She smiles and reaches up to wipe sweat from her brow.
“I promise,” she says. “But since we’re on the topic, I’d like to add number seven. Have you ever seen Ghost?”
I glance over briefly. “Well, yeah. I guess everybody’s seen that movie. Unless you’re sixteen. Shit, I’m surprised you’ve seen it.” I nudge her with my elbow.
She laughs. “That was my mom’s doing,” she admits. “Ghost and Dirty Dancing I’ve seen about a hundred times. She had a thing for Patrick Swayze, and I was the only girl around growing up she could talk to about how handsome he was. Anyway, so you’ve seen it. Number seven: if anyone ever kills you, you better come back like Sam and help me find your killer.”
I laugh and shake my head, accidently knocking the hat off momentarily. “What is it with you and movies? Never mind. Yeah, I promise I’ll come back and haunt your ass.”
“You better!” she laughs out loud. “Besides, I know I’ll be like those people who think their loved ones are still around after they’ve died. Might as well give me more reason to believe it.”
Not sure how I’ll pull that off, but whatever. Hell, I’ll try.
“I’ll promise, if you will,” I say.
“As always,” she says.
“Number eight,” I go on, “don’t bury me where it’s cold.”
“Fully agreed. Me either!”
She wipes more sweat from her face and I lift away from the hood, reaching out my hand to her. “Let’s sit inside, out of the sun.”
She takes my hand and I help her down.
Two hours later, the tow truck still hasn’t showed up and it’s starting to get dark. Looks like we’ll get to watch the sunset together over the barren Texas landscape.
“I knew it,” Camryn says. “What the hell is it with the tow trucks?”
And just when she says that, a set of blinding headlights comes down the highway toward us. Overly relieved, we get out to meet him and the first thing I notice is the same thing Camryn notices. The guy could be Billy Frank’s doppelg?nger. She and I glance at each other, but we don’t comment out loud.
“You need a tow or a tire?” he asks, thumbing the straps of his denim overalls.
“Just the tire,” I say as I follow him around to the back of his truck.
“Well, I don’ have much time to stay here while ya change it,” he says and then spits chewing tobacco on the road. “You two’ll be all right?”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” I say. “But wait one second.” I hold up my finger and lean into the car to turn the key. When the engine starts without a problem, I shut it off and walk back over to him. “Just wanted to make sure it started.”
I pay the doppelg?nger and watch his truck’s brake lights fade into the darkening horizon as he drives away. When I walk back to the car where I left the tire, I’m shocked as hell to see Camryn already lifting the car up with the jack.
“Hell yeah, that’s my girl!”
She smiles up at me, but keeps on working at it, that blonde braid draped over one shoulder.
“It’s not so difficult,” she says, now rolling the new tire over after managing to get the lug nuts off the old one by herself. I think I’m getting a hard-on. No, wait, I’ve definitely got a hard-on.
“No, it really isn’t,” I finally reply, my smile getting bigger.
Several minutes later, she’s letting the car back down and tossing the jack into the trunk. I lift the old tire for her and throw it back there, too.
We get inside and just sit here.
It’s so quiet. Enormous streaks of pinkish-purple and blue cirrus clouds are cluttered together in the sky, stretching far over the horizon. As the heat of the day wears off, the mild breeze of approaching nightfall funnels through the opened car windows. The sunset is beautiful. Honestly, I’ve never paid much attention to one before. Maybe it’s the company.
And I’m not sure what’s happening right now between us, but whatever it is, we’re so synced with each other that we both share it. I look at her. She looks at me.
“Are you ready to go back?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She pauses, looking toward the windshield, lost in thought. Then she turns back to me, more sure now than she was just seconds ago. “Yeah, I think I’m ready to go home.” She smiles.
And for the first time since I left Galveston on my own that day, or when Camryn boarded that bus in Raleigh that night, we finally feel… fulfilled.
Camryn
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