Page 36 of Shut Up and Drive
The smile that ran across his face told me he received my message loud and clear, and I loved that we had another ‘thing’ between us that only we knew.
“Well, fine. I’m headed into town with Jamie and a bunch of her friends to get pallets of wood for tonight. Are you guys still coming?” Bash asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I replied.
“Great, I’ll see you in a bit.” Then Bash pointed directly at Thane and his face grew serious. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said, then broke into a smile after he couldn’t keep his poker face intact.
Thane rubbed his neck and laughed nervously, as worried as I was that Bash saw more than he let on. “You got it, Brother,” he responded through a forced smile.
Bash jumped back into the truck with the rest of the group, and they disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Thane and I stood there in silence for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Then he said, “Who’s gonna tell him?”
Before he could beat me to the punch, I yelled, “Not it!”
Chapter 13
ONE, TWO, CHA CHA CHA
Thane
My nerves tangle inside me as Pearl’s words repeat in my mind:If she’s worth it, you’ll find the courage to take the leap.
My heart races and panic sets in. A sense of urgency takes over any patience I had the day before. The stakes are somehow higher now as I watch the time clock on my opportunity run down. Our history is stacked against me, so now I fight Sera’s resistanceandthe actions of “Past Thane.”
Stupid Past Thane…
We drive in silence for a few miles, and I’m so lost in my thoughts, I’m oblivious to the awkwardness of it all. That is, until Sera launches off at a million miles an hour with the mother-of-all-lists of small talk.
“The weather should be good for the rest of the drive down. Tropical Storm Dylan has moved off the coast, and we have sunshine and high temps the wholetime we’re in Amethyst Lake. I can’t wait to sit on the dock and get a tan. I’ve been stuck inside so much with my job at the bakery that I look like a vampire. I didn’t even get a good base tan. I hope I don’t burn…”
I rub my hand over my stubbled jaw and take a deep breath.
“Fina, what are you doing?”
She stops mid-sentence.
“What do you mean?”
“All this… fluff. Skirting around the elephant in the room. Talking about the weather. This isn’t us.”
“We’ve done plenty of avoiding the elephant, Thane. Plus, neither of us knows what ‘us’ is anymore.”
“Maybe that’s why our moms made us do this road trip. So we could remember.”
She presses her lips together thoughtfully. “Maybe. But we have so much to sift through, and I don’t even know where to start. Then there’s all that time apart. We’ve grown up and grown apart, T.”
T.One letter crosses her lips and I’m running hand in hand in the dark with her toward the lake again. We lay for hours that summer under the stars—her head on my chest—her new nickname for me rolling off her tongue like it had always been there. Little did I know back then that the best way to get a nickname from Fina was just to kiss her senseless on the side of the road. It unlocked a whole new woman inside of her, and I stepped back to admire her often that summer.
But as soon as my old nickname slips past her filters, she pulls it back in. “Uh, I mean, Thane,” she stammers. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I always liked when you called me T.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because it was special. No one else got a nickname like that. It made me feel important to you.”
“You are important to me. Were. Are.” She smacks her forehead in frustration. “Youareimportant to me still. Just… differently. Listen, I know this is important to discuss, but I don’t really want to dredge up the past right now.”
