Crave (The Gibson Boys 3)
All I know for sure is I saw her leave the apartment and didn’t think too much about it. Then it started raining, so I went after her on the small chance I’d find her stranded … and I did. And here we sit in the cab of my truck filled with her perfume, the heater on low, the music switched from my usual rock station to some country channel she loves.
Heaven and hell don’t work together, but it damn sure feels like they do.
“Thanks for picking me up,” she says. The bag crinkles again. “And for buying my lunch.”
“No problem.”
Easing up on the accelerator, I run my hand down the front of my jeans. We’ve been in this situation so many times—her in the front seat of my truck while I drive around town with nowhere to go. It’s how we killed many Friday nights back in the day.
Back in the good old days.
The silence fills every nook and cranny. The two of us are the sole occupants of the truck, but it feels like there’s no room left. It’s almost too crowded to even breathe. I need to say something, anything, but come up empty. So, like a dumbass, I keep driving and leave George Strait to do the talking.
“You need a haircut,” she says. “Getting a little long back here.”
Her fingers brush against the back of my neck, ruffling the too-long strands that do need a trim. My neck flexes against her fingers, trying to deepen the touch. The warmth from her touch trickles through my body. I can’t remember when someone touched me like this—without an end game or to get something. Just because she actually cares.
It fucks with me.
“I can’t believe Nana hasn’t said anything,” she says.
I fiddle with the cruise control button to keep my hands busy so I don’t reach for her. “Oh, she has.”
“I bet. Do you remember when Peck let his almost turn into a mullet?” She throws her head back and laughs. “I thought Nana was going to have a coronary.”
“Oh, yeah. How do you forget that? The harder she rode him about it, the harder he fought against cutting it.”
“The best was when he would wear a bandana and push it all back like they did in the eighties.” She looks at me with the sweetest, simplest smile. “You boys put her through a lot, you know that?”
I regrip the steering wheel. “Yeah, well, I think we put everyone through a lot. Don’t ya think?”
The truck turns toward Bluebird Hill. The tires hit the gravel, the sound ripping through the air as we slow. Hadley rolls down her window and takes a deep breath.
“Like the smell of wet gravel?” I laugh.
“It’s the smell of my youth.” Even she laughs at that. “I have Peaches take-out, gravel, the grass still wet from the rain … and you.” Her smile fades. “That was a really weird thing to say.”
Weird? Yes.
True? Also, yes.
Awkward? Hell, yes.
My stomach sinks with that heavy, uncomfortable sensation that won’t budge. It just sits inside you and makes you miserable. I shift my weight in the seat and loosen the white-knuckle grip I have on the steering wheel in hopes of releasing some of the stress.
It doesn’t.
I take a quick right, causing the sunglasses on the dash to drift to the passenger side and rattle against the glass. Hadley grips the door as the truck climbs to the top of the hill. We’re nearly vertical, the engine groaning because I didn’t flip it in four-wheel drive. Hadley’s grip stays tense until we’re safely settled at the peak.
I cut the engine, and George’s voice melts away. It’s just Hadley and me—two people trying to figure out what to do with the other.
She looks at me warily as she sets the paper bag on the floorboard. The little clover pendant rises and falls about the same hectic speed as my breath. She gives me a half-smile, one loaded with a hundred questions, before she opens the door and climbs out.
Her arms stretch to the side, her face tilted to the sky. The rust-colored shirt brings out the redness in her hair, and I wonder if Samuel knows it gets less red as the seasons change. Then in the summer, the sun will kiss her again and the coppery strands will pop like they do now.
I wonder if he knows anything about her I don’t. The idea pummels me yet sparks an entire line of thought I don’t want to go down.
It’s not even about her making memories with someone else. It’s that they aren’t with me. That feels completely selfish, but I can’t help it. Just as I can’t help how wrong it feels to have sections of our lives that don’t intersect.
Lance’s stupid one-liner floats through my head like a digital banner, blinking its message over and over. If I don’t marry her, someone else will. The only problem is, when it comes to me and Hadley, I can’t marry her. I can’t do that to her or even ask that of her, no matter how much she thinks she wants it. But that means I’m going in some arbitrary box in her head, and I don’t even know what that means.