Don't Kiss the Bride

“I have a good choking story too,” he says, pulling onto the highway.

“Let’s hear it.”

“When I was in high school, I was kissing this chick I was with, and I had a piece of gum in my mouth and she thought she was being sexy and sucked it out of my mouth. It went straight down her throat and she started gagging on it. Total mood killer.”

“Ew! That’s disgusting,” I say, repulsed. I could’ve lived forever without hearing that. “I guess she must’ve liked you a lot if she wanted to chew your gum.”

I can’t imagine liking a guy enough to want anything from his mouth in my own.

“Eh, she had the personality of a light switch.”

He shifts to a higher gear and moves to the fast lane, gunning the gas pedal. “This baby is fast,” he says.

“The fastest I’ve gone with it is 105.”

He throws me a surprised glance. “Look at you, little speed demon. Be careful. You don’t want to wrap your pretty face around a tree.”

“I only went that fast once.” Maybe twice.

Okay, like, five times.

“So, what’s a girl like you doing with a car like this?” His tone is playful, but my answer is not. I still get emotional talking about my grandfather, and today is no different. Especially when I’m in the car he gifted me, telling someone the story of how he wanted me to have something beautiful, cool, and created with love. Something symbolic of hope, of shiny new beginnings.

“Your grandfather sounds like he was a good guy,” Jude says after I tell him how my grandfather meant to give the car to me when I graduated.

“He was.” I wipe the tear from my eye before it trickles down my cheek. “I miss him a lot. And my grandma.”

“She’s passed, too?”

I nod. “Yeah. Two years before him. She was diabetic.”

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I didn’t mean to bum you out.”

“You didn’t. I always get melancholy when I think about them.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

I lose track of time and direction as he drives. Almost everything fades away—except the wind rushing through the open windows and my favorite playlist keeping us company. And Jude’s voice, singing along with the songs he has no idea are the closest to my heart.

“You’ve got a great voice.” I don’t try to mask my surprise.

“I only sound good in the shower and the car.” He turns down a bumpy side road. “Put me on a stage and I suck.”

“I doubt that.”

He slows down and pulls into a gravelly parking lot, near a small playground.

“I just want to have a quick smoke,” he says, reaching for the door handle. I laugh as he tries to hoist his tall body out of the low car. “Holy shit that thing’s hard to get out of.”

“I got used to it. Thankfully, I don’t wear skirts.” I peer around at the empty park. “I’m going to walk around for a few minutes.”

I head straight to the swings. There used to be a swing in our backyard, hanging from a tree. When I was little, I’d swing for hours every day, believing I could soar straight into the sky and live in the clouds. One day, the rope snapped on one side, and I slammed to the ground. For at least half an hour I was sprawled out crying, thinking I was dying. When my parents didn’t come to help me, I stood up and quietly limped inside, my butt and legs aching with every step. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I fractured my tailbone.

The swing is still there, hanging from the broken, frayed rope. An icon of the day I realized I was on my own.

Jude has sauntered across the park to sit on the end of the metal slide. He watches me with an amused smile that’s incredibly hot.

“Come swing with me!”

He shakes his head and blows a cloud of smoke up into the air.

“C’mon, Lucky. No one will see you.”

“I don’t care who sees me.”

“Then get over here. Don’t be a poop.”

Laughing, he puts out his cigarette and tosses it in a trashcan on his way to the swings.

“You’re a pain in the ass, ya know,” he says, squeezing his muscular body onto the one next to me.

I pump my legs harder, my hair flying like a flag behind me. “I know. Don’t care.”

When I look over, he’s gliding through the air next to me, smiling just as much as he was when he got behind the wheel of my ’vette.

I’m glad to see the bad boy has an inner child.

“Whoever can land the farthest away gets to drive home,” he says mischievously.

“You’re on!”

He goes first, vaulting himself off the swing and landing in the beach sand fifteen feet away, rolling into a dramatic somersault.

“I’m too old for this shit, Sparkles,” he says, kneeling in the sand. “You and your car are killing my back.”