Page 46 of Drown Like Heaven
“You want to play music?” He held his phone out to me, unlocked. I eyed him warily, then snatched it out of his hand.
Mason backed out of his parking spot and accelerated onto the road. As we sped up, I could tell he wanted me to shut my window, because it was making the air all wonky in the car, the wind off the ocean bending and warping in my ears. But I didn’t want to give in to him, didn’t want to concede a single other thing after he’d already taken most of my choices away.
I was proving a point.
It didn’t take long for him to roll his window down too, making it colder and more tumultuous in the car, but stopping the wobbly feeling in the air. A small victory in the scheme of things.
I navigated to his music app, trying not to be too obvious with my curiosity about his playlists and listening history. To my surprise, there was only one playlist, titledPlaylist, with about two-hundred songs on it. When I briefly scrolled through it, I didn’t see any obvious overall mood for the music, or really any coherence at all between songs.
Now I was even more confused by him. Intrigued.
Who are you?
What’s your real first memory?
Not spending any more time trying to discern things about his personality from his music taste, I put on one of my favorite songs:Digital Bathby Deftones. A tiny spark lit up in my brain when I saw he also had the song saved, probably somewhere on that single playlist.
His expression didn’t indicate any opinion on the song when it started playing, though. I cranked the volume knob up so that the music was blaring over the obnoxious noise of the wind, the drums pounding a rhythm into my bones and the guitar strumming some part of my soul.
Mason accelerated a little more.
The gun was cold and heavy on my lap, the scent of the forest and the ocean swirling through the air, my hair whipping around my face. I leaned my head back on the seat and wrapped my fingers around the black grip of Mason’s gun. Something about it was making me feel grounded, like I was so present in my body that I could feel every single stitch on my clothes against my skin, could feel every shift of Mason’s body a few inches from mine.
Even with the violent gusts blowing through the open windows, there was warmth between my thighs. I swallowed hard, breathing through my nose.
I thought about throwing his phone out the window, chucking it into the forest. What would he do then? Yell at me? Hit me? I dropped it in the cupholder with a clatter.
My eyes slid over to watch his hand on the steering wheel, fingers flexing as he shifted his grip. His other hand was in his hair, his elbow propped on the door, his white cotton shirt rippling sharply in the wind. I could see the swell of his shoulders, his biceps, his chest, through the material.
I forced myself to look back at the road.
Maybe I should try and throwmyselfout of the window.I wondered how quick he’d be able to stop the car—assuming Ieven survived the fall. If I ran into the forest, would he chase me? Catch me?
It wasn’t long before we were pulling into the parking lot of the first drive-thru we’d passed that was open. Mason turned down the music, but he didn’t ask me what food I wanted as he pulled up to the speaker to order. After a second, it crackled to life with an employee’s voice, and he placed his order, then drove around to the window.
I was still holding the gun on my lap as he paid and grabbed the bag of food.
Mason rolled both windows up then pulled around the side of the building to the small, empty parking lot. A single street lamp was shining down on the cracked asphalt, flickering slightly.
With the windows shut and the music turned down, I could hear the leather of Mason’s seat shift when he moved. Could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
He got a box of chicken nuggets out of the bag, the paper crinkling, and offered it to me.
“I’m vegan,” I lied.
“I might’ve believed you if you said vegetarian.”
Unfortunately, I’d thought of that too late. Of course he’d already seen me eat non-vegan waffles. I took the box from him, opened it, not strong enough to resist the allure of hot food. Even if it was full of preservatives—or whatever.
I ate a few chicken nuggets, then some of the fries that I found in the bag. Thankfully, there was also a huge cup of ice water in the cupholder between us, which I took several large gulps of. Mason was eating a cheeseburger, and it was so indescribably funny to me that I burst out laughing.
His eyes slid over to me, amusement tipping his mouth up while he chewed. He raised his eyebrows, as if to saywhat? Something funny?
“This is very domestic.”
“Yeah,” he agreed after swallowing. “I like it.”
“You’re not bored?”
