His eyebrows pop in surprise. “It is. I love this album.”
“Me too. It reminds me of grade school.” Back when things were easy, before life got hard.
“Did you ever see them play live?” He turns onto I-95.
“No, I didn’t. You?”
“They came through Santa Cruz and played at—”
“Shut up!” My hand moves on its own and punches him in the shoulder. I resist the urge to shake off the pain from hitting his brick of a bicep. “You’re from Santa Cruz?”
He grins, so big and so damn beautiful I feel it flutter in my chest. “Yeah.”
“I’m from San Jose.” The excitement in my voice rings through the truck cab.
“No kidding? Wow, small world.”
“Right? We used to drive out to Cowell Beach every summer growing up.”
His eyes dart to mine in surprise. “I learned to surf at Cowell. Did you guys rent a place?”
My cheeks heat, and I’m grateful he can’t see it in the dark cab. “No, we didn’t really have a lot of money, so we’d just go for the day.”
He’s completely unaffected by my confession of our being broke, but I suppose that’s because he doesn’t know all of it. Like the fact that we all didn’t even have swim suits and had to share a couple towels between the ten of us. Not that any of it mattered back then.
My fondest childhood memories were from those trips, leaving before the sun came up, piled in our van with a bag full of peanut-butter sandwiches, and leaving after the sun sank into the ocean. Our skin red, hair matted with salt water and sand, exhausted. And Lana.
I clear my throat of the lump the memory brings. “To think we could’ve been there at the same time.”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” He takes a sip of his coffee then puts it back in the cup holder. “I would’ve remembered you.”
My face feels hot, but this time for a completely different reason. How is it that his compliments turn me into a nervous, blushing mess? “Mason, I was a knock-kneed, mousy kid. I’m sure a guy like you was surrounded by beautiful beach babes. I just . . . blended in with the sand.”
“Ha! That’s funny.” He shakes his head. “That you could ever blend in is laughable.” He peers over at me for a split second before his eyes go back to the road. “Don’t forget I saw a picture of you as a teenager, and trust me . . . I would’ve noticed you. Noticed and then shown off to get your attention.”
My stomach flips over on itself, and I smile out the window into the dark. With the city behind us and the dark mountains ahead, I imagine what it would’ve been like to know Mason back then. Was he a cocky teenager, a leader-of-the-pack type who was constantly surrounded by cheerleaders? No way would he have paid attention to the shy seventeen-year-old girl with the Disney obsession.
We turn off the freeway onto a road that seems mostly desolate.
“You’re not taking me out into the middle of nowhere to have your wicked way with me, are you?” Not that I’d care if he was.
He turns to me and flashes a devastatingly handsome smile that has me catching my breath. “Maybe.”
My stomach lurches, and I slug down a few gulps of coffee. If that’s his plan, I’m going to need plenty of energy to enjoy it.
Eleven
Mason
I’m nervous. I don’t remember the last time I was really nervous around a girl. I mean, even with Eve, we always had a friendship first that made things so easy when we hung out. That was a big part of what convinced me we were meant to be together. Love should be easy, right?
Trix is different. She constantly has me on edge, walking the fine line of my sanity and hypersensitive to her every move. Although our conversations are light and there’s no uncomfortable silence between us, the prospect of being alone with her sends a battalion of butterflies loose in my gut.
I sip on my coffee and let the caffeine charge through my veins, giving me a second wind. Truth is, after the movie tonight, I was ready to go home and crash, but the opportunity to spend time with Trix alone is too good to pass up.
“Hang on.” I hit the four-wheel drive and pull off the small road and through the mountains.
Small rocks spit from the tires and knock against the wheel well. She squeals with laughter and holds on to the sissy bar while we blaze a trail over rocks, gravel, and small plants to a clearing up ahead.
I stop and put the truck in park. “We’re here.”
“That was gnarly!” She’s grinning big, childlike excitement in her eyes that makes my chest swell with pride. Her head swivels around, leaning forward to peer out the windshield. “Where are we?”
I jerk my head to my door. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She holds up one long tanned leg, and I resist, just barely, the urge to take in the view she’s flashing from between them. “I don’t have on my hiking heels.”