‘Houston for a couple nights. She and her mom go shopping every year during spring break.’
Boyce dropped his cigarette butt into his empty bottle. ‘Watch your back. You know Richards is a grade-A dickhole.’
‘I don’t think he gives a shit.’
‘About her? Probably not. But he gives a shit about appearances, and he doesn’t like to lose.’
‘Neither do I.’ My phone vibrated and I pulled up a text from Melody, along with two dressing-room-mirror selfies of lacy nothings – one black, one red. I lay back on the rock, staring. ‘Holy, holy shit.’
Melody: Lingerie shopping. This? Or this?
Me: BOTH. EITHER. Is this a trick question??
Melody: I’ll be wearing one of them Friday, if you still want to go out.
Me: A. Of course I want to go out. B. You can’t go out in that, unless you want me to kill the first guy who touches you.
Melody: Under my clothes, silly. You’ll know, but no one else will.;)
Me: I’ll never make it through dinner.
‘What? Is she sexting you?’ Boyce asked, reaching for my phone. ‘Lemme see.’
I shoved it in my pocket. ‘Nope. That’s all mine.’
‘Lucky bastard.’
I shook my head, sitting up. ‘I thought you guys couldn’t stand each other?’
Spreading his arms, he asked, ‘Who’s gotta stand her to appreciate her naked?’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’d better hope that never happens.’
He put his hands up. ‘All right, all right – keep your shorts on.’
I took a deep breath, hand on my phone inside my pocket. My fingers itched to pull up those photos and study every detail. Meticulously. ‘I need a beer or five.’
Boyce hopped down to the sand. ‘On it, bro. Let’s go.’
Melody’s parents were less than thrilled to see me at the door Friday to pick her up, or the old blue-and-white Ford F-100 at the end of their curving pebbled walk. I’d worn boots, jeans and a snap-front western shirt I’d taken from Grandpa’s stuff before Dad gave the rest of it away. The shirt was faded blue, soft as hell, and way older than me. There was a tear by the cuff, so I rolled the sleeves and pushed them up to my elbows. I forgot about my tattoos until her mom focused on them two seconds after opening the door – once her eyes unfocused from my truck.
Fingering the necklace at her throat as though I might snatch it off and run out the door, she spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Landon. Hello. Melody will be down in a minute.’
Her father was less subtle. One glance at me, and he turned to his wife. ‘Barb, may I see you in the kitchen?’
‘Wait here, please,’ she told me. I nodded.
Melody came down the stairs a moment later wearing a short red sundress with boots, and my mouth went dry, immediately imagining those red lacy things she’d promised to wear underneath. I knew every detail of them except how they’d feel to the touch, because I’d stared at those photos for so many hours that they were all but burned into my retinas.
‘Ooh, cool vintage shirt,’ Melody said, running a hand down my chest. My whole body responded to her touch, everything constricting at once. I was in deep shit with this girl.
We could hear her parents arguing in the kitchen. ‘Did you approve her going out with that Maxfield boy?’ her father said.
‘Of course not –’
‘What the hell were you thinking? What happened to Clark?’
Her mother’s answer was inaudible.
Melody rolled her eyes. ‘God. Let’s get out of here.’
She got no argument from me.
We took the ferry and drove to a Peruvian seafood joint for ceviche and fish tacos.
‘So you like working on cars?’ Melody asked, sipping her iced tea.
I’d hung around Boyce a few times when he was working at his dad’s garage. He liked the grease under his nails, the smell of the exhaust, and getting his hands dirty while diving into the bowels of the machine under a hood. That wasn’t me. ‘Kinda, but not really. It might be cool to design cars. I mean, I like figuring out how mechanical things work, but only so I can use that knowledge to build something else. Once I know how it all connects, it’s not that fascinating any more. When I was a kid, I took stuff apart all the time – radios, clocks, toasters, a doorbell chime …’
She laughed. ‘A doorbell?’
‘Yeah. I made my mom nuts with that one. I got it back together, but she said it always sounded like a wounded moose after that.’
She smiled. ‘So that’s what some of those drawings on your wall were. The mechanical stuff. I thought maybe you were like, into steampunk or something.’
‘That’s cool in fiction.’ I shrugged. ‘But I’m more into sketching new technologies.’
She took my hand and traced the tattoo across my right wrist. ‘What about your tattoos? What do they mean?’ When she started to turn my hand over, I threaded my fingers through hers instead. I wasn’t ready for her to discover those camouflaged scars.
‘Enough questions about me. What about you? What do you like to do?’ I arched a brow and leaned closer. ‘Besides sending me pics that drive me crazy for two days straight.’
Lips pressed together, she grinned and then stared at the table, shrugging one mostly bare shoulder and swirling a fingernail in a pool of condensation. ‘I dunno. I like fashion. I like being a part of the dance squad.’ She peered up at me and chewed her lower lip. ‘I kind of like history? Like, art history?’
I nodded. ‘That’s cool.’
She looked dubious. ‘You think?’
‘Yeah – but it shouldn’t matter what I think.’ I squeezed the hand I held. ‘If you like it, you like it. Is that what you want to major in when you go to college?’
She sighed. ‘Maybe. But my parents expect me to do something like be an accountant or a doctor. They got all excited when Pearl and me got to be best friends, because Pearl wants to go to medical school. But I’m not like her.’
I couldn’t help the smirk that stole across my face.
‘What?’ She frowned and started to withdraw her hand.
I clenched my fingers tighter and smiled. ‘Nothing! I was only remembering how super-excited you were to do that frog autopsy. Not. I’m thinking medical school might not be in your future.’
She rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Seriously. I couldn’t have given two shits to slice that thing open, and Pearl was pissed off she was out sick that day because she missed it. You did okay with it, though.’
I shrugged. ‘I was only interested how the stuff inside worked.’
‘Like the doorbell and the radio?’
Nodding, I said, ‘Speaking of radios – do you wanna go park somewhere and listen to music?’
Leaving the windows rolled down so we could hear the radio, I pulled two sleeping bags, a quilt and a pillow out of the toolbox in the truck bed.