Punk 57

He relaxes on top of me, his hand still holding the door and his head bent to my shoulder. I stay there, still and quiet.

I don’t even want to look outside to see if anyone noticed. Like I really thought we could stop once we started?

He raises his head finally and looks down at me. I smile small, wishing we were parked in the forest somewhere. Somewhere we could stay all night and do that some more.

His eyebrows pinch together, and he looks like he’s searching for words. “Ryen, I…”

“What?”

But he remains silent.

I touch his face, but he just shakes his head and looks away. “Nothing. It’s fine.”

Fine? A chill brushes across my skin.

What’s fine?

I sit in the front seat, pulling my hair over my shoulder and smoothing it down. After we finished, he climbed in the front and drove us out of the drive-in, while I stayed hidden in the back, getting dressed.

I chew on the corner of my mouth, worry setting in. The truck was definitely moving.

Anyone could’ve seen me climbing in before that, and everyone knows it’s his truck. Not to mention, he’s being quiet now, driving and not even looking at me.

Typical guy. Say all the things you need to get into her pants, but all those strong feelings and hot whispers fade when you get what you want, doesn’t it?

Whatever.

I fasten my seatbelt. The drive-in is behind us and the road ahead dark and empty. “I left my purse in Lyla’s car,” I say more to myself. “I’ll have to make up something for why I left and how I got home.”

“Well, good thing lying’s not hard for you.”

I shoot him a nasty look. But then I see him give me a joking smile, and I immediately relax a little.

Maybe I don’t need to lie at all. Just tell her I let Masen Laurent take me home. What could happen?

I catch sight of the screen on the radio, seeing the name of the song playing from the iPod, and break out in a smile, turning it up.

Masen glances over at me, probably wondering why I look happy. “What?”

I gesture to the radio where Eminem’s “Without Me” is playing. “I have a friend. He hates my taste in music,” I tell him. “I sent him this song once. It led to a life-long argument that still hasn’t been settled.”

“He?”

I lean back in my seat. “In elementary school, our teachers set us up as pen pals,” I explain. “When the school year ended, though, we just kept writing, and we haven’t stopped. He lives in Thunder Bay, but we’ve never met.”

Masen stares at the road ahead, his chest rising and falling steadily. He’s not jealous, is he? Misha and I aren’t like that.

“Do you tell him everything?” he asks, still not looking at me.

I narrow my eyes on him. Maybe he suspects Misha is important to me.

Or maybe he wonders if my pen pal is more important than him.

The truth is, Misha is irreplaceable. But even with him, I don’t say everything.

I turn my head to look at the window. “I tell him more than I tell anyone else.”

“Do you lie to him?”