Page 28 of Between the Stars

This feels so right.

“Then let me show you something.”

The last time Jace said those words to me was New Year’s Eve, we were seventeen and in the bed of his truck surrounded by blankets and a starry night. It was the night Jace got me pregnant. It wasn’t planned,clearly, but that night changed us forever.

Will tonight?

I stare out the window of his Jeep, the crunch of ice breaking on a mountain road filling the silence in the car. It’s breathtaking outside. Roads covered in a frosty blanket, a clear sky with stars shining brightly. You don’t care about the scenery, do you? No, you want to know what’s going to happen when this Jeep stops.

You and me both, sister. I’m freaking the fuck out. Why’d I come with him? What the fuck was I thinking? I’m supposed to be getting married to a man who’s not the one next to me.

I chew on my thumb, desperate for answers I’m refusing to acknowledge. They’re there for sure, but I’m quickly pushing them aside, assuring myself I’ve made the right decision leaving with him. I’m terrified to look over at Jace while he keeps both hands on the wheel, pushing through the icy terrain.

What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?

We don’t say anything for a while, and I don’t ask where we’re going. I’m not sure I want to know. I showed up in town today and then disappeared just as quickly without telling anyone. Fear tightens my throat and I want to tell him to turn around, but something deep inside me keeps me from doing it.

I stare at my cell phone in my hand and see if I have bars. None. I look up and notice we’re entering Palo Duro Canyon. Duro Canyon is about an hour north of Amarillo and the heart of the Texas Panhandle. It’s said to be the Grand Canyon of Texas, and Jace and I used to hike it all the time in high school. The coolest part I think about the park is the cabins built into the side of the canyon. You can literally wake up on the side of a mountain to the sunrise over the canyon.

Next to me, Jace draws in a heavy breath when he turns onto another road, his blinker reflecting off the shiny iced over pavement. “You won’t have service here,” he notes, the Jeep bouncing from side to side as we cross over a cattle grate.

“I know.” I remember coming up here when we were younger to avoid everyone and everything we had going on. Up here, nothing could touch us, and we were free to be who we wanted to be. In love between the stars. “Where are we going?”

“My buddy Justice has a cabin up here a mile from the park entrance.”

“Really? That’s cool. There’s only a handful of houses up here, isn’t there?”

His half grin turns into a light chuckle as he turns up the heat, the headlights of his Jeep sweeping across boulders and snow-covered landscape that looks vastly different in the summers. “So, you and this guy….” His voice trails off, implying so much more than his words.

My heart pulses in my ears. “Griff.” His name on my lips reminds me this is wrong, but there’s always been blurred lines of what’s appropriate and what’s not between Jace and me.

Jace looks over at me, his eyes glowing in the moonlight. “He fuck you good?”

“Jace!” I gasp. “Why would you ask that?”

His eyes sweep to mine and then back to the road. “Because I’m pretty sure he’s not.”

“Not what?”

“Fucking you good.”

My stomach drops. “What makes you say that?”

“You wouldn’t be here with me if that were the case.”

I hesitate to answer his question, but then I do, without thinking. “It’s… okay.” I should shut up now, but I add, “Gentle. Missionary.”

He shakes his head, his smile lingering. “Missionary?” He laughs, shaking his head again. “Figures.”

“I don’t know. There’s just not any passion to it. It’s not like the kind of sex where you’re dying to have the closeness.”

He laughs, smirking. “So I take it he can make it through history class without fingering you?” His breathing hitches, his cheeks flushed, eyes wild. “Because I never could.”

I don’t meet his penetrating gaze. I twirl a strand of my hair around my fingers. A memory surfaces. The one of me and him, back of Mr. Nelson’s class, lights off while a documentary on Pearl Harbor played and Jace had his hand down the front of my pants.

It’s another ten minutes before Jace comes to a stop in front of a small cabin near the rim of the canyon. I imagine in the daylight the views would be stunning and nothing like the ones I had of our summers up here.

“Do you remember the time you got bit by that rattler?”

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