Page 49 of When The Rain Falls

"What about you?" I ask her, ignoring the way my voice threatens to crack. "Do you always date guys like Jack? Or is he a special kind of asshole?"

“I actually don’t date much,” she says. I wonder if assholes are her type. Is that why she keeps hanging around me? Is that why I can't seem to get rid of her?

"Motorcycles are fucking stupid," I mutter, crossing my arms.

"Are you jealous?" she asks. "Just a little?”

"Jealous of Jack?" I huff out. "Why? Because he rides a crotch rocket like he's got the world's smallest dick?"

"You're right," she says playfully. "Why would you be jealous of Jack when you have this sweet ride?" She thumps the dash in front of her seat.

“There's nothing wrong with the van," I say defensively. "Except for the loose bumper. And the scratch on the side. And the broken turn signal. And the leaky window."

Aimee bites her bottom lip in a smile. Her lips look soft and malleable.

"You don't toss something aside just because it's a little dented. Or bent. Or beat up." I run my hands over the steering wheel lovingly and wonder if I’m also talking about myself. "It still has some life in it."

"Whatever you say." She chuckles. She toggles the handle for the glovebox but it sticks. She throws me a triumphant look.

"Honestly," I tell her. "I have a lot of memories in this thing," I say. "For example, where you're sitting," I point to her, "Ruby had explosive diarrhea there when she was a baby." Aimee wrinkles her nose and shifts in her seat uncomfortably.

"And when Vivian was seven," I continue, jerking a thumb over my shoulder, "her soccer team won the local championships. I took half the team out for ice cream. They decided to practice their autographs. All over the seats. You can still see the scribbles if you look hard enough."

“And other things,” I add, my voice starting to choke up. I think about the time Laurel and I were on a road trip andmisjudged the distance to the next hotel. We had to sleep in the back of the van for the night. And we didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping. I still remember the bare legs kicking back covers, her soft black hair in my fist, her hands digging into my back. The van rocking beneath us. I feel my face flush.

“What’s this?” Aimee points to the charm hanging from the rear view mirror. It’s a small, crocheted heart made of thin, red yarn.

“Laurel bought that off a street vendor in Cancun. During our honeymoon.” I reach for the charm, brushing my fingers across it. I remember the day she first hung it on the mirror. Ruby was just a couple months old, strapped in a middle pilot seat in her car seat. Laurel was telling me how uncool she felt driving a minivan. She hung the charm and told me it reminded her not to complain. Because her life felt so much bigger than it used to.

I don’t share that though. That’s just for me.

I feel Aimee studying me. The cab of the van suddenly seems to shrink. A drizzle begins to patter against the windows. I glance out the windshield, in search of the rainclouds that seem to have snuck up on us so suddenly. But I can’t see the sky. Because all of our breathing and chatter has frosted the window with a light fog.

I realize I haven’t talked this much in a long time. Outside of work and client calls and the courtroom. I feel a little lighter. Like I just got a bunch of things off my chest. Things I’ve carried around for so long that I didn’t even recognize I was carrying them anymore.

“Hey,” Aimee says.

“Yeah?” I look back to her. The street light shining through the clouded windshield casts a soft glow across her face. It falls against the column of her neck. It dances across her collar bone. It teases the lacy hem that dips low across her breasts.

“Thank you,” she says. Her voice is so soft I can barely hear it. The way her chest is swelling and emptying, I can see that her breathing is strained. I want to catch her breath at the source. To feel her breasts grow full in my hand with each steady lungful of air.

I pull my gaze back to her face.

“You already said thank you,” I remind her. I can barely get out the words. Because her eyes are hungry and I feel them scouring my body, the way I’ve been scouring hers.

“I didn’t mean it before.” She brings a hand up to her neck and traces her collar bone. The drizzle outside strengthens into a torrent of rain. It pounds angrily on the windows around us. It nearly drowns out the pounding of my chest in my rib cage.

“And now?” I ask her. Aimee leans over the center console and tilts her head to the side.

“Now,” she whispers, “I mean it.” She leans closer and plants a soft, gentle kiss on my lips. It catches me off guard. And fuck, that’s the second time she’s done this. She’s about to pull back, to end the innocence of it all. And that’s when I lean in. Because all I know is that I want more. More of her. There is nothing innocent about this girl and I want to feel her fire.

Her warm breath dances against my cheek as I demand she give me more. My lips bear down on hers. She releases a quiet whimper as I tug her bottom lip into my mouth. And when my dick hardens in my jeans, it reminds me to stop being a fucking idiot.

I pull back, but she’s frozen in place. Slightly dazed. Slightly glowing. Slightly breathless. Then she darts her eyes across my face and her mouth cracks into a smug grin. I feel like I just lost a game. A game I didn’t know I was playing.

“What are you grinning about?” I harden my face back into a frown as I stick the key in the ignition.

“Oh, nothing,” she says, easing back into her seat.

---