We take a different trail on the way back, emerging on Bear Run, the road that cuts behind the library and the dentist office. Then we turn right, single file on the sidewalk. I used to ride my bike all over this town with Zelda—not so much Luna, thanks to the age gap—and a ride isn’t complete without a race through the Moonville tunnel. This tunnel is our most iconic feature: fifty yards long, burrowing straight through a high hill. It’s made of brick, the word MOONVILLE cut into the front, grassy slopes on either side blanketed with more of our signature love-in-a-mist. Alex hunts for the best-looking flower and picks it, then tucks it into my hair.
It’s growing colder, especially in this haunted tunnel, and I shiver. Alex unzips his jacket without a second thought, folding it around my shoulders.
“You sure?” I ask, even as I zip it all the way to my chin.
“Think I hear a baseball game going on out at Coe’s Park,” he says, with a jerk of his chin. “Want to go watch?”
“Sure.” My arm brushes the pocket of Alex’s jacket, rustling something he’s got in there. I reach inside, fingers closing around a folded page of notebook paper. A number of odd phrases are jotted down in his handwriting, in a combination of Sharpie, pencil, and a pen with its ink cartridge slowly easing into the great beyond:
Running back to you (for the foxes)
4runner (this one especially)
Now & then
big fat mouth
From the back of a cab
Peach (islands something??)
Edge of town
You’re so vain
My forehead puckers. “What’s this?”
Alex’s eyes pop. He dives for the paper just as I’m skimming the next line, Can you feel the love to—and I issue a reedy “Hah!”
My face is ninety-percent grin. His has gone terribly red.
“Alexander.”
“No,” he cuts in.
“Is. This.”
“No.”
“A playlist.”
“No.”
“RT and me. This is about us. This is a playlist about us, isn’t it?”
He stuffs the paper into his back pocket, neck flaming. “No, it isn’t, Miss Nosypants.” Quite rich, after he rummaged through my charm bag. “RT is my girlfriend from Canada. You don’t know her.”
“The Lion King? Alex. Alex. Oh my goodness, that’s cute. You’re so cute, I can’t stand it. I’m gonna take you home and keep you in a shoebox.”
“Listen, if it fits my vibe, it goes on the list. No judging.”
I kick off on my bike, piloting around him in circles. Around and around I go with a grin I can’t tamp down. He stands still, watching. “Was I judging? No, I was not. I told you it was cute. Do you have this on Spotify? I want to listen.”
“You don’t have the required clearance.”
I skid out. “Excusez-moi?”
“If you can’t handle scores from The Lion King soundtrack, I’m not showing you what else is on there. Some of the songs will seem strange because the lyrics don’t have a, you know.” He coughs into his fist. “A romantic feel. Like I said, it’s about the vibe. You’ll tease.”
“You love when I tease.” I am dying to know. I’ve never wanted to know a thing more in my life. “Please oh please oh please oh please oh please, I’ll marry you—” I snap my mouth shut. I should do that a lot more.
To deflect from my blunder, I reach up and switch our hats—his ball cap for my straw boater. “I’m into it,” I say. “You look like a hot farmer.”
Alex’s expression is carefully neutral. He spins the ball cap on my head around backward, static in my hair reacting, ends standing to attention. “First my jacket, now my hat. You want my pants, too?”
“Yes, take them off, please.” I rocket down the tunnel, determined to beat him to Coe’s Park. Maybe by the time I arrive, I won’t have cheeks so hot you could fry bacon on them. That “big fat mouth” song is probably about me. “Not that you have room to talk—you’ve still got all my favorite rings. Probably have them tucked away in a special drawer. Bet you take them out before bed and try them on.”
“Hey!” He veers onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road, joining me. “You’re supposed to cross at the stoplight!”
“Goody-goody.”
“Hey, I can be bad if I feel like it. Watch this.” He tries to pop a wheelie but almost falls backward; my hand shoots out to steady his handlebars.
“Calm down there, Evel Knievel.”
We cruise the street Alex grew up on, riddled with potholes so deep you could crack your front bumper on them, slowing when we reach his grandfather’s old house. He passed when Alex was away at college. I felt like an asshole for not attending his funeral, but I knew Alex would be there.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see Joshua King loping out the front door in one of his argyle sweaters, waving hello to us as we walked Alex’s dog, Lacy. If Zelda was with us, he’d shout out Zelda, Warrior Princess, eternally mixing up Zelda and Xena.
“Who lives there now?”
“Looks empty.” The windows are smashed.
To wipe that somber expression from his face, I cry, “Race you!” and off we fly—I weave, which more or less forces him to stay behind me, ensuring my win. When we arrive at our destination, he picks me up off my bike and swings me around. I scrabble at him, shrieking with laughter; we end up sprawled in the grass. I roll on top to pin him.
“My poor legs are tired. You’re going to have to carry me home,” I sigh.
“Four blocks away.”
“Yes.”
He gazes adoringly at me, rosy-cheeked, stealing his hat back and replacing it on his head. “Okay.”
I tug on the bill. “You and that hat.”
“I’m only wearing it this often because you don’t like the short-hair look.”
I take the hat back off, casting it like a Frisbee. Shower his head with kisses. “I like you with any look. I like your look so much that I’m poaching your wardrobe. I’m Single White Female–ing you.”
“You have leaves in your hair.” He picks them out one by one, then kisses my forehead. “Why did you have to be so pretty? It’s such a waste, whenever I have to look at anything else. The worst part is I’ve always known it, had to go too many years looking at too many other faces. Knew the whole time what I was missing. Knew that being satisfied with anyone else would be impossible.”
When he talks like this, confirming that he was missing me all the while that I was missing him, how much time we spent without each other when it didn’t have to be that way, an invisible hand wraps around my windpipe and squeezes. If I think about it too much, I’ll pass out. “I’ll give you my picture in a locket so you can wear me around your neck.” I roll into the grass beside him. “We’re so good at watching baseball.”
He jumps to his feet, then grabs a metal bench to steady himself, dizzy. “Right! We’re on a date. I need to feed you nachos. Lots of cheese, so that you keep coming back for more, like a stray cat.”
We settle shoulder to shoulder in the second row, soft pretzels and nachos in greasy cartons across our laps. The sky is a rich cerulean edged with pink, just dark enough for the stadium lights to spring to life. The metal beneath my legs is slightly sticky and cold.
I look at Alex as the bat connects with the ball—crack!—and celebratory whistles erupt around us, his profile sharp and attentive on the game. My heart is breaking down, blood vessel by blood vessel. Everything about him is a wonder. The shadows of his eyelashes flaring over his cheeks, the sweat glistening on his hairline, the stubble darkening his jaw. The setting sun is a flame in his eyes, dusting his throat and arms with rose. He’s perfect. Perfect. Every inch, designed for me. I’m not entirely convinced I’m not dreaming.
“Romina?”
“Hmm?”
His voice drops. “You’re staring.”
“Your fault. You’re beautiful.”
He angles his face to appraise me, a smile first lighting up his eyes before it takes effect on his lips. My leg begins to bounce up and down unstoppably. He holds it still with his hand.
“Probably about twenty minutes left of the game,” someone in the bleachers behind us says, and Alex stands.
“Stay here,” he tells me. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where’re you going?” I watch him walk across the grass, picking up our bicycles. “Hey! Explain yourself.”
“Don’t move!” he shouts back.
He returns when both teams are jogging past each other, arms extended for high-fives. I like baseball, but not with the same enthusiasm as Alex, who loves sports—a religious football watcher, a casual baseball player and lifelong fan, collector of cards. It’s disappointing that he missed the end of the game when, of the two of us, he’d have enjoyed it more. A familiar honk has me panning the parking lot.
He’s leaning against the driver’s door. Holds up a hand when I spot him.
I sprint over. “You missed the end!”
“Had to go pick up the truck. And I took your bike home.”
“I could’ve gone with you.”
“Your poor legs, remember?”
I say thank you with a kiss.
Once inside the cab, he drapes across my lap a throw blanket that he must’ve grabbed from his house. “Date’s not over. Pit Stop, Mozzi’s, or the deli from Moonville Market for a late dinner? I’m sick of Half Moon Mill’s food, and Our Little Secret’s doing their spaghetti western thing. They put too many onions in their spaghetti.”
We grab calzones from Mozzi’s and park on a hill overlooking the rushing current of Twinstar Fork while we eat. “So. Why Oreton, town traitor?”
He coughs on a meatball. “Sheesh. I don’t know . . . Oreton’s fine. Doesn’t have you, that’s about all that’s wrong with it, though.”
I pepper him with another question. “Who’s the dog in that picture you texted me?”
“That’s Bert Handsome. He’s Miles’s best friend and goes with him everywhere, which means I get weekend custody.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“What color underwear have you got on?”
This man is impossible. “Give me a real answer.”
He snaps up the bottom of my skort dress. “Black.”
I pinch his leg. “What’s your favorite song nowadays? Still Weezer?”
“Weezer’s a band, not a song. My favorite song is ‘4Runner’ at the moment. Changes with my mood.”
I cock my head. “I recognize the name of that song.”
“No, you don’t.” He rolls my window up and down in a weird bid to distract me.
“It’s from your playlist!” I shake his arm. “The one you’ve forbidden me from listening to.”
“Forbidding it was a mistake. Forbidding made it sexier.”
“You’re right, you should let me listen. Hey, what’s your favorite movie?”
“I didn’t study for this quiz, Romina.”
“It’s your favorite movie, not the Pythagorean theorem. Surely you have a favorite movie.”
He casts around, as if the concept of having a favorite movie is totally foreign to him. “Mamma Mia?”
“Seriously?”
“It was on TV the night before Mom’s wedding, after you scrambled my brain with your mouth. I don’t remember a thing about that movie.” His smile is wistful. “But damn, was I feeling great.”
“You’re playing this game wrong.”
He crumples the foil wrapper from his calzone into a ball and stuffs it into a bag. “Sorry. These’re the answers you’re getting, I’m afraid. You wanna go back to my place for a while? I’ve got a cheesecake in the fridge I know you’ll love.”
“Ah.” I twist the hem of my dress into my lap, fiddling nervously. “Maybe another time. It’s getting late.”
As we drive back to my house, I squeeze whatever juice I can manage out of our few remaining minutes left. “What are your nights like? What are you going to do when you go home?”
“Think about you.”
“Okay, but what are you going to do?”
“Lie on my couch and think about you.”
“Alex. I’m talking activities.”
“Some of the thinking will take place in the shower. I will be thinking about you strenuously there.”
I’m exasperated. “Alexander!”
“Romina!” he returns happily.
“You’re talking about me. I want to hear about you. Talk about Alex.”
His grin dissolves as he stares at me. Weeks ago, his eyes were intense, guarded whenever they landed on me. Now, they’re wide-open, radiating perfect contentment. His entire body language has unwound, the tightness of his muscles, spilling from straight lines into easy curves, not a care in the world. The countenance of a man who thinks he’s manifested exactly what he wanted.
“I am talking about myself.”
“No, you’re not. Come on, there’s so much I don’t know. I wanna know it all.”
He leans back, scrubbing a hand over his hair. Snaps the seatbelt that crosses his chest. “Well, shit, you already do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You don’t? How so? You know me. You know how to make me laugh, how to get on my nerves, how to bring me out of my head and into my body. How to make me fun, which I don’t think I usually am—that’s a side of me you bring out. I like playing with you. I can get kinda tense sometimes, and you loosen me up like nothing else. You make me feel . . . lighter.” He parks his truck on the curb in front of my shop, unfolds the playlist from his pocket. Jots down whatever song is softly playing from the radio. Then he climbs out and walks me around the alley to the back door.
“I moved to Oreton,” he continues, “because it hurt to breathe, being here, seeing all the places we’d been together, driving by those memories, seeing an imaginary younger me and a younger you at every turn. It’s only bearable now because I badly want to make more memories with you rather than run from the ones that bleed.”
He takes the key from my stiff hand and unlocks my door. I cannot seem to form a reply.
“You want to know what’s going on with me? Then start thinking about Romina some more, because that’s all I’m able to do. I can’t talk about me without talking about you.”
“Oh,” I say, almost silently. You could knock me over with a whistle.
“Yeah. So you can go on and think about that.”
I glance at my door, then back at Alex, and it’s an electric shock. Every time. Every time I look at his face, I’m startled by a tug that begins in my throat, branching to my heart, my tingling fingertips, between my legs, to the soles of my feet. Even if we’ve been together for hours, all it takes is for me to move my attention away for a split second, then I meet his eyes again and it’s like being slammed up against a wall.
On impulse, I take his face in my hands and kiss him. Hard.
He reacts instantly, gathering me up in his arms. My body seeks him out, curving to fit his. Eyes closed, pulse thrumming, his body heat flaring over me, everything else in the world falls to the void. He’s so wonderful that it hurts. It hurts. Emotions likes these aren’t sustainable. They’re going to kill me.
When I let him go, he moves away slowly, breathing labored. I don’t have to wonder if he feels that electric shock, too, because I see it burst behind his eyes every time I smile.
“You can think about that,” I say. His eyebrows raise, an astonished, crooked grin unfurling.
He’s halfway to his truck when I call his name.
He turns. His profile glows under the streetlight.
“I’m so glad you moved here,” I tell him. “I go on dates with you that you don’t know about, too. Probably going to have one tonight, and visit you in a dream.”
He hits me with a big, beautiful smile that I feel like a meteorite to the chest. “I’ll be waiting.”