Page 37 of Sunshine

“I can drive, you moron,” Rhett argues, but Wells shakes his head once, firmly.

“No, especially not after that shit you just pulled. I’m not about to watch you get taken away in handcuffs.”

Rhett rolls his eyes, but hands over his keys. Wells looks at me again. “Follow me?” he asks again.

“I don’t—” I begin to say, unsure of how to break it to him that I’m still too young to drive.

“She doesn’t have her license,” Jason says for me. And itfeels like both a relief and a curse, because while the last thing I want is to be responsible for Wells’s truck, I hate the way his face falls at the realization.

“Oh,” Rhett says, delighted. “You like ’em younger, Jay?” He wags his eyebrows knowingly, and my face grows hot with embarrassment.

This time, Wells isn’t soft about shoving Rhett’s shoulder. “Don’t be a dick,” he says, turning back to me. “Sorry, Layla.”

I shrug. “It’s okay.”

Wells looks at the ground as he thinks. “Okay, new plan. We’re all going in my truck,” he says, reaching a hand out to take his keys back from me just as Rhett reaches to takehisfrom Wells. Wells clutches Rhett’s close to his chest and throws his shoulder between them, his other hand clumsily wrapping around my wrist in pursuit of his own. This misstep clearly shocks him somehow, because he’s quickly pulling his hand back, keys in tow, as if I’ve burned him.

Jason sighs again, like he might be regretting his bootleg liquor and subsequent inability to be a second driver.Good, I think. It’s not that his drinking bothers me, it’s that he’s a little selfish about it, not thinking it through beyond the simple want for a drink. This isn’t the first time he’s put Wells—or me—in a pickle. I know he couldn’t have anticipated Rhett’s little parade of rebellion right through the heart of his father’s pep rally, but was spiked punch really necessary in the first place?

We all silently serpentine through the café’s parking lot and climb into Wells’s truck. Rhett takes the front seat, and after Jason shuts his door opposite of me in the back, he holds his hand out between us, face up. Despite my flare of annoyance, I take it. I know he’s looking for comfort to salve overhis remorse, and I suppose as his girlfriend it’s my duty to offer that to him.

But I’m still irritated.

The lack of any conversation extends the whole way to my house, and when Wells pulls up alongside the curb, the front porch light kicks on. Mom must have been watching for me. “Thanks,” I say, catching Wells’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He nods once before his eyes flick elsewhere, and I turn to look at Jason. “I’ll see you Monday?”

His mouth ticks up with an effort to smile, but it’s flat and doesn’t reach his eyes. I wonder if I’ve done something wrong in all this. “Yeah,” he finally says after a beat that feels too long. “Definitely.”

Inside my motheriswaiting for me, but she’s not alone. “You’re home early,” she remarks, brushing Annie’s wet hair from where she sits on the floor in front of Mom’s legs.

I shrug, unsure what to say. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Who was that in the truck?” she asks with a tone that feels casual but I know isn’t. I’m not surprised that, even in the middle of brushing my sister’s hair, she was still able to not only hear the truck pull up, but inspect its occupants. “Rhett.”

Her eyes jump to mine. “The wild one?”

“Aren’t they all?” I volley back. It’s meant to be sarcastic, but she misunderstands.

Her smile curves high. “Touché.”

I try to tamp down the guilt as I climb the stairs to my room.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NOW

We both stare at the bed in the middle of the motel room, arms crossed over our chests as we contemplate our next move.

After Wells got his hands on the first-place prize money for bronc-riding (dropping Kasey down to second place by mere points), we all celebrated at the Dirty Cowboys Saloon in downtown Fort Worth. Wells and Kasey snuck pints of beer to my side of the booth, careful not to let any of the staff catch on, and I was thankful for it. I hoped it might take the edge off the adrenaline that flared through me as I watched Wells take The Hammer, a beautiful Buckskin male, all the way through a tumultuous eight-second ride.

I’d seen Wells on a bucking horse a hundred times by now, but this time, something was different. Wells exuded his usual steady confidence, only there was something else beneath the surface of today’s ride: a hunger for the violence of it all.

Even from a hundred feet away in the stands, I could feelthe wave of aggression that rolled through him. It wasn’t directed at the horse—he was beyond careful in all the ways his body moved with The Hammer. But there was an unusual thrill in the performance, an outpouring of pent-up emotion that needed release. It’d taken a long time to dislodge the fear in my throat that I was about to watch Wells get seriously hurt—but he’d prevailed.

And dammit if the relief didn’t twist something inside of me.

After getting our fill of fried chicken and cornbread—and plenty of Coors Lights from the tap—the three of us made our way to the small motel where Kasey had booked rooms for him and Wells weeks ago. They’d tried to pay for a third room for me, but the man behind the desk in the lobby said they were booked solid because of the rodeo. My buzz had me waving it off, assuring them both that it was fine. It was just for one night.

But I never considered the sleeping arrangement.

---