His head falls forward on the wheel, and he laughs hard as he turns the engine over. “Yes, Emma. Yes, I do,” he says, continuing to laugh as he looks over his shoulder and pulls us out onto the road.
He drives slowly, always five miles slower than the limit, and he doesn’t speak. He’s being careful and cautious for me. He doesn’t have to say so; I know he is. The first ten minutes in the car with him is nothing but silence, even the radio on a gentle hum. Looking at it, I doubt it can go any louder. I laugh to myself because I doubt Andrew even likes the slow rock music that’s playing. My mind is racing with all of the questions I still have, but I don’t know how to start them.
Every now and then, he glances to me, then back to the road. Each look is full of an almost—a question, an answer. Finally, one comes.
“Where…” he starts, but stops, his tongue held between his teeth as his eyes squint into the distance ahead. “Damn, I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk to you. It’s hard, though. Is it hard for you?”
He glances at me, swallows once, then looks back to the road. I suck in my bottom lip, nodding. “Yeah, it is,” I admit. “But maybe, now that we’ve said it, it won’t be so hard?”
He chuckles, flexing his hands along the steering wheel, moving them to the top then around the sides, lengthening his arms into a stretch. I imagine his arms around me again, then just as quickly work to force that vision out of my head. “I’m pretty sure it’s still hard to talk to you, Emma,” he sighs.
I feel sad when he says this. We used to talk. That was our one thing—or at least it was on his end. He could talk to me, and I listened, never judging. He told me about his father, about James. I regret that I kept so much from him.
“You said where. Where what? Ask me, Andrew. Let’s get through this…whatever it is,” I say.
He smiles, glancing over his shoulder a few times as we merge onto the highway toward the next town over. “I’m not ready for where. That’s a big question. I need to work up to it. How about…how about I start with a who,” he says, the right corner of his mouth twisted with his pause, still unsure.
“Okay, who. Go for it,” I say, just happy we’re talking more easily.
“Who’s the guy who walked you home the other day?” he asks. My chest constricts a little, like someone just jumped out from a corner to scare me. I’m not sure why, because Graham isn’t really anything…yet. He’s my mentor’s son, which I guess makes him…complicated.
“He’s just a guy,” I answer. The lamest reply possible, and it takes Andrew all of half a second to call me on it.
“Just. A. Guy.” He laughs once, the sharp belly kind, then clicks the blinker to exit the highway, the sign for Estos standing above a hill. “Okay. We’ll go with that for now. I’ll let you have that one.”
I sigh lightly, watching out the window as we pull in to a space near the door. Andrew cuts the engine, but sits still, watching families and old couples walk in and out of the restaurant.
“There really isn’t much more to say,” I say, feeling defensive. I can’t really explain who Graham is without connecting him to how we met.
Andrew nods, then steps out of the car, leaving the door open, his feet on the pavement outside, but his body still inside with me.
“Where do you think I went?” he asks, his back to me. Everything about him is suddenly deflated, his shoulders lowered, his head sunken. “You said you didn’t know where I went. You didn’t know about Lake Crest. Where…where was I in your world?”
“Iowa,” I answer quickly.
His body rises with a silent laugh, his shoulders raising once, but dropping back into sadness.
“Iowa,” he repeats, standing slowly, turning and leaning into the car. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
His door closes, and I take this small moment in his car alone to gasp, letting my body make a small sound, a short cry, so I don’t do it in front of him. Then I get out and step around the car, joining him at the front door to the restaurant. He steps in front of me, pulling the door open, his head tilted to the side as I step through.
“Just a guy, huh?” He smirks. We look at each other, his hand finding my back as he guides me inside and I pass him, his touch gentle, but purposeful. I let him. I relish it. And I know I won’t be able to let it go.
The hostess guides us to a booth in the back of the restaurant. It’s away from the front windows, away from the view of his car. I’m glad. Looking at it is hard.