Page 42 of Just Friends

Alex pats the hood once more, motioning with deliberate hand gestures for me to dosomething. I just have no idea what.

Hot summer raindrops splash against my skin as I roll down the window and Alex sidles up next to me.

“Hit the gas.” His gaze is focused on the back driver’s side tire. “Slowly.”

For a split second, when I gently press my foot to the gas pedal, it feels different this time, like the tire had a tenuous grip on the floor mat and lost it, sliding back into the mud.

“Stop,” Alex says, his jaw clenching in concentration. His dark eyes meet mine once more. “I think I’m going to have to push. I’ll tap the back when it’s time to hit the gas and again if we’re not moving. Wait for my taps.”

I nod, taking in his instructions. If Alex told me the best way to get this truck unstuck was to lie on the ground and let him roll the tires over my prone body, I’d probably listen. That I have that kind of trust in him should probably scare me, but as he taps the back of the truck, there’s only a warmth spreading through my chest and dripping down my middle.

My foot hits the gas with more pressure than last time, trying to hurry this along so Alex doesn’t have to stand in the rain any longer. But I think I severely misjudged things, because there’s a loud curse from the back of the truck, and when Alex appears in front of my window again, his skin is speckled with mud.

I press my lips together to keep from laughing, but it bubbles out anyway. Alex iscovered. His white linen shirt is splatter-painted, and his face is now dotted with faux freckles.

“You should do a makeup tutorial like this,” I say, trying my best to hold in my giggles. “People have spent years trying to perfect the fake freckles look.”

His teeth are a slash of white amid the mud caking his face. “Oh, you think this is funny?”

I nod, pressing my fingers to my lips to cover my smile.

“That’s it,” he says, reaching into the truck and gripping the inside handle. The door swings open, and his hands are on my thighs before I can register what’s happening. His fingertips smear mud across my skin, painting me the way I would a canvas, deliberate and messy, strategic and wild. He has the attention of an artist as he covers me in thick, brown mud.

When his eyes meet mine, they’re untamed, just shy of feral. “There. Fair is fair.” And then he shuts the door and disappears behind the truck once more, his hands propped on the bed.

“Slow, Lane,” he yells over the sound of the rain. “Go slow.”

This time when I press the gas with just a tiny amount of pressure, Alex’s hands and shoulders and thighs straining to push forward, the tires gain the tiniest bit of traction before slipping once more.

“Reverse and then go again,” Alex bellows, and I follow his instructions.

The tires grip the mats, and the truck lurches forward amid the noise of Alex’s exclamations that sound like a mix of groans and cheering, like when a weightlifter is finishing a snatch.

With the truck safely on the road, I put it in park and jump out. Alex has his fists in the air, a triumphant smile on his face. He’s covered in mud, dirty and rugged and so un-Alex-like that I don’t stop to pause before launching myself into his arms. His own are around me in an instant, spinning me around in the mire like some backcountry version of a ballroom dance.

I’ve never felt more like a Jane Austen heroine in my life.

Alex drops me to my feet, my bare toes squelching in the mud, and his eyes travel over my body in a way that makes it flush with heat. “I got you all muddy,” he says, a crinkle forming between his brows.

I look down, seeing what he sees—my creamy floral top covered in grime, the front of my light-wash cut-offs caked with mud, my thighs painted brown by his fingertips. We arefilthy. Like twin street urchins in a period piece. And it makes loud, raucous laughter overflow in my chest and pour out of my mouth into the humid, rainy night.

That crease between Alex’s eyes moves to their corners as his lips lift in a smile, his own laughter joining mine. My sides hurt, and my chest aches with the force of it. It feels like something snatched from a movie screen or ripped from the pages of a book and brought to life by pure, effervescent, glittering magic. I want to capture it in a snow globe and shake it on the days that feel dark, the moments that life feelshard.

This moment is dazzling and whimsical, a dream I never want to wake up from. It’s a sprinkle of pixie dust, smoke billowing from a candle on a birthday wish, wings fluttering as a lucky butterfly takes flight, hope surging as a falling star skates across the night sky. It’s enchanted.

Themudisdryand cracking by the time the truck rumbles over the gravel driveway at my parents’ house. All the lights are off inside, meaning Mom and Dad have retired for the night and Cam and Ellie have sequestered themselves in Cam’s childhood bedroom.

I put the truck in park and glance at Alex, unable to make out anything but a solidly muscled form in the darkness.

“I can’t go inside in these dirty clothes. I’ll drip mud everywhere,” Alex says.

“Are you suggesting you strip naked and then stroll in?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” he deadpans, his arm resting on the back of the bench seat and tugging at a lock of my hair.

I twist in my seat, my wet clothes squelching against the worn leather. “Then what’s your plan, if not streaking? I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s somewhat of a town tradition.”

His head rolls against the headrest. “I hear you’re a legend. You should probably show me how.”

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