The memory of the night she died seeps into my mind, even though I try to keep it at bay. Mom and her boyfriend at the time, Ray, drove their brown Chevy straight into a concrete barrier on I-5 just south of San Clemente. They had been drinking, and were so pumped full of drugs that the police said if the car crash hadn’t killed them, they might have OD’d later that night anyway. Which is not exactly a comforting thing for a twelve-year-old to hear. But I had been eavesdropping from my bedroom doorway when the two policemen stood in my grandmother’s living room, telling her the news. Mia and I had been living with Grandma for three years at that point, only seeing my mom sporadically every couple months when she’d show up, needing a place to crash for the night.
“I do,” I say. “But it’s sort of complicated. My mom left us when we were pretty young, so I don’t know...” I shrug. “I’ve spent most of my life trying not to be like her, to be honest. That’s why I didn’t want to go out with you in the first place. She couldn’t tell a good guy from a bad one, and...” I trail off.
“You thought I was a bad guy?” Tate asks, his expression bemused. “Do you still think so?”
I examine him, as if I’ll be able to tell more the harder I look. “Well, going by your very well-documented history in People and Us Weekly, I’d have good reason for thinking that.” He starts to defend himself but I go on. “But my own empirical research is leading me to a different conclusion.”
His scowl becomes a laugh, and I find myself savoring the sound. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh like that—easy and unrestrained. “Empirical research, huh?”
“I’m very scientific,” I remind him with a smile.
*
We are still laughing when we step back onto the sidewalk, and the flash of a camera explodes across my vision.
“Tate,” a man shouts. And he snaps another photo.
Tate reacts immediately, pulling me against his side and putting his hand in front of my face to block the next series of bursts, the staccato of camera flashes.
“Tate!” the man shouts again, clearly trying to get Tate to face him. “Who’s your date? Why have you been in hiding? Tell us her name!” He uses the word us, as if there were more of them—other paparazzi—but he’s the only one. Either he was tipped off, or camped out in hopes of spotting someone famous leaving the restaurant.
Tate pulls me away from the man, up the sidewalk. The camera keeps flashing and I shield my eyes with my palm.
I see the Tesla ahead. Tate rips open the side door and pushes me inside. He dives into the driver’s seat and peels away. Flashes from the man’s camera continue to explode against the blackened car windows until we weave into traffic.
*
Tate pulls up to my corner, puts the car in park, and leans back against the seat. The easy mood from dinner is a distant memory; he is stiff, his jaw set.
“At least there was only one of them,” I offer, tentatively reaching out to touch his arm.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should be more careful with you. I should never have taken you there.”
“I’m fine,” I say. It all happened too fast to process. And Tate seems more shaken up than I am. They’re just photos—it’s not like we were doing anything scandalous, anything worthy of a headline, at least I don’t think so. I can’t imagine the photographer will be able to sell them or use them for anything.
But Tate doesn’t look at me, his expression still rigid. “I don’t want you to be photographed. I don’t want your life to change just because I’m in it.”
“I know. But it’s already changed. Not just because of the things you did today—the clothes, the salon, or the movie yesterday. You’re changing me just by...by being with me. And it’s what I want. I told you before that I’m willing to do this with you—I’m all in. You don’t have to feel like you need to protect me.”
His hands loosen around the steering wheel, falling into his lap. He turns to face me. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Say exactly what I need to hear, at exactly the right moment?”
I stare at him in the bluish glow from the dashboard, his features lit on one side, a sharp contrast. “You’re the one who usually says exactly the right thing,” I tell him, thinking of all the moments when his words undid me, convinced me to go on a date with him, go for a ride in his car, then when I agreed to be with him on his terms. He has a way of making me forget about everything else. Except him.
He smiles, his eyes falling to my lips.
I meet his gaze, then say what I’m thinking, damn the consequences: “Can we go back to your house for a while, before I have to go home?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “I can’t take you to my place,” he says finally, looking away out the front windshield. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way you look tonight... I can’t keep my thoughts focused.” He swallows. “I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust myself with you.”
I feel my heart rise swiftly in my chest. Desire suddenly sings through my veins. This day has made me someone different, bold, and I’m not afraid to touch him this time. I lift my fingers and reach across the car, stroking the side of his neck, letting them drift upward, finding his jaw and then his lips. The tips of my fingers graze his bottom lip, pressing against them, feeling their warmth, and my insides shudder.
He turns to face me, my fingers still against his mouth.