“Flat tire,” I announce unnecessarily.
Hoyt is silent.
I turn to him—only to find him gripping the center console with one hand and the handle to the passenger side door, his body stiff as a board, his eyes wide, panicked. He’s holding his breath.
I lift an eyebrow at him. “Hoyt?”
He still won’t move. He won’t even blink.
“Hoyt. It’s just a flat tire.”
Finally he comes to, drawing his first breath. “Y-Yeah. I know. I know that.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“N-Nothing.” He blinks several times, draws another jagged breath, then abruptly lets himself out of the truck.
That’s when it hits me. His own car wreck. Totaling his truck and nearly getting himself killed on account of a runaway dog. I grimace, annoyed at myself for not putting two and two together.
Not to mention I probably ran straight over something on the road and could’ve avoided it, had my mind not been so hung up on the visit with Lance and my own abyssal lonesomeness.
I shove out of the truck, slap the door shut behind me, and go for my spare. Hoyt is already there, complete with the jack, which catches me by surprise. As he gets to work, I just cross my arms and watch. It’s barely been a minute before he starts struggling with the jack, grunting to himself in frustration. “The hell—?” he mutters, fighting with it. “How does this—?” He grunts some more as he messes with it.
I can’t help but chuckle, amused by him.
Hoyt, however, doesn’t find it funny at all, apparently. “The hell you laughin’ at, old man?”
“Oh, nothing. Just wondering what the heck you’re doing.”
“I’m tryin’ to do a—urgh!—nice thing and change your—fuck!—stupid-ass tire, that’s what.”
I shake my head. I can’t stop chuckling. “And you plan to accomplish that by humping it to death?”
He rises at once and squares off with me. “Now’s not the time to start somethin’, Harrison.”
I still have tears of laughter in my eyes as I stare him down. “I ain’t starting anything. You’re the one humping my flat tire in the middle of the road.”
Something softens in his eyes. “I’m just trying to help here. I am tryin’ to, like, actually help you, yet still you’re treating me like the scum of the …” He shakes his head. “Fuck that. I’m even tryin’ to be a friend, Harrison. I asked genuinely if something was up with you, since you got all weird at Lance and Chad’s.”
Now all the laughter is gone. “Hoyt, you don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Exactly, I don’t, because you won’t say a dang thing about it.”
“So how about you drop it, and drop the tough guy act, and let me change my own tire.”
Hoyt steps right up to me, his face in front of mine, nostrils flared. “You know what I don’t get? You are supposed to be the nicest fuckin’ guy in all Spruce. Everyone sees you that way. That’s what I was told before Gary hired me. You’re Spruce’s sweetheart. So tell me somethin’. Why is all that love and compassion you got in you reserved for everyone else, even a bunch of chickens n’ pigs you’ll probably eat for breakfast some morning …”
Every muscle in my body tightens up like a wire. “Hoyt …”
“… but not one scrap of it for me? Why, Harrison? Tell me!”
I grab him by the shirt, slam him against the side of the truck, then press my lips to his.
An electric warmth swarms my chest.
Hot and exciting and prickling with energy.
A warmth I’ve never in all of my life known.
A warmth that could crumble me into pieces of unadulterated joy and tears.
Just from one stolen kiss.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t resist. I press my lips to his and feel all of that tension in my body unwind in the space of seconds. With my lips on his, our faces together, his breath on my cheeks, nothing else in the world matters. I have no problems. I have no worries. I have no responsibilities. I only have him.
Our hips come together, and we are body to body.
Crotch to crotch.
Chest to chest.
My fingers curl, tightening around the material of his shirt, as our mouths press harder and harder together. The kiss is so deep, so forceful, so filled with urgency, it hurts.
I had no choice. I had no control. It was like a magnet, the way our lips joined, the way our bodies crashed together.
The way that even now, I can’t seem to pull away from him.
We’re attached. Electricity and gravity and forces I can’t even see, but feel with the whole of my body.
The very next instant, Hoyt shoves me off of him. I step back and stare at him, out of breath.
Hoyt stares back at me, equally out of breath, eyes wide, his lips red and parted.
Neither of us say anything. Neither of us move.