We finally pulled up to her mother’s house and I was hit with a wall of emotions. The place still stood the same as it always had. Honestly, it was a grand house with yellow paint, white doors and a large garden out front. Joanne’s mom, Monica, had let the garden die while she was there, but I remembered it when I was a kid and how much it flourished.
Joanne stared up at the place as we sat in the driveway. I watched her rub her arms and mumble to herself before she glanced at me. In that moment I wanted to reach out, caress her cheek and tell her that it would all be okay.
Instead, I kept my distance until she sucked in a breath and nodded.
"Alright. Thanks for the ride."
"Do you think I'm letting you go in there by yourself?" I asked.
"I'm fine," she said with a smile. "It's a house, not a haunted asylum or some shit."
Even as she tried to deny that it bothered her, I could hear the way her voice caught in her throat. She didn't want to go in there alone any more than I wanted her to do it. I reached over and laid a hand on her arm. She glanced up at me, sadness in her eyes as she rotated her hand and let me slide mine inside of it.
"We're going in together," I pressed. "And if you don't listen to that I'll be happy to throw you over my shoulder and drag you inside."
"Such a caveman," she laughed. "Fine. You can come inside with me."
"You act like I was waiting for an invitation."
"Ah, just as irritating as I remember."
We smiled at each other and our eyes locked. I felt the heat that swept up my body every time I looked at her, even as a teenager. Her tongue darted across her lip before she opened her door and slid out of her seat.
It took me a minute to get myself under control. Once I was sure that I wouldn't be presenting anything too outstanding I climbed out and grabbed her things from the back. My groceries could wait. It wasn't like they'd go bad in the cold. Instead, I trudged up after Joanne and waited patiently as she opened the door.
Chapter 3
Joanne
Peter…
Wow. How was I supposed to know that I'd run into such a familiar face? It was almost not familiar though when I looked at him. That dark beard that covered his chin and cheeks, swirling brown eyes and hulking figure were almost completely different from the beanstalk that I'd grown up with.
Being close to him in his car for the remaining miles to my mom's house had been... challenging. I realized I kept staring at him out of the corner of my eye. How couldn't I? He looked so good in his khaki-green jacket and heavy boots. Once we were in the house with the heat blasting as high as it could go, he looked even better. His body showed through the white tank that he wore underneath the black flannel over it.
I wanted to rub my hand over his body. I knew there had to be a dark spattering of hair under there as I saw it curl here and there around the top. I wanted to trace it down to his happy trail.
What the hell, Joanne?
Okay, I knew I had lost my mind.
I'd tried to squash those feelings that I'd had for him back when we wer
e kids, but they'd all come flooding in again when he smiled at me and called me Jo Jo. That was the nickname that only we shared and only he could call me.
"Where do you want me to put this?"
I glanced up as Peter walked into the living room with a lamp in his hand. It was covered all over in shells and beads and looked like all of Jamaica had puked on it. I pulled a face and pointed to a box.
"There. I'm going to assume no one would be stupid enough to buy something like that."
"Your mom did," he grinned.
I sighed. "That's because she was high all the time. I feel like if I was strung out I'd think it was cute too. Otherwise?" I shrugged. "I'm gonna say it can end up in the dump."
"Ah, don't be so hard on her," he said as he lowered it into the box I'd pointed at. "We both know she had a love of the ocean."
I smiled. He was right about that. No matter how annoying she was, I knew that she'd wanted to get out of Iowa too. She just never could. It made my heart feel heavy to know that I'd gotten to escape and she'd stayed trapped in the same small town until she died.