Chewing my bottom, lip, I type out the fastest answer in the history of texting.
Me: Well, if you’re busy …
History Hunk: STOP. I’m free. Tell me when and where.
My fingers are swift over the keys, falling right back into the groove.
Me: My mom’s house. Saturday afternoon? *bites nails*
History Hunk: I’ll bring Mace.
Me: You’re the best.
History Hunk: You haven’t seen the start of it. ;)
Me: Gotta go.
History Hunk: Chocolate cupcakes tomorrow? Peanut butter icing?
Me: Bye.
Seventeen
Mariah
“My, you look beautiful today.” Lance starts the engine and pulls out onto the street. “Did you do something new to your hair?”
“Why are you being weird?” I laugh, fastening my seatbelt. I have no idea how we can fall into such an easy rhythm, like this is what we do and nothing awkward ever happened, but we do and I’m more grateful for it today than ever.
He looks at me over his shoulder. “I read a book on manners. It said I should compliment you when I see you.”
“I believe the first thing you said to me was, ‘I knew you’d cave,” I say, yawning.
“I tried.” He wrinkles his forehead. “Sleepy?”
“A little. It hit me around two this morning what I was up against today. Makes it hard to sleep.”
The car pulls onto the highway toward Lancaster and the address I gave Lance earlier. The traffic is light, the sun bright. Now that we’re in the car and on the way, a sharp, almost bitter sensation has its claws in my gut.
Instead of focusing on that, I focus on Lance.
He’s wearing a collared shirt the color of jade with a pair of dark jeans. He’s chosen to don the pair of black glasses I love which he wears on occasion. It’s the confidence, I think, that his glasses portray that makes me swoon when I see them on his face. There’s a fraction of stubble along his jaw that lends a casual vibe to his ensemble It’s glorious.
Tucking my hands under my thighs just so I don’t touch him, I try to refocus my attention on the road ahead.
“What’s the game plan today?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, are we going eye-for-an-eye or playing nice? I can do either, but I’d like to have some operational direction before we go in.”
Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I worry it back and forth.
There’s no telling how this is going to go. I haven’t seen Chrissy in forever except for an accidental run-in at the pharmacy during Easter. Every interaction between us is heated, the result of a lifetime of competition that I didn’t sign up for.
It hurts. When I was a little girl and Mom and Chrissy would take off to do a pageant or go for a girl’s day at the spa and I was left home alone, I would get angry. Not that I wanted to do those things; I just wanted to be included. Then, in my early twenties, I switched. Numbing myself from it was easier. I didn’t need them. When I met Eric I was sure I’d met the man I was going to start my own family with—and then he leaves me for them. It was like he conspired with the enemy and they all laughed in my face. The pain, the anger, wasn’t just from losing Eric. It was from losing him to them, losing him to the same people he was supposed to protect me from.
“I don’t know what the plan is,” I admit. “Maybe we should just go back home?”
Expecting a witty retort, I hold my breath and wait. Lance surprises me instead.
“I think we should go,” he states.
“Why?”
He mulls over my question, tapping out the song on the radio against his thigh. We speed around a car and he takes a drink of coffee from a to-go cup before turning to me.
“I think we should go because I’d give anything to celebrate a birthday with my Mom,” he says.
My heart pulls at his expression. He looks so lonely, even though I’m right here, so I pull his hand off his thigh and hold it gently in mine. The contact isn’t the bolt of lightning it usually is. It’s a soft, gentle buzz that I feel in every cell of my body. In return, he gives me the slightest upturn of his lips, but that’s all.
“I’m sorry your parents passed away,” I say. His hand is warm and firm, sturdy just like he is, as I roll it over in my palm. His fingers move against mine in a lazy dance that feels entirely too good.
He squeezes my fingers, holding them tight for a long second, before pulling his hand away. He uses the now-freed palm to turn the steering wheel leading us off the highway and into downtown Lancaster.
“My family isn’t like yours though,” I say. A bubble of anxiety hits me as we stop at the first light in town. “It’s almost like they aren’t my family. I’m just an attachment. I got thrown in at the last second like those apple pies at fast-food joints that you add for ninety-nine cents and then never eat. That’s me.”