Page 64 of Better Than the Movies
“I made you cry.” He looked away, but I caught a glimpse of his clenched jaw. It was almost like it mattered to him that he’d upset me. And, in the moonlight, I felt something that I had never felt about Wes before. I wanted to move closer to him.
I swallowed and checked myself. What was this influx of Wes-fondness? I was probably just aware of how much fun I’d had with him during our deal, and now it was almost over.
That was it.
So instead of following through on the absurd instinct to move closer, I just said, “God, you’re so arrogant, Bennett. I was already crying when you showed up. Everything isn’t about you, you know.”
But it was actually that moment, that crying moment, that’d forged some sort of connection between me and Wes.
And it was a good connection.
I saw his Adam’s apple bob around a swallow as I stared at his silhouette. He lifted his eyes to me and said, “Promise?”
“Ugh. Yes.” Good Lord, he was killing me with his concern. I cleared my throat and looked back at the sky. “I’m good now, so forget you ever saw it.”
“Done.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes, both of us lost in the starry sky, but it wasn’t awkward. For once in my life, I didn’t feel compelled to fill the empty space with constant chatter.
“I can still picture her perfectly, you know,” he said.
“Hm?” I said. I was confused, and must’ve looked it, because he added, “Your mom.”
“Really?” I curled tighter into the chair, wrapping my arms around my legs and picturing her face. Even I wasn’t sure I could remember her exact features anymore. It broke my heart a little.
“For sure.” His voice was warm, like it was holding a smile, and he cracked his knuckles when he said, “She was so… Hmm… What’s the word? Charming, maybe?”
I smiled. “Enchanting.”
“That’s perfect.” He gave me a little-boy grin and said, “There was this one day, I was running in front of your house and totally wiped out. Absolutelyshreddedmy knee on the sidewalk. Your mom was out there, trimming her roses, so I tried jumping up and being cool. Y’know, because I was, like, eight and your mom was hella pretty.”
I smiled and remembered how much she’d loved tending her garden.
“Instead of treating me like a little kid, she cut one of her roses and pretended to hurt her finger. She did a whole ‘ouch’ thing before saying, ‘Wesley, would you mind helping me for a minute?’?”
“Now, mind you, I just wanted to crawl off into a corner and diefrom my horrific battle wounds. But if Mrs. Buxbaum needed me, I was damn well going to help.”
Wes was grinning, and I was helpless to do anything other than the same. I hadn’t heard a new story about my mother in such a long time that his words were oxygen and I was breathing them in with a life-and-death desperation.
“So I limped on over and followed her inside your house, which, by the way, always smelled like vanilla.”
It was vanilla candles—I still bought the same scent.
“Anyway, she had me help her get a Band-Aid on her finger like she couldn’t do it herself or something. I felt like the hero when she kept thanking me and telling me how grown-up I was getting.”
Now I was beaming like a dork.
“Then she ‘noticed’ my bloody knee and said I must’ve been so concerned about helping her that I hadn’t even realized I was bleeding. She cleaned me up, put on a Band-Aid, and gave me a Fudgesicle. Made me feel like a damned hero for face-planting on the sidewalk.”
I laughed and looked up at the sky, my heart full. “That story is so on-brand for my mom.”
“Every time I see a cardinal in your yard, I think it’s her.”
I looked at his shadowed face and almost wanted to laugh, because I never would’ve imagined Wes having such a fantastical thought. “You do?”
“I mean, there’s the whole thing about cardinals being—”
“Dead people?”
