Page 22 of Sugar
The door slams shut before we reach the truck, and Ava’s soft laugh spills between us. “Some things don’t change,” she teases.
I look down at her face, trace the curve of her nose in the golden glow of the sky. “Guess not,” I say back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AVA
The drive into town is quiet and a little awkward. I’ve spent the last few hours readying myself for this date, to sit across a booth from Kasey and force a happy conversation that’sjustflirty enough to feed any onlookers. But what I didn’t prepare for was sitting shotgun in this truck, for the visceral memories that have been firing off since the moment he opened the door for me and I was hit with the old familiar smell of the inside.
God, this truck has seen some things . . . Like Kasey crouched on the floorboard of the passenger seat, the skirt of my dress pushed up around my waist as his tongue made me see stars. Or the time we camped out on the beach of Scorpion Bay, a mess of blankets and pillows crafted in the bed. It’d been so cold that night, but he’d kept me warm with a bottle of wine stolen from the bar and his arms wrapped tight around me.
I’ve spent such a long time shoving memories of our relationship away that it’s a bit overwhelming to be battered by them all now, especially while buckled into this torn seat. “Still driving this old thing, huh?” I ask as we slow down at a stop sign.
“Yep,” he says, his gaze focused on the road. He’s got one hand wrapped around the top of the steering wheel and theother on his knee, his pointer finger rubbing absentmindedly against the seam of his Wranglers. That’s all I get from him until we’re parked in the lot in front of Mustang’s Pizza, when he turns off the ignition and peers into the restaurant through the dusty windshield. “Looks busy,” he says.
Indeed, it does. Nearly every table is occupied, mostly with teenagers. I wonder if there’s a new version of us curled around each other in a booth somewhere in the back. “Looks the same.”
“Mhm.”
“Well, busy is good. If we’re going to do this we might as well make an impression.” I don’t mean for the words to sound so clinical. But then again, I guess that’s how they’re supposed to sound.
“All right,” he says. His chest fills and expands with a deep breath before he lets it out with a sigh. “Hang tight.” He doesn’t look at me, and my stomach knots.
I watch him push out through his door and round the truck to mine, opening it with a wide smile plastered to his face, the expression utterly ridiculous. To anyone who might be looking, they’d think he was happy as a clam. But I can clearly see the lack of light in his eyes, the wariness in the pinch of his jaw. At least his eyes are on me. We just have to make it through a couple hours of pretending.
When he holds a hand out, I smile back. “Thank you,” I say, letting him support my weight as I work to step down in my heels. The dress I’m wearing is tighter around my thighs than the ones I used to covet, so it makes getting out of his truck much more difficult.
People are staring before we even make it to the door, heads turning all throughout the restaurant to catch a glimpse at us through the window. Most of the teenagers look away again without much thought, likely not knowing or caring who we are.But there are a handful of older folks who know plenty, and their stares linger.
Inside, a young hostess directs us to a two-person table against the wall, and Kasey pulls my chair out before I sit down in it. The chair shifts beneath my weight, rocking on a loose leg—everything in here looks as though it were preserved in a time capsule, and none of the furniture has been replaced.
“Careful,” Kasey warns, moving to sit in his own seat.
“I’m sure falling on my ass would make your whole night,” I say in jest, picking up the large plastic menu.
“No, it wouldn’t,” he grumbles, looking at his own menu. “What kind of pizza do you want?”
My stomach rumbles on the spot. I haven’t eaten anything since a piece of toast this morning and have been fighting back nausea for the last hour. “Something with a lot of meat,” I say back, finding the list of options. “Pepperoni, sausage . . . oh, maybe jalapeños and mushrooms too?”
Kasey’s brows pinch. “You hate mushrooms.”
“Not anymore,” I say.
I sense his attention, but I keep my focus on the menu.
When our server comes by to take our order, Kasey asks for a large pepperoni and sausage pizza with jalapeños and mushrooms, and two Cherry Cokes. My heart squeezes that he remembered my favorite soda—I haven’t had one in years. Tobias kept our fridge stocked with nothing but bottles of water and two-liters of tonic for his nightly serving of gin.
“Do you still come here often?” I ask Kasey as the server—a boy who looks not one day older than sixteen—walks away with our menus.
He shakes his head. “Hardly ever. I don’t spend a lot of time in town anymore. Just the feed store now and then.”
“Too busy working?”
He shrugs. “That,” he says. “And also, if I want to blow off some steam, I don’t want to do it here.”
I smile. “How does Kasey Bennett blow off steam these days?”
He gives me a knowing look.
