Page 59 of Rear View
My stomach flipped and heat burned across my chest. It sent warm shivers down my spine and arms. We kept going while I slowly banked hairpin turn after hairpin turn along that ridiculously long portion of the track. I grew more and more comfortable taking the corners and moving between gears. It was fun and freeing, and I unequivocally loved it…until we reached the top. A sheer rock face stood to our right, a treacherously steep forest to our left and a guardrail with a vertical drop down, down, down, straight ahead. I swallowed hard.
“You’re good. Just gear down and do a U-turn,” he said.
I eased our speed back until we practically crawled. He didn’t mock. Didn’t criticize. Just directed. Calm. So damn calm. I focused on the road. Only the road, and several painstaking, tire-crunching seconds later, I swung us around.
Happy dancing my excitement, I made my way back down.
He grinned, his attention homing in on me. “How come you never learned to drive?”
“I guess I just didn’t need to. My family was a one-car, blue-collar household. We did alright, but Miles’s hockey stuff meant a lot of road trips for my parents. They live just outside the city, so back then, if I wanted to do something, either my friends picked me up or I took transit.” The one route that existed out there. How many times I wished I’d learned to drive so I could jump in a car and disappear. My hand flexed over the shifter. “How did you learn?”
“Taught myself.”
My head whipped his way. “You taughtyourself?”
A slow nod. His expression tightened, subtle lines creasing his eyes as he stared out the front window. “My house wasn’t a home growin’ up, darlin’. I needed a way out.”
I fought from gripping my chest because my heart hurt for him. “How old were you when you learned?”
“Fourteen.”
Fourteen? There was a story there, one I wanted toknow badly, but between Sheila’s talk of his father, and his own of his brother, I wasn’t about to claw his wounds.
“Why’d you pick psych?” he asked, then clarified, “To study.”
A dry laugh broke from me. The answer was easy, but I liked the way he looked at me. The last thing I wanted was to lay the entirety of that story at his feet. Tell him how royally messed up I was. That, at twenty-three, I still slept with a light on. That I constantly looked over my shoulder, was afraid of my phone and email, didn’t drink or party, had panic attacks and had turned practically reclusive. I shrugged and guided the Jeep right. “To understand people.”
He cocked a brow as if he suspected more. “Anyone in particular?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Anything you wanna talk about?”
I worried my cheek between my teeth and winced. “Not yet.” As soon as the words were out, my stomach twisted. God, I didn’t want him to feel like I hid things. “I’m sorry, I—”
He raised a hand. “I want everything you’re willin’ to give, but you don’t owe it to me. You talk about what you want, when you want. No apologies.”
“I want to tell you things, Xavier, I do. It’s just…it’s hard for me.”
“Then tell me when it’s not, yeah?”
A tension I hadn’t known had taken root, eased around my ribs. “Yeah,” I answered, my voice soft.
He stretched his left arm, hooking it behind my headrest while he kicked one of his long, thick legs out in front of him. Relaxed. “See that car over there?”
A junker vehicle sat off to the side of the path, as if it had been set up as an obstacle. I inclined my head.
“Pull up behind it and stop.”
I eyed him askance.
His lip arced up. “Just do it.”
I downshifted as I crept forward, my grip on the wheel edging on painful.
He pointed. “You wanna be able to see where his back wheels meet the ground.” He pointed. “Any closer and you’re stuck.”
“Stuck?”
