The Lies About Truth(48)

I zoned out while Max drove us to the dock at his house.

I went back to the day Trent told me about Callahan.





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


It was just another summer day where I was in love with my book and towel and sunblock. Trent snatched my paperback and said, “Don’t live in that fantasy world; come play in mine.”

“Does your world have motorcycles?” I said, reaching for the book.

He tugged me up from the towel. “I swear it does.”

That phrase usually led to actual swearing, but that day he grinned ear to ear. I swore for both of us, and followed him off the beach. I complained about the heat of the sand. I protested that I was at the good part of my book. I asked where we were going.

Trent never gave something away unless he wanted to.

He marched me to the Yaris and drove us to the kiteboard shop where our friend Callahan worked.

“Callahan, toss me your keys,” Trent said.

Callahan was a couple of years older. Sometimes we rented from him, but I didn’t realize Trent knew him well enough to demand his keys. Callahan threw a wink and a key at Trent and said, “Bring it back with gas, bud.”

“You were saying.” Trent gloated as we walked to the Ninja.

The challenge bit me in the ass. He shoved a helmet on my head, and I hiked my leg over the seat and held on. Through town, Trent rolled slow. His balance was perfect and easy to match. Melding with him was like singing harmony; I went wherever he did.

“You’re really good at this,” I yelled.

If he heard, he acknowledged by increasing the speed. Trent rocketed us away from the coast and toward the part of Florida no one visits. Out where bales of cotton lay in the fields and abandoned peanut stands leaned between trees. Angling with him on the curves, leaving my hands on my thighs, I sat slightly to the right and watched our world streak by. The blur was beautiful.

My ponytail would be a rat’s nest for days, but I didn’t care. There were endless roads and endless smells. Pine. Leather. The lingering scent of coconut sunblock. The sun sat so high in the sky that it looked like the end of a flashlight.

And I was with Trent, the magician of unusual days.

When he opened the motorcycle up, my heart beat patty-cake, thrilled at the wind and speed. Somewhere between sixty and “Oh damn, that’s fast,” my hands locked around his stomach. I felt his laughter in my fingers as his belly shook with delight from scaring me.

A stop sign held us up. He dropped his feet to the ground and swiveled back to me. “Your turn.”

I took my turn, and his instructions. Curves were hard to handle because of our weight ratios. The straight stretches were a different story. On the open road, I let the needle climb to 101 before I brought it back to reasonable and braked.

“Hot damn,” Trent said. “Can’t do that in a book.”

I didn’t tell him that I absolutely could, because he didn’t understand fiction.

We swapped seats two more times, and got lost on the back roads until Trent pulled over in the grass and said, “Hey, I know this place. Take a walk with me, Sadie May.”

I was game.

Game. (n.) my willingness to follow Trent McCall into the heart of Mordor, or the Forbidden Woods, or a field with a No Trespassing sign.

Long weeds kicked at his calves as he left the side of the road and took a few steps into a field.

“Come on,” he said in that breadcrumb way.

“Right behind you.”

Our shoes sank into the soft earth. As we arrived at the top of a tiny rise in the land, I saw more of what I’d already seen: a whole lot of northern Florida that was exactly like the rest of northern Florida.

Trent took off Callahan’s jacket, spread it out, and gave it a pat.

Invitation accepted.

When we were on the ground, he angled toward me. “Sometimes the sky is my favorite photograph,” he said.

“It’s more like a movie,” I argued.

“Not if you lock the perfect shots in.” He tapped his temple and said, “Snap. Snap,” as if he were taking a picture. “I’m keeping this one of you forever.”

I shoved him over. “Please don’t. I haven’t brushed my hair in days.”

“No one brushes hair in the summer,” he maintained.

I agreed.

The sky was a denim-blue dome. A shade the ocean couldn’t hit on its best day. I was as happy in this story as I’d been in the book.

“Dad used to bring me here when I was a kid,” Trent said. “Usually there are jets.”

“And Max?” I asked. “Did he bring him here too?”

“No, this was our spot. He took Max to the library.” Trent’s hands worked the field like a tiny plow, pulling up clumps of dirt and sand. “I’ve only been here with one other person.”

“Gina?”

“Naw. We always go to her house.” He shrugged. “She likes the couch.”

“Who?” I asked. “Gray?”

Trent didn’t answer. “You have anywhere in particular you go with Gray? You know . . . when the four of us aren’t together?”

“Can’t kiss and tell,” I said.

“Not even with me?”

I debated my answer. Trent and Gray were tight enough to trade stories, but telling Trent was a slight betrayal of Gray. Not telling him, after he’d asked, felt worse.