the pockets of black cargo pants.

I couldn’t prevent the rush of excitement at the sight of him. Even though I gave myself stern orders to play it cool. I cranked the old rotor window down, the one that stuck for Kaylee’s little brother and her mom but never gave me any problems at all.

Without the glass as a barrier, the smell of manure grew even headier.

“Hi, Mila,” Hunter said. As usual, I noticed the way his lopsided smile upturned his lips, the left side just a little higher than the right. When he tilted his head, the hood of his black long-sleeved shirt pulled loose, unleashing that now-familiar tumble of brown waves. Waves that looked incredibly soft and practically begged for my fingers to run through them.

Okay, I really needed to stop. Kaylee and I had a deal.

I commanded my voice to sound nonchalant. “Hi, Hunt—”

“Hunter!” Kaylee squealed. “Hey, why don’t you come with us? We’re on our way to Dairy Queen, and you seriously don’t want to pass up one of the best things this town has to offer!” Kaylee leaned across me for a better view, forcing me to smash my head against the crunchy old headrest if I didn’t want to inhale a mouthful of her grapefruit-scented hair.