Page 18 of Between the Stars

“Surprise!”

“Oh my God. I’m so excited.”

“Then come get me.” I shiver in my jacket. “It’s cold here.”

“Oh shit. Okay. I was on my way to get some sugar for Mama. I’ll turn around.”

“You can come get me after or I can take an Uber.”

“Girl, no. I’ll be there in thirty.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

* * *

It takes her twenty,and I’m not surprised. She’s a Vaughn. They have no regard for boundaries or speed limits.

What does surprise me in the four-door lifted jet-black Jeep Wrangler she pulls up in. Icicles cling to the front bumper that’s sporting a winch and tow hooks. It’s seen better days but is still taken care of and is definitely a difference from the old Honda Civic she drove all through high school when we jumped over Grady Creek not once, but twice.

She honks as she pulls up over a curb, causing the couple helping their elderly mom into their car to yelp.

“Sorry about her,” I say, forcing a fake smile.

Leaning over into the passenger seat, she pushes the door open. “Bitch, get in. I don’t want to pay for parking.”

I grin and rush toward the Jeep. Swinging the door open, I toss my suitcase in the back and reach for the bar above the door to help myself in. I’m actually fairly tall, if you consider five foot seven tall, but still, it takes some effort to get in. Josie and Jace, they’re both like six feet tall. Pretty sure Jace is six two, but still, I’m the short one compared to them. “When did you get this?” I ask, practically out of breath trying to get into it.

“It’s not mine.” She laughs, turning the wheel and cutting off a bus to merge into the traffic through the airport. “It’s Jace’s.”

The Jeep barrels into the street with roar and I have to fight to get my seat belt on. And then it hits me. I’m in his Jeep. The smell of gas, grease, and a hardworking man invade my senses. My heart thumps wildly in my chest. I look over at her and I think about his old ’70s Ford his dad gave him for his sixteenth birthday. The one I wedged myself between the steering wheel and him while I begged him to tell me he loved me. I swallow over the tightness in my throat. “What happened to his truck?”

“Finally died about a year ago.” She honks at another driver that basically pulled the same move she did and cuts her off. “Hey, asshole, I’m driving here.”

I wouldn’t call what she’s doing driving but whatever. I’m too caught up in the fact that this is his Jeep. Jace’s old Ford, it was legendary around town. Not in the ways you’d think. It barely ran, leaked oil everywhere, but it was always involved in something. When Morgan decided to do a burnout on the football field during the homecoming game, it was that old Ford that he drove.

“Where’s Tin Man?”

I laugh at her nickname for Griff. She’s never liked him. I look down at my cell phone in my hand once more, the screen lighting up with a picture of Griff and me last Christmas. “He’s working.”

There’s silence in the Jeep for a moment and Josie snorts. “Did you come to see Jace?”

My cheeks turn a bright shade of “I’m caught” pink. “No.”

“Bullshit. Abbi…” She pauses and sighs, her eyes still on the road that look like frozen hell. “He’s moving on and then you show up and you fuck with his head. Just like at that damn concert.”

I do that thing where I stutter and become defensive. “It’s not my fault.”

“Yes it is. He was a mess after that weekend.”

“And I wasn’t?”

“I know you were.” She eyes me like she knows. Jace and me, we’ve never been able to get our shit together. We do these things, like having sex in a parking lot and then we can’t make it work after that. It’s the ever after we struggle with, for reasons we don’t understand. It’s always, I can’t, we shouldn’t, what now… and there’s never an answer that follows that makes sense.

I yank on my beanie hat and adjust my hair on the sides. “How am I fucking with his head?”

Is he still into me?Girl, Jesus, you know he is.

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