“I’ve never brought anyone in the world here before.” He rested his hands on my hips and swayed me forward.
I twisted my lips. “I’m not sure I’m excited to find out that the last place in the world you haven’t taken anyone else on a date is a bus station.”
“No. Smartass. You are the only person I’ve ever brought here.”
I arched an eyebrow in question. He shook his head with a smile and slid his hands under my arms, and then he lifted me to sit on the tailgate.
I expected cold metal, but I was met with a plush fleece blanket covering the bed of the truck.
It was cold, but he tugged his jacket off, draped it over the side, then settled beside me.
I bumped him with my shoulder. “Are you this romantic on all your dates? Or am I just that special?” I teased.
“Just you.”
“I’m assuming there’s a story here?” I motioned a hand to the bus station.
He went to work passing me food, leaving what was left of the fries at the bottom of the bag between us. “Yep.”
“You gonna tell me?” I asked before taking a bite of my hot dog.
He lifted a finger and then finished his dinner in three bites. After washing it down with a large soda, he winked and popped a mint in his mouth. “I should have taken you on our first date at sixteen.”
My smile fell, and I lost my appetite completely. Dumping my food in the bag, I became fascinated with the concrete parking lot.
He linked his hand with mine and settled them on his thigh. “This is the date I would have taken you on. I was a broke sixteen-year-old back then. But Till would have let me borrow his truck, and Eliza would have snuck me some money for dinner even if I hadn’t done my chores at home. I splurged on the roses, so you got chili dogs.” He smirked. “Even feeling you up at the drive-up would have happened, and I definitely would have brought you here. Because, if we were going out on a date back then, this place would have been the way I got you back.”
He stopped talking and turned to face me. Then he stole a boyish kiss that made me blush.
I nervously fidgeted with my dress as if I really were that fifteen-year-old girl in the back of his truck.
Quarry laughed then continued. “Two days after my sixteenth birthday, Till and I got into a huge fight because he wouldn’t let me get my driver’s license, seeing that I had a C in Spanish.”
“Y por eso deberías haberme mantenido alrededor,” I mumbled. (And this is why you should have kept me around.) “Showoff.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “Anyway, I took off. Wandered around aimlessly with no place to go. I was on foot, so it wasn’t like I could make it far, but I refused to go home. I ended up here.” He pointed to a bench just outside the door to the run-down terminal. “I sat there for hours, watching people as buses came in and out. It was crazy, but I started trying to imagine what those people’s lives were like. Were they better than mine? Worse? Did they also have to live under the tyranny of an older brother who actually cared about their grades?”
He shook his fist in the air in humorous defiance. Then his face turned serious again, and he squeezed my hand impossibly tight.
“Did they have parents who loved them instead of abandoning them? If not, did they have a woman like Eliza in their life who, at only twenty-one, became the surrogate mother she didn’t have to be? No? What about a brother like Flint who spent his childhood making sure they were fed and clothed? Were they happy? Did they have a little brown-eyed girl who’d stolen a piece of their soul at ten years old?” His voice was thick, and he paused to swallow. “And, if they did…did they fail them all too?”
“Stop,” I whispered, scooting closer and moving our joined hands to my lap.
He kissed my forehead. “I was a kid. I couldn’t stop. Anyway, watching people got me thinking about you. I was positive that you hated me. But I started wondering what you were doing. Had you grown up? What did you look like? Were you still scared of the silence?” He lowered his voice and whispered, “Did you miss me like I missed you?”
My stomach had already been in knots, and my heart was breaking, but it wasn’t until he tipped my head back and stared deep into my eyes that I felt the true pain.
“Every. Single. Day,” he whispered my confession reverently. “That was the only answer I truly needed.”
His lips pressed against mine, and his thumb traced my jawline.
I melted against him. Anxiety and guilt were temporarily banished from my thoughts.
Opening my mouth, I silently requested more of a connection. His tongue obliged my plea and glided against mine. Much to my dismay, he kept it short.