At the Stars(32)

Her smile is contagious. “Maybe it’s just that you’re too lazy to cook,” I say.

She giggles then. “Well, there are only so many things I can make in AJ’s tiny microwave.”

It hits me—and not for the first time—how making her laugh does things to me that it shouldn’t. That feeling, like I won a contest? I shouldn’t get used to it.

Whatever shitty things have been in both of our lives, right now we have a sunny picnic on a park bench. That’s pretty fucking great.

I clear my throat to cover up the way my head is getting all jammed. “So. Nursing home?”

“Yeah, AJ volunteers sometimes. I went with.” Her hair blows, shining in the sunlight. It’s almost even better than the glow of her smile.

“That sounds pretty great.”

“Mmm.” She pauses, turning her face up to the sun while she thinks.

The golden glow of light on her cheeks makes me want to turn her back towards me. I want to be greedy for her attention. I want to kiss her again. Instead I wrap my hand around the plastic knife she’s handed me until the blade wakes me up a little. I remind myself that she’s too good for a guy who ran away from his wicked stepmother at seventeen and then killed a man like some kind of cracked-out fairy tale.

“It actually was good,” she says after a minute.

“Yeah?” I make myself smile again. I need to hide the direction my thoughts have turned. Plus, she’s handing me a bowl of food. In spite of the nerves in my gut, this stuff really does smell appetizing. “Had to give it some thought?”

“Yeah.” Her smile dims, but it’s still there. It’s impossible not to like it, even though I don’t want to. I swear she really lights up sometimes. “It’s hard to see people age. It’s hard to see people die. I know it’s inevitable, and it’s something we all need to accept, but being surrounded by it makes you come face to face with all the things you’re afraid of.” She pauses, pressing her lips together. “It does for me, anyway. I feel like saying that makes me a terrible person.”

I tap my foot against hers. “I think it makes you honest. You’re right that it’s hard. It’s hard at any age. My mom died young and my dad was never the same.”

Cold washes through me before I even fully realize what I’ve said. I’ve never told anybody about my parents. All these years I’ve lived in Evergreen Grove. I’ve never told anybody anything.

She doesn’t even realize that I’ve given her this piece of myself. She’s looking down at her bowl, emptying a packet of crackers into it while she nods thoughtfully. “I get it,” she says. “I mean I don’t know what happened with your dad. After my mom died, I kind of went a little off the deep end. I held it together long enough for the funeral, selling the house. All the paperwork and stuff. Then one day I broke it off with my boyfriend, got in my car, and left town.”

Oh. Hell. “So this was recent.”

Another nod. “She died about six months ago. The whole giving-my-hometown-the-finger fiasco? Yeah. Shortly before you found me out there in the road, behaving like an idiot.” She smiles again, this time with a deep, dark, embarrassed-looking blush. “It was a small place. Like here, except I’d grown up there and everybody knew every bad thing that had happened in my life. Mom killing herself was the last straw, you know?”

Jesus. I put my food down and pull her close, because in spite of all the things I’ve told myself, this isn’t a moment to keep anyone at arm’s length. I squeeze my hand around her shoulder, bringing my lips up to her ear. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She swipes a hand at her eyes. “Don’t be.”

“I can be if I want.” Because fuck, that sucks like nothing else. At least when my mom died, we knew it was coming.

“Sure. I guess you can.” She nods and puts her head against my shoulder. I don’t stop her, and it doesn’t feel as wrong as I think it’s supposed to. Which has me worried, but it’s a worry for another time.

“That’s big of you.”

She makes a noise against my chest. Maybe it was supposed to be a laugh, but it comes out more like a sniffle or a snort. Shit, this is a little strange. Since I don’t want to be a jerk about it, I decide there’s nothing to do but settle back and wait until she’s done collecting herself.

“Dammit. We’re supposed to be talking about your stupid car,” she mumbles against me.

I rub my hand against her shoulder. Seems like the right thing to do. “We’ll talk about my stupid car later.”