Page 7 of Rhodes
“Why don’t you let me drive you home?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I can just call for a ride.”
“I’m talking you home,” he says in his no-nonsense voice.
I nod once, knowing better than to argue with him when I know he’s just looking out for me.
Chapter 5
RHODES
“Are you going to puke?” I ask, as I walk with my arm around Hazel’s waist out of the bar. I just got my truck detailed and the last thing it needs is regurgitated cosmos and mozzarella sticks painted on my interior.
“I’m not going to puke.” She pulls away from my grip and stumbles back a bit but manages to right herself before she lands on the parking lot pavement.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I open the door for her and offer my hand. She stares at it a moment. I can see the wheels turning in her head, asking herself if she should take it or swat my hand away. She’s been running hot and cold all night but decides to let me help her.
The drive to her house is quiet and I want to ask what’s she’s thinking but I figure she’d tell me if she wanted. We pull into her driveway.
“Thank you for the ride.”
“I’m going to make sure you get inside,” I tell her as I open the door and jump out.
I won’t give her the chance to push me away just yet. It feels like there is a ticking clock between us, but I can’t see how much time is left. I want to spend as much time with her as I can before the clock runs out.
I jog around the truck just in time to catch Hazel as she misjudges the distance between my truck and the driveway.
“You okay?”
She looks up at me with an expression I can’t read. “I’m okay, thank you.”
I’m reluctant to let go of her, but once I she has both feet on the ground beneath her I have no choice but to let her go. The sweet scent of her perfume is more noticeable outside of the bar. She smiles like sunshine, and I want to bury my nose in her hair and take a deep breath. I don’t want to forget anything about her if our time together has an end date.
I walk her to the door, her arm holding onto mine. I wait for her to put the key in the lock and take her inside.
Hazel doesn’t reach for the light switch. The only illumination floods in from the moon shining brightly through the front bay window. Hazel lets go of my arm and turns to me in the darkness.
“Thank you for making sure I got home safely,” she says, as her fingers play with the zipper on my jacket.
My body tenses with excitement at her touch. Her knuckles brush against my abs as she raises and lowers the zipper. My heart is pounding in my chest and I wonder if she can actually hear it?
Because it’s dark, I don’t realize until the last moment that Hazel is leaning in for a kiss.
“You will never be good enough for her,” A familiar voice from my past rings out in my mind.
The memory I’ve been trying to push away since the mention of Hazel’s name at the fire house returns and refuses to be ignored.
It was the night before we started high school. Hazel and I had spent all summer making plans for how we were going to reinvent ourselves for high school. I wanted to make the basketball team and Hazel wanted to try out for the school’s fall musical. We’d both already started try out new looks, and that’s when I started to see Hazel as more than my friend. And by the time school was ready to start, I knew that I needed to tell her how I felt before I missed my chance.
It was late, and I snuck out of my house and walked across town to Hazel’s house. She lived with her grandparents at the time because both of her parents were stationed overseas. Her grandfather never liked me, and only tolerated me with the minimal about of effort he could muster. He caught me outside her window practicing what I was going to say to her. I tried to explain what I was doing there but said that he heard everything. He made it very clear that he didn’t want me anywhere near Hazel.
“You will never be good enough for her.”
I went home after that never getting the chance to talk to Hazel. I thought about what he said all night. I knew that I could never just be friends with her, but I also knew that we couldn’t be together, even if she felt the same about me. Hazel idolized her grandfather and I wasn’t sure she’d even believe me if I told what he said to me.
