Page 85 of Love Me Steadfast
There are two men with her, both big dudes, with full beards. Two sleek, black motorcycles are parked in front of the store.
“You sure?” I ask Charlotte.
She gives a tight nod.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Her eyes find mine. Her jaw looks hard in the low light. “No.”
We continue past, and Charlotte leans toward me to peer out the back window, then sighs in relief.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I ask.
She fiddles with the lid of her milkshake. “Six months, maybe?”
I don’t have to ask what her mom’s doing outside of a liquor store at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night, dressed like she is, talking to two biker guys. “Theo told me she was getting help.”
“Looks like it didn’t last. Big surprise.”
I wedge my milkshake between my left hip and the armrest, then reach for Charlotte’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
She releases a soft sigh, shrinking into the seat. But she takes my hand.
“Thanks, William.”
Her skin is cool from holding the cold milkshake, so I fold my fingers over hers. She squeezes back.
“There!”Charlotte says, perking up as we near a turnoff labeled “Fourth of July Creek.”
I turn onto a double track with dry grass growing down the middle. With the windows down and the scent of dry gravel and pineweaving through my cab while we bump over potholes, this feels bigger than just an afternoon of picking blackberries with a friend.
All week, I’ve been counting down the hours until our not-date. Thankfully we had double practices plus Theo and I put in extra hours running plays or I’d have gone crazy.
“Oh, before I forget, I gotta be home by six,” she says.
“Hot date tonight?” I tease.
She scoffs. “Morgan will be getting back from the fair by then. She’s not supposed to be home alone.”
Theo took his girlfriend camping, and Ray is likely working.
A song I’ve heard from “The Greatest Showman,” Linnea’s latest obsession, comes on the radio.
“I love this song!” Charlotte says, and reaches for the knob. It’s the one about rewriting the stars. Linnea sings it in the shower sometimes just to annoy me.
I follow the double track along an open, dry field that could have been a baseball diamond at one time, to where it dead ends at a small parking area. On the radio, Zendaya is just getting to the part in the song about the mountains being in their way when I turn off the engine. Cricket song and the distant hush of the river fills the silence.
Charlotte seems unaffected by the turmoil that stupid song kicked to life inside me, and jumps down, still humming along.
That the small gravel parking area is empty makes me wonder if we’re too late for blackberries. Not that I care. I get to spend time with Charlotte.
Will the stars shift someday, altering the course of us? Do I just need to keep hoping for a solution?
At the back of my truck, we each grab a five-gallon bucket. Charlotte whips her hair into a braid and sets off for the row of thick bushes lining the berm that separates us from the river, moving at her breakneck pace. Today, she’s wearing dark purple shorts, a sleeveless T-shirt that shows off her tanned shoulders dotted with tiny freckles, and her black converse high-tops. I adjust my Falcons ball cap and lock the truck doors, then hurry after her.
“Are we trespassing?” I ask.
“Don’t think so?” she replies, scrunching her nose. “I mean, I’ve been coming here since I can remember. Nobody’s ever shot at us.”
