I point in silence at the remaining turns, one after another, rats in a maze.
He pulls into the driveway, so cracked down the middle we dip and roll in the seat. Before I can get out or even reach for the door, he has the engine turned off. Then he’s stepping out of the truck.
“No,” I say. “You don’t have to…”
It doesn’t matter. He can’t even hear me until he opens the door beside me. By then I’m too shocked to speak. No one has ever opened the door for me. It feels like some kind of extravagant gesture, one that can’t possibly be real. And definitely not sincere. It’s like he’s mocking me with it, making me see how it would be if we
were actually dating, if he actually liked me, if I actually deserved for him to.
I step out of the truck quickly, stumbling in hurry and shame, still drunk but mostly sad.
I don’t wait for him to say anything. I just walk quickly to the door. His footsteps follow me. His heat follows me. Even his musky scent follows me, and I duck my head as if that will help me escape him. The door is blocking my path. To get through I’ll have to dig through my purse and find the key.
I’ll have to face him.
When I do, he’s standing two feet away. He has his hands in his pockets. It makes him seem strangely vulnerable. At the same time it makes his arm muscles thicken, and I can’t help but be aware of his strength, the inherent threat of his body.
“Good night,” I whisper, because I want him to leave.
“Hannah,” he says, his voice so low I barely hear it.
“My name is Lola.”
He sighs and steps closer. “Hannah, you and me, we have unfinished business.”
My throat tightens. I’m not ready for this. I’ll never be ready. “That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe so. But I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten how we were together. Or what you did. Have you?”
There’s a stampede in my heart, thundering loud enough and hard enough I think I might pass out. God, I want to disappear. I want to melt onto the warm night’s pavement. “Blue, I—”
The door opens behind me, and I gasp. I don’t like things sneaking up on me. Nona is standing in the doorway, a confused look on her face. “Hannah? What’s going on out here?”
It scares me to think she doesn’t know, that Blue could be any strange man and she still would have opened the door. That’s probably true. I could be getting attacked in an alley and she’d come to my defense. She’d get herself killed to protect me, and in this neighborhood, that’s a reasonable outcome. But I can’t leave her here. She needs someone to make sure the stove is off and the doors are locked. She needs someone to pay the bills.
Blue is looking at her, speculating. He puts his hand out. “Blue Eastman.”
Nona studies him for a moment. She doesn’t get lucid very often—and it’s worse in the middle of the night like now. But the hand extended must trigger an automatic response. She shakes his hand with a pleased smile. “Nona Owens.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Owens.”
And then suddenly it does feel like that imaginary date, that twisted version of wholesome where he brings me home at the end of the night. And here he is meeting my parent. Except Nona isn’t my real parent. She was just my foster mom for a few months. The only one to give a damn.
And Blue definitely isn’t my date.
“Go inside, Nona,” I tell her softly. “I’ll be inside in a minute.”
Her expression is worried. “Will he come too?”
“No, of course not. I’ll lock the door when I come in.”
“And turn off the stove,” she says as if reciting a poem.
Alarm flares inside me. “Did you cook something today?”
“No,” she says, a little wistful. “But I wanted tea.”
“I’ll make you tea,” I promise her. “Go inside and wait in the living room.”