Page 35 of Moving Forward

“What?”

“Let me drive you,” he repeats.

He can barely handle being around me, how will he take my parents and my grandpa? And doesn’t that meeting usually come after something becomes more than friendship? I swallow because I can’t tell if my heart wants it to be labeled as something more or not. “Do you really want to drive me all the way to the storage unit, then all the way back down and past Orchard Valley to Collette?”

“Not really,” he admits, “but I want to spend time with you.”

“You’ll have to hang out with my family all day,” I warn him gently.

“And you, Peaches,” he tells me in a low rumble.

I smile. “Cain . . .”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“What if I say no?”

“It’s not a request.”

I muffle my mouth against a pillow and let out a groan that ends up coming out as more of a giggle. I’m seriously giggling. Wow.

“Are you being strangled?” Cain asks wryly. I wonder if he’s smiling his small, quiet smile right now. I’m beginning to get addicted to that smile. It’s my crack. “Do I need to come check on you?”

I push myself off the mattress. “No, I’m fine.”

“Alright. So, what do you say about tomorrow?”

“You basically said I don’t have a choice.”

“I’m all bluster. Anything you ask or tell me to do, I’ll do it.” Uncertainty colors his voice as he says, “Tell me what you want. Tell me if you want me to go with you.”

“Yes, I do. I want you to go with me,” I admit.

“Wow.”

I frown. “You thought I’d say I don’t want you to?”

“I always expect disappointment,” he explains tiredly. “I stopped hoping for the best a long time ago. It’s just the way life has always gone for me, but now . . . well, you just said yes.”

“I’m giving you hope.”

No one wants to believe in hope once they’ve been through the things I’ve experienced, or whatever it is Cain has gone through. Hope only gives us room for despair to crawl into our hearts. Hope blindsides us—reminding us that for some reason, we don’t get to experience it. We only get to watch it and pray for it, then let it kill us.

“No, Max, it’s not that at all. You’re giving me life.”

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“Are you sure your truck can handle this?”

Cain finishes tying down the purple couch and mattress we retrieved from my unit. He gives it a good tug to make sure the bungee cord is stable before closing the tailgate. Then he walks around the truck to open the passenger door for me. I give him a questioning look before climbing into the seat.

He shuts the door and places his forearm on the roof of the truck. He leans through the window and says, “If a tire pops, we’ll know pretty quick I’d say.”

My face pales. “What?”

“I’m kidding.”

“You need to work on looking a little less serious when you’re joking,” I warn him, sliding my sunglasses up my nose. I’ve been trying really, really hard to subdue the smile I woke up with. Normally every smile is so fake that even the real ones feel forced in some way. Nothing with Cain is forced. Everything’s so real with him—so alive. I feel like an entirely new Max around him. One who’s so much better than before.

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