Page 39 of Reverse

Unable to help myself, I reach over and grip his hand as he shifts his focus back out of the windshield. After a few minutes of silence, he turns to me.

“I want you to remember this moment. Right here, right now, just you and me in a fucking SUV, taking a drive to nowhere.” He looks at me pointedly. “Promise me you’ll remember this.”

It’s kind of hard to forget, but I voice his request anyway. “I promise.”

He turns my hand over and slides his finger along my palm as my spine prickles with awareness.

“Now I wonder how you’ll viewThe Starry Nightwhen you see it again.” He pins me with his inquisitive gaze. “Will you see the masterpiece or the mental illness?”

“I honestly don’t know, probably both.”

He closes my hand and releases it. “Sometimes I feel so fucking simple. It’s painful.”

“You’re not simple,” I counter without pause. “I’ve known you for less than a day, and you’reanythingbut simple.”

“And you’reexhausting. We done?”

“No, how do you like your eggs?” I jab in an attempt to lighten the mood.

He’s silent for a long moment, so long I’m unsure if he heard me or is even listening.

“Sorry, that was in poor taste. Forgive me,” I say as he speaks up.

“Joel’s been with me since he was twenty-two,” he mutters absently, speaking his thoughts aloud. “My whole life.”

“It’s apparent you two are close.”

“Thank fuck for that,” he says. “I love him.” His admission comes so easily that my heart warms, and inwardly, I sigh.

He senses my cogs turning. “What?”

I shake my head as he prods. “Tell me.”

“You’re a lot freer than you think, Easton.”

“How so?”

“Because you seem to live and speak withintent.”

“What’s living according to Natalie Butler?”

I nod toward our surroundings. “I guess, right now, what we’re doing today is my current definition. Coasting along to see where a day leads.” I smooth down my frizzy hair. “You know, inreallife, I’m not really the mess you’ve been subjected to.”

“That’s a fucking shame,” he says, his eyes trailing down my profile.

“Sorry to disappoint, but my life is . . . highly structured, and while I wouldn’t change a lot about it most days, something happened recently that made my clear path . . . fuzzy.” I glance around. “Where are we anyway?”

His lips lift in a triumphant smile. “Lost.”

I return his grin. “I can’t say I hate it.”

He traces the steering wheel with his fingers. “I have this theory that if you don’t have enough days like this, then you’re pretty much living out someone else’s expectations, which is my definition of prison.”

I pause. “I know exactly what you mean by that.”

He nods, gripping the wheel. “I thought you might.”

ELEVEN

---