I nod, feeling overwhelmed, but a different kind than I experienced at school. This one is warm. Exciting. Full of possibilities. It’s why I came back and why I’ll stay.
I’ve found my Wayward Sons and I’m not letting them go ever again.
12
Starlee
Dexter’s hand is on mine the instant we’re in the Jeep. I inhale the familiar scent of the car, not realizing I’d missed it. It smelled like a mixture of dirt and body spray and boy and the little hanging tree on the rearview mirror that barely makes a dent in the odor. His hand is warm and I feel sparks and flares through me as he pulls out of the parking lot and onto Main Street at June Lake.
He keeps looking at me, stroking my knuckles with his thumb, a small grin on his mouth.
“What?” I ask, after the third glance.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
I lean back against the seat. “I can’t either.”
“Like, you’re in my car. I’m touching you. You’re actually here.”
“It’s crazy, I know. I just…something snapped in me the other night. My mom started making plans for us—a six-month trip abroad. She just didn’t get that I had plans of my own—a life of my own.”
Dexter listens to me babble but when we get to a cut-out overlooking the lake he takes it, parking the car.
“I missed this view.” I gaze over the Sierras, over the salt lake that shines like a mirror.
“Me too,” his voice sounds husky, and his hand tightens around mine. When I turn, I find him focused solely on me, so intense that I feel my body shiver.
He leans over the center console, the only thing keeping us apart. His fingers graze my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear, blazing a trail of hot, sparking desire.
“I thought about you every day,” he says, quietly. “While I worked, baked, cleaned dishes. I thought about you on the drive to school and back, at night in bed. I thought about that time we shared together at my parents’ cabin.” His mouth is so close to mine. “I was going to come for you. When my probation was over and I was free from the state.”
“You didn’t have to. I came for you first.”
“Thank god for that,” he whispers, just before his lips meet mine.
I’m engulfed by a wave of emotion I didn’t know I possessed. Sheer want and love and lust all combined. To say I missed him is an understatement, a trivialization of what happened when our bodies connected. There’d been something between us from the instant we’d met in that tiny museum in the middle of Death Valley to the time we shared our bodies with one another. It runs through me like fire; unquenchable, deadly fire.
The loud, blaring sound of a semi’s horn breaks us apart, gasping for air. His thumb runs along my bottom lip and his gray eyes pierce my soul.
“We better get back,” he says gruffly, putting the car in gear.
We head up the road, the one that takes us straight to Lee Vines. His hand is linked with mine and his grip is tight. Worries about him not wanting to see me again vanish and they’re replaced with a different, solidifying thought; now that I’m back, he’ll never let me go. I’m home.
Finally.
I’d barely had time to look at the Wayward Sun when I left for school this morning, and after dropping my backpack at the lodge office and answering a million questions about my day, I told Leelee I’m going to grab a mocha and say hello to Sierra.
“Grab me one of those Bobby’s Balls while you’re there. I think I’m addicted.”
Hearing the word “balls” come out of my grandmother’s mouth is a little alarming, but I nod and head out the door.
Autumn comes so much faster up here, the aspen trees that line the roads already shifting from green to yellow. The big one in the coffee shop yard looks like a flaming sun.
Classic rock pours from the speakers and I smell rich coffee and the scent of buttery, sugary pastries before I even open the door. My eyes immediately fall on George’s mural of all the icons from Supernatural. Baby is the main focus along with Sam and Dean, Bobby and Charlie, quotes and symbols. I can tell he’s added to it since I left town and I step closer to find out exactly what.
“Starlee?”
I spin at my name and see Sierra already moving from her spot behind the counter.