“Um,” I mumbled. That was not supposed to be so good.
He held still, his chin half an inch away.
“Don’t say you’ve forgotten me,” he said. “You couldn’t be that mean.”
I lifted my gaze to his. My heart was still pounding with eager, visceral certainty, and I took a break from strict honesty.
“It’s possible some small, unreasoning part of me remembers you,” I said.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, smiling.
He slid his arms loosely around me so my curved belly fit against him. My shirt met his. I pressed my tender lips together and glanced over his shoulder toward the barn, wary of onlookers. The warning flag in my mind kicked in again and produced a name—Linus—but before I could formulate a coherent thought, Tom dipped near to kiss me again. This time, he brought a teasing kind of heat, and I tapped my palms against his shoulders, uncertain whether I ought to hold him off or swallow him whole.
“Okay. Let’s go to my place,” he said. He scooped my cane off the ground, pulled me against his side in a supportive way, and turned us toward the road.
“What, now?”
“Have you got a better idea, genius?”
No matter how much I liked kissing Tom, I had just met him. The Linus flag prickled into a stab of guilt, too. I didn’t know where I stood with Linus, but he still had the ability to make me miserable and confused, which had to count for something.
My mind still likes Linus. My body is all about Tom.
“Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t like it,” Tom said.
“It’s my first day back.”
His eyebrow lifted. “How right you are.” He gave my hand a little tug.
“Have we always had this—?” I didn’t know what to call it. We were somehow already back in each other’s arms. My shirt felt clingy and hot.
“Much fun?” he said, smiling sideways. “No. It took you a while to catch on.”
Before he could kiss me again, I extricated myself and took back my cane. Then I had to take off my sweatshirt because I was still too hot. I felt ridiculous.
“I would like to have some basic information about our relationship,” I said.
“I’d say you just had a pretty good sample there, darlin’.”
“I’m serious,” I said. I brokered some real space between us. “I want to know how we met and where we started this baby.”
He rubbed a hand along his jaw. “I could make up something here, couldn’t I? And you wouldn’t know the difference.”
He was evil.
“Fine,” I said, turning for the lane. “Don’t tell me. I’m heading back.”
He fell into step beside me and gently took my sweatshirt for me. “Tell me if this rings any bells. We met in eighth grade,” he said. “I was a year older, but I got held back, and they put me in your class. We had math together.”
“Why’d you get held back?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t apply myself,” he said. “You had this dark purple hoodie you always wore, and your fingernails were all black and chewed up. You were cool, in other words. We got put in this group project together about polynomials, and you kept calling me a ‘maroon’ just under your breath.”
“The color? How nice for you.”
“It was an insult, believe me. But it beat having you ignore me.”
To our right, we had a view of the valley, and cloud shadows were moving slowly over the landscape, turning it dark in patches. Tom broke off a branch of laurel and balanced the stem on his palm.
“Don’t tell me we started going out in eighth grade,” I said.
“Gross. No,” he said, smiling. “You asked how we met.”
I laughed. “So then what?”
“Things changed fall of junior year,” he said. “We had math together again, and you started up the same old routine. ‘Get your stinking boots out of my face, Maroon,’ you’d say all quiet. I’d be like, ‘What? What did I do to you?’”
“Why was I so mean?” I said, pausing to face him.
“That’s what I wondered. You weren’t like that to anybody else,” he said. “You were out of the hoodies by then. You walked proud, like you owned Texas, and that’s when I developed my curse.”
“What curse?”
He picked apart the flower. I noticed that his sideburns were slightly darker than the rest of his hair. Maybe he was blushing, too.
“Five seconds before you came through the door, any door, I would feel you coming,” he said. “I’d look up, and there you’d be, every single time. You’d catch me staring like I’d been waiting for you the whole time.”
“Oh, no,” I said.
He brushed a hand back through his hair. “It gets worse,” he said. “You could have laughed at me. Instead, you’d just shake your head, like Really, Maroon? Again? I didn’t have to say a word. You knew exactly how bad I had it. It was humiliating. And worst of all? You quit teasing me.”
“Poor Tom,” I said, smiling.
“Exactly. You pitied me.” He dropped the last shreds of the laurel to the road and stepped on them.
Pathetic as it was, I was glad he was telling me the whole story. “So what happened then?” I asked.
He glanced up to study me, all irony gone. “One night, I was riding home late from work when my motorcycle broke down. It was raining and cold. I couldn’t leave my bike, so I was pushing it along the road. Then a truck slowed down in front of me, and it was you.”
“Of course it was.” For the first time, I felt like I was getting a glimpse of the real Althea, not just the daughter of Diego and Madeline. “Did I offer you a ride?”
“Yes, except I didn’t want help from you,” he said. “You got out and practically dragged my bike into your truck yourself. ‘You should have called me,’ you yelled. And I was like, ‘What? You never would have come.’ And you were like, ‘How stupid can you be, Tom?’ I had no idea what you were saying. I got in your truck, and my boots smeared black mud all over your floor. I expected you to yell at me about that, but no. And then I saw you were crying. I was like, crap. I didn’t know what to do.”
“What was wrong with me?” I asked.
“You really don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “Tell me,” I said.
“I asked you to pull over and tell me what was wrong,” he said. “Turns out your collie, Gizmo, had been sick. Terminal. That night, you took him to the all-night vet to have him put down. His collar with the little name tag was right there on the dashboard, getting cold.”
I could easily imagine a collar there, with the windshield wipers going and the ticking of the rain. “That is so sad,” I said.
“Here’s the thing,” Tom added. “You went to the vet by yourself, without your parents. They had a party that night. Some fundraiser. They couldn’t be bothered.”
I stared at him. “That is not okay.”
“I know,” he said. “You told me about holding Gizmo for his final breaths, and then you started crying for real. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t dare to put my arm around you, but you leaned into me a little, and then you just let go.” He wedged the toe of his boot against the crushed laurel. “I’d never seen a girl cry like that,” he said quietly. “It’s strange, telling you this. We never talked about it.”