They’re all safe, Mom, I thought, and only then did sleep come.
Black, merciful, nothing.
Chapter Eleven
The sky darkened with rain as I walked home from Central on the Monday after Thanksgiving. I wasn’t far from the school when the first droplets fell, and all I had was my denim jacket.
“Shit.”
I walked faster, and then I heard it. The groaning, creaking sounds of a car that had a huge engine but no horsepower. I bit back a smile as Shiloh’s pale green boat pulled up alongside me, the passenger side window already cranked down.
Shiloh gave me a look, eyebrows raised. “In about ten seconds, it’s going to get bad.”
The sky rumbled as if to prove her right.
She rolled her eyes at my hesitation. “Will you get in, already? Otherwise, this time, it’ll be Bibi thinking I’m an asshole for letting you get pneumonia.”
I ignored the warm feeling in my chest and climbed in.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Shiloh asked, shooting me a dry look. “You can even make fun of the Buick if it makes you feel better.”
“No need,” I said. “It speaks for itself.”
“Oh my God…” She socked me on the shoulder with an incredulous laugh.
I chuckled too. I couldn’t help it; it felt too good to be in this girl’s space, inhaling the same air. She smelled like flowers and rain and was so damn beautiful…
I shouldn’t be here, and I can’t fucking say no.
“So…” Shiloh wasn’t driving yet. We sat in the quiet car watching the rain come down on the other side of the windshield. “It’s been a while. How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Good,” I said. “Yours?”
“Good.”
A silence fell. She huffed a sigh. “Well, that was riveting.”
“Shiloh—”
“You want to go somewhere with me?” she blurted suddenly.
Christ, no one took me off guard like Shiloh. Fucking no one.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I feel restless. Unsettled. Craving…something.” Her gaze darted to me and then quickly turned away. “I want a doughnut.”
“A doughnut.”
“Yes. Suddenly I’m in desperate need of a doughnut. I know a great place. The best in Santa Cruz.”
Say no. Say no. Say fucking no.
“Sure.”
Shiloh drove us to a street filled with coffee shops, a burger joint that kids from school liked to hang out in, and Bob’s Doughnuts. The rain had become a drizzle as she found street parking a block away in a space big enough to dock the Buick.
She shot me a warning look.