Page 84 of Love Me Steadfast
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She rolls her eyes. “Why didn’t you bring someone tonight?”
At the intersection, Ray turns left, toward Finn River, while we head north into the tiny town of Wolf Creek. “Didn’t want to.” Not only would I have been too busy to entertain a date, I can’t imagine sharing tonight with anyone but Charlotte.
“So if Zach’s your guardian, does this make Sofie like your stepmom?” she asks as I pull into the Snow Bunny’s drive-through. Outside the windows, cricket song blends with the throaty purr from my engine.
“More like a big sister,” I reply. She’s certainly nosy like I imagine a big sister would be. I definitely have to keep my guard up.
A tinny voice from the speaker asks for our orders. A few minutes later, I’m turning out of the drive-through, accelerating south through the darkness, a giant blackberry milkshake in my hand. The cool evening breeze fills the cab and the radio buzzes with a slow country song. Now that we’re leaving the lights of Wolf Creek behind, the night sky above us dazzles with bright stars.
“Mmm,” Charlotte says, her lips wrapped around her straw.
It’s a little tricky to shift, steer, and hold the milkshake while also keeping my eyes on the road and not on her face while she makes those noises.
“Good?” I ask.
“The best.”
“Here,” Charlotte says, reaching for my milkshake. One of the cupholders that came with the truck was cracked and I kept catching my gear on the other one, so I ripped them out. Now I’m sort of glad, because when I let her take my cup from me so I can shift, her fingertips brush over my knuckles.
“Theo tell you about the Snow Bunny?” she asks, handing my cup back now that I’m up to speed.
“Yeah. That first summer I moved here. We hit that swimming hole on the north end of the lake after practice one day, and he said I had to try one.”
She takes another sip, her freckled cheeks hollowing. I force my eyes to stay on the road. “There’s a secret blackberry patch near that swimming hole. Did he show you that?”
“Uh, no.” We were pretty busy trying to spray the girls sunning themselves on the nearby rock slab with our cannonballs.
“I haven’t been yet this summer. We should go. We could make our own blackberry milkshakes.”
A warm tingle spreads through my belly as I merge onto the freeway. At this time of night, traffic is nonexistent. “Sounds good. When?”
“How about next Saturday?” she asks, glancing my way, a curious quirk to her brow, her lips wrapped lazily around her straw. I can just see the pink tip of her tongue.
“Sure.” Practice is in the mornings on Saturdays, and band finishes before we do. And it’s the last free weekend before school starts. Picking blackberries with Charlotte is the perfect way to end the summer. “So what’s with this driving test?”
She wrinkles her nose in an exaggerated cringe. “Apparently I drove too slow, and then I was too far away from the curb in my parallel parking, and....” She huffs a giant sigh. “I’ve re-read the manual ten times. I just…get nervous. And Mr. Barnes didn’t tell me that I can’t ask him anything during the test, and I got confused about which way I was supposed to turn, and…accidentally went left in front of someone.”
How am I not supposed to tease her with intel like that? “I was going to ask if you wanted to drive us home, but I do want to live to see tomorrow.”
“Ugh!” Her expression turns murderous and she thwaps my bicep with the back of her fingers. “Don’t give me shit, okay? I get enough from Mo and Theo.”
Laughing, I take the turn to Finn River. Like she’s reading my mind, she holds my milkshake so I can downshift.
“Can I do anything to help?” I ask after turning left to cross over the freeway.
“I’ve got it,” she says with determination.
She hands my milkshake back as I descend the overpass and slow as we cruise past the 76 Station and the strip mall.
Charlotte utters a gasp when we near the liquor store.
I glance across the cab to try to see what she’s looking at. “What?”
She presses her body back against the seat, like to hide. “It’s my mom.”
Lit by the liquor store’s neon and the floodlight over the door, a woman stands in a flower-print blouse and tightjeans, her dark hair limp against her face. I’ve seen Charlotte’s mom in only one picture. It’s mixed in with the others on their mantle, taken years ago. In it, their mom’s arms are spread across Theo and Charlotte’s shoulders and all of them are smiling for the camera. The woman in the parking lot looks nothing like the one in that picture.
