Page 10 of Speeding Hearts

But maybe this new us—here, in Oak Bend—could be even better.

Without thinking, I closed the distance between us and threw my arms around him. “I missed you.”

Dean was stiff under me, taking a moment to wrap his arms around my waist. When he did, his arms were wooden, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

My stomach sank.

We were in a new place, and that easiness of friendship back in Jewel Lakes was gone. I swallowed, pulling away from him. We didn’t usually hug back at home, as if by some tacit agreement.

Now I knew why. I knew I couldn’t get too physically close to him without my head getting messed up. He clearly needed us to keep the status quo too.

“Sorry,” I said.

“What are you sorry for?” he asked, his voice rough. There was only a foot of space between us now, but I felt somehow like we were still connected, whether we wanted to be or not. Like the parts of ourselves that extended past us were commingling, hanging onto each other. Happy, where we were tentative.

I stepped further back.

I’d only hugged Dean once before, when he’d told me he was leaving Jewel Lakes and before he suggested I might want to come with him. He’d just told me his dad had gone and had surgery without telling anyone, and he was going home to look out for him. He’d looked so bereft, so… lost, I’d jumped up and wrapped my arms around him. He hadn’t been stiff that time. It was like he’d forgotten himself; he’d been warm and hard and melding to me all at once. His head had dipped down to my shoulder, and I’d breathed him in as if he were something I’d desperately wanted that I’d been avoiding.

Then I’d snapped out of it. We’d pulled back and looked at each other awkwardly, maybe both of us realizing at the same time that we’d never actually touched each other like that before. Then, one of us had made some kind of joke and the spell was broken.

I needed to do that now.

“Sorry, I probably stink,” I said. Not the smoothest thing to say, but Iwasin the clothes I’d been wearing under my jumpsuit all day. I’d planned on getting cleaned up back at the motel before we met up. I’d bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and had bleached the shit out of the whole bathroom yesterday—it was actually halfway nice in there now.

“Would you mind if I grabbed a quick shower before we head out? If you still want to go out, that is…”

Dean blinked. “Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s why I’m here.”

“For a shower?”

He shot me a look, and then it was my turn to laugh. Suddenly, it felt like something heavy between us had been cleared. Like we were back in our old groove.

Friends. Safely, comfortably friends.

“To show you around,” he said, with mock offense. “You’re going to be here all summer.”

So, hewaspaying attention.

“You need to know where the best place in Oak Bend to have a coffee or a beer. The best places to people-watch. Where I cracked my head open on the sidewalk when I was drunk downtown in my youth.”

“In your youth? I scoffed. “You’re thirty-two.”

“Your elder,” he said.

I laughed. “By a year.”

“Should we go?” Dean asked. “Youdokind of smell.”

I gave him a shove, and he laughed again.

“Nice haircut, by the way,” I said. “New town, new you?”

Now it was his turn to hip check me.

We were firmly in our comfort zone again. I wasn’t going to mess it up.

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