Rehearsal dinner at Our Little Secret!” Kristin announces. “Chop-chop, let’s go, everybody. Remember to give our name at the door. Yoon.” She squeals. “I’m going to be Mrs. Yoon.”
“Would you like some ice?” Alex asks comfortably as I climb into the passenger seat of his truck, concentrating anywhere but on him.
“For what?”
“You’re looking all hot and bothered.” He meets my scowl with a pleased smile. “Might help.”
“Bothered as in annoyed.”
“Bothered as in indecent.” He clucks his tongue. “Pull down the mirror and take a look at yourself.”
“I will not.”
“All right, I’ll look enough for the both of us.” He lets out a whistle. “Whew, all this just from a hand on your waist.”
My scowl deepens as he shuts my door, rounding the front. Laughing! He’s trying to get me riled up. It’s working.
“So,” he says as he starts the engine. “What’re your plans for after you’re done with Trevor? Got anybody lined up?”
I snort, allowing my gaze to drift out my window. It’s an awfully bouncy truck; I don’t know the terminology but I’m pretty sure something is wrong with his shocks. I have to hold my door handle for dear life as we rocket over the large rocks half embedded in the parking lot, and again he has the nerve to hum placidly, all cool, easy amusement. “You love to hear yourself talk.”
“You hear my voice? Rich as sin, honey, you love to hear it, too.” He grins as he checks behind him, backing out.
I watch his hands on the steering wheel. Palms on the torn vinyl, fingers raised. “Like smooooooth whiskey.”
“So into yourself.” I reach for the music.
He bats my hand away from the dials. “No, you don’t.”
“Why?” I press a few buttons, howling when a CD ejects. “You still buy CDs! That’s so old school.”
“It’s classic,” he corrects, even though this isn’t a proper CD. It’s coated with a silver sticker, a label he didn’t bother filling in.
“They have this thing called Bluetooth now,” I tease. He grabs the CD from me, throwing it onto the narrow bench seat behind us.
“Hey! I wasn’t done snooping.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t run out of stuff to stick your nose in before we get to the restaurant.”
So true. I page through a battered copy of BirdWatching magazine. He’s got more of them rolled up in the glovebox.
He glances. “Reading material for my lunch break.”
“Into birds, are we?”
He twitters a rapid, musical birdcall. “Was that a house wren? You’d think so! However. It was actually me. Realistic, eh?”
This successfully steals a laugh from me. I try to cough it away.
Motivated, he imitates a different birdcall, this one akin to a machine gun drill. “Chipping sparrow.” He swings a look at me. “I know what you’re thinking right now.”
“Please tell.”
“You’re thinking, Ooh, Alex is soooo good at birdcalls, but you won’t tell me so, because you don’t want me to know how impressed you are.”
“I’m actually thinking, Ooh, Alex has the biggest head in the universe.”
“Biggest, and most irresistible.”
As I shake my head, his smile grows. And then, because he makes it too easy, I say, “Paul McCartney’s kind of overrated, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me?”
I nod toward the radio, which is playing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Paul McCartney,” I repeat, as though he’s missing something obvious.
“What does he have to do with anything? This is Queen.”
I squint. “Uh . . . no. I don’t think it is.”
He accidentally steps on the brake, then corrects. “Are you serious?”
“I’m pretty sure this is Paul McCartney. The guy from the Rolling Stones.”
“WHAT?”
Alex passionately lectures me on the three different bands, their members, their songs, the fact that calling any of them overrated is an insult to the arts—nay, to all of humanity—until he catches my smirk and then completely loses his mind.
“Raising my blood pressure for fun,” he grumbles.
I try to whistle. “This is a barn owl.”
“It is not.”
In a delightful stroke of fortune, the next song on the radio is “You’re So Vain,” which I sing directly into his face. “Look, Alex! They’re playing your song. Aww.”
“I bet that to you, all songs are about me.”
He grins, never removing his eyes from the road, as I sputter in response. I hate how he does that, hate it so much I lose the ability to speak. Turning all my arrows around in midair and redirecting them at me. But on the other side of that coin is another talent I can’t be mad at: his ability to distract me into a better mood. Making me forget I was crying not all that long ago.
We veer into the murder mystery dinner theater parking lot, a stream of cars ahead of us and behind us all belonging to the wedding party. I hop out, refusing to make eye contact with Alex due to some principle I haven’t determined yet, which he barely acknowledges, sliding right into step with his cousins, chatting with them. Trevor waves from the restaurant door, which he opened for Teyonna.
“Ro! Why’d you ride with him for?” To Alex: “King, you flirting with my girl?”
“No,” he returns with a lazy dazzle of a smile. “I’m flirting with mine.”
I bristle, hurrying past him. “You wish.”
“Oh, Ro,” Trevor whispers when we’re alone, his voice pained. “Please, no. One of us was supposed to be successful with this ‘make them sorry’ thing! I’ll never be the strong one. It had to be you.”
“What show are they doing today? I can’t watch Winds of Auberville one more time. Ted’s a sweetheart, but the man couldn’t reach high notes with a ladder.”
“Not Alex. You deserve a man with more style than that—do you really want a guy who wears jeans and a plain-ass T-shirt every day? The same jeans, too. It’s like he found one that fit right and bought twenty identical pairs. Or worse—he only has one pair! Let me set you up with my boy Keith. He’s got an albino snake big as your thigh, named Amber, and the most incredible collection of slim-fit chinos.”
I decide I do not hear him.
The Yoons reserved half the restaurant, long gleaming tables pushed together. The recessed lights are dim, walls aglow with neon steins and signed Moonstruck movie posters. Joan Finkel and Wanda Horowitz, two ladies who are in a perpetual state of 1950s dress and have been doing these shows for as long as I can remember—yet never seem to age—are moving set pieces around onstage, prepping for the show that begins in a few minutes. Judging by the men’s mining clothes and the ladies’ long white nightgowns, we’re being treated to The Lavender Lady, an embellished re-creation of a local ghost story.
I wait for Trevor and Alex to pick their seats, then choose a spot far from both of them. Trevor stands up and walks directly over the empty chairs, dropping into the one beside mine.
“I know your father did not teach you to act like that in restaurants,” I snip, darting a glance at Alex. He’s watching us with transparent displeasure. We don’t look away from each other until the lights are killed, vanishing him. Yellow hyacinth flashes through my mind, bright in the black room.
I shiver.
“Calm down, Mother.” Trevor recites his order to the waitress, I give mine (manicotti with two-pound bricks of cheese inside. I’m talking cheese that wants to make a tender loving home inside your arteries), and the show begins. Twenty minutes later, I’m only just beginning to cool off.
Trevor borrows a swig of my lemonade. “Ro,” he whispers, “give it to me straight. Are you boinking Alex?”
I dip my fingertips into my glass. Flick him in the face with lemonade.
He blinks the droplets away, unfazed. “As your ex-lover, I’m entitled to know.”
“We have never been lovers.”
“We’ve been bro-lovers. Brolos.” He tilts his head, thinking. “If you’re going to boink Alex, that makes you and I step-lovers.”
“I’m not boinking anybody.”
“You should, it would give your hair better body. What do you have against volumizing mousse?”
He flits away to go bother Teyonna, and at one point lets himself into the kitchen. It’s astonishing that he doesn’t get kicked out, but, even more astonishing: He returns with a slice of pie for me. I don’t have room, sadly. You could drown somebody in a river by tying this manicotti to their ankle.
I take the opportunity to set him straight. “Trevor, I need you to grasp that if I wanted to have sex with Alex, I would,” I mutter, keeping my volume down. “You don’t get an opinion on it.”
“Ew, it sounds so much worse when you phrase it like that. Ro, as your brolo . . . your Robrolo, if you will . . . I think I should get a vote on your boyfriends, and the reason I bring this up is that Keith thinks you’re cute. He wanted me to pass along that he lays excellent pipe—”
“Keith, the guy with the snake?”
He pauses. “Yeah? I told him you want three kids and twenty cats. He’s cool with it. I mean, you’ll have to be careful with your cats around his snakes, and one of his pythons could potentially try to eat one of your kids, but—”
“Goodbye.”
I get up, searching for a different spot, only to discover with a horrible jolt that Alex has relocated. He’s one chair removed from Trevor now, back ramrod straight, eyes on his untouched dinner. He slowly sets down his fork. Looks up at me. He’s rolled open the doors to his thoughts and is letting a rainstorm out; his eyes say I was correct all along.
Pulse a painful gallop, my mind drains of all language except for Well, shit.
I trip, lemonade sloshing over the table, and sop it up clumsily with a napkin. The cast is belting out a tune about a woman who was out collecting lavender, then got flattened by a train. I reject the possibility that Alex heard Trevor and me through all this din. I wouldn’t survive the humiliation. The judgment. The Romina Tempest, you are so pathetic.
“Trevor.” I grab him. “Let’s go.”
“What? The show isn’t over.”
“I need to get out of here, now, and I need someone to drive me away like they’ve just robbed a Tiffany’s. How fast is your Cube?”
He jumps to his feet. “I’m in. Hang on, gotta get T. She rode with me.”
“Hurry.” I bustle toward the door, checking over my shoulder. My stomach flips. Alex has abandoned his seat and is walking up the sloped floor in my direction. Kristin will have to send me a picture of the wedding, because by the time she and Mr. Yoon exchange vows, I’ll be building a new life in Canada. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s escaping a confrontation!
Trevor tugs along a befuddled Teyonna, and it’s Go Time: We fly across the parking lot, throw the doors open, and jump in, car already shifting gears before I’ve got my door shut.
“Lock ’em, lock ’em!”
Teyonna howls, clicking her seatbelt. “Aghh! Who’d you kill?”
“My pride! Hurry, hurry!” I grip the back of the passenger headrest hard, and we peel out of the lot, around the corner. I am exhilarated, electrified, terrified. A wobbling pair of headlights in the dusk swings toward us, twin stars rapidly approaching, rebounding off our mirrors. I detect a dark shape in the driver’s seat wearing a ball cap, left arm draped out the window, idly tapping the metal body of the car.
Trevor presses the gas until the engine keens, peering over his shoulder. “What’d you do to him? Is this a sex thing? Do you like to be chased? I did not consent to participate in your kinky shit, Romina.”
“I’m pretty sure he overheard us talking.”
“I don’t remember what we were talking about. Anything good?”
“It was clear from our conversation that we’re not dating.”
Teyonna oooohhhs. “Alex still doesn’t know?”
“I was planning to take the secret to my grave.”
The speed limit marker changes, and Trevor’s a bullet from a barrel, firing ahead—the road out of town is barren, nothing but empty, winding highway flanked by forest, wildflowers bleeding into navy pools. I check for exits we could take, then turn around to monitor Alex’s location. Teyonna shrieks with laughter. “What’s he doing? Where are we even going?”
Alex appears beside us in the other lane. He meets my wide-eyed gaze with one that promises to scorch the earth, then speeds up. Passes ahead of us, sliding in front.
“Oh my,” I say faintly.
Trevor’s phone begins to ring in the car. He answers it, hands-free. “What up.”
A familiar voice pours through the speakers. “Pull over.”
Alex disconnects the call.
“Don’t pull over.” I’m sweating through my clothes. “How much gas is in this tank?” I lean forward from my spot in the backseat, up between them, to scope out his gauge.
“Got me in a car chase while I’m trying to digest a skillet cookie!” Trevor bounces up and down, checking his mirrors. “I knew you two were doing it.”
“This isn’t a sex thing!”
Trevor narrows his eyes at me in the rearview mirror.
Ahead of us, Alex gradually drops off in speed, slowing to fifty miles per hour, then forty-five, then forty. Thirty. At this point, I can count every fence post that streaks by, trees no longer blurring together. Thanks to all the hills, we’re stuck in a no-passing zone.
Twenty miles per hour. Fifteen. Ten. Trevor honks. Hangs out the window. “Move your ass, son!”
Then we stop. Alex switches on his emergency flashers.
“Oh my lord.” I clutch my seatbelt, nervous system blowing up with adrenaline.
Teyonna’s phone rings. “Hello?” She cranks around to look at me. “Mm hm. Mm hm.” Nods. “Got it.” Calmly returns her phone to her pocket.
“He says he isn’t going anywhere till he’s got Romina.”
“Couple of perverts,” Trevor’s complaining now.
I grip Teyonna’s arm. “Never let your consequences catch up with you, Teyonna.”
A knock at my window makes us both shriek.
I turn slowly to see Alex, leaning on the door all casually, like he could wait around all day for me to give up, face angled toward the violet sky.
Trevor rolls my window down. “You’re insane,” he tells him. “Maybe we’ll get along better than I thought.”
Alex’s eyes cut to mine. His hand makes a quick dart inside my window, unlocks my door, and opens it. “After you,” he says amiably.
I glare up at him. “This is extremely questionable behavior. I will get out of this car, but only because I want to, and it is my idea.” I purse my lips. “Trevor drives too fast.”
Some colorful language booms from the driver’s seat.
“Come with me, we’re going somewhere to be alone.”
I grumble, stalking after him to his truck. “You’re an overbearing asshole,” I mutter. Alex slides behind the wheel.
“And you’re a damn liar.”
I press back into the seat to ground myself, stare locked on the road. I feel his loud inner dialogue hitting off every surface of the car.
He swings down a gravel exit, rumbling slowly under an overpass of laced treetops. Cuts the engine in a grove that faces the narrowest section of Foxglove Creek, our backs to the field and a narrow strip of woods.
I jump out, sprinting through the field before Alex can blink.
“Get over here,” he growls.
“In my defense,” I begin loudly as he slams his door and regards me, “I started pretending to date Trevor approximately five minutes before I knew you were in town. It wasn’t personal.”
“Feels personal.”
I feint left, dart right. “His cousin was giving him a hard time for not being able to keep a girlfriend. Trevor’s my friend; my job is to wingman in whatever way is necessary. I won’t apologize for that part.”
He walks backward, circling, tone suggesting mere, mild curiosity. “What part are you going to apologize for?”
“You finding out.”
“I see.” He moves faster, a quicksilver streak in the semidarkness, and I realize he’s been pulling punches with his speed.
My steps falter, but I pick back up, dancing around the truck. He loops opposite. “Maybe I didn’t think it’d be the worst thing in the world . . . if I were to make you a little bit jealous.” I lick my lips. He follows the movement, torment racing just below his skin in a sharp electrical zigzag up to his left temple.
“A little bit jealous,” he repeats. “Got what you wanted yet?”
I raise my chin, searching for the thread I can pull that will make him grin, make him scowl, make him tumble to his knees at my mercy. “Yes,” I reply archly. “I’d say that I certainly have, Alexander.”
His head dips. “My turn.”
Then he runs.
I fly for the truck, but I don’t have time to open the door, he’s a blaze on my heels, lighting me up from behind—I vault over the tailgate into the back instead, no plan, just the instinct to stay in motion. Alex lands with a heavy thud behind me, the whole vehicle rocking. I whirl, uncertain where to go now, strong hands landing on my upper arms with a touch that’s impossibly tender. A body braces mine against the roof of the truck, coaxing me slowly backward until my vision is filled with starlight. Trevor might be on to something, because I think I enjoy being caught.
Alex pursues what he wants with thorough, willful dedication. I’m weak for it.
“You’d better be single,” he grits out.
I unleash a terrible, rotten grin up at Alex that’s going to eat at him, bite by bite, for days. Weeks. Years. “Too bad, I’m not. I have fifty men waiting for a piece of me.”
“Fifty-one.”
He bites my neck.