“You’re not so good at hiding your truth,” I murmured between us. “You wanna know what your truth says?”
James swallowed hard and averted his stare. “No.”
“Are you scared of it?”
The tick in his jaw was another tell, screaming at me that I’d hit a nerve and to stop before it exploded.
“What are you scared of other than planes?” he asked, voice low and grasping for something to take the focus off of him.
I shook my head just barely, whispering, “Now why would I tell you?”
As if my voice had reigns of steel, it pulled him to a slow stop. We stopped moving in the dead center of a field blooming with wildflowers of yellow and pale green. They surrounded us, the yellow ones for James and the green ones for me. Their vibrance blended a tornado of pastel colors around us, and all that stood out against the delicate canvas was James.
“Because I’m asking.”
His plea was startling and my actual want to tell him even more so. I was caught in his trance, the muscles in my neck refusing to move more than a gentle shake of my head.
“Your truth first.”
Darkness crowded the muted yellow of his eyes, smoke coming in from all angles and choking the light from his stars until his gaze was nothing but a black night plucked of hope.
His ruined hope crept out and slithered around me, drawing me in and wrapping its long, spindly fingers around my soul… and began to squeeze.
“Hey! You two! Hello!”
A voice came from the fucking heavens, striking through whatever moment James and I were having. James spun with me in his arms until the sight of our savior came into view.
They were silhouetted in a bath from the sun, their hand shading their eyes as they called back down to us.
“I heard someone scream about how someone has a huge package and came running! Figured something was up. You two get lost?”
James and I snapped back to each other, cautious smiles on our mouths.
“How the fuck do we get outta here?” I yelled, not taking my smiling eyes off of James. He didn’t stutter in how he was holding my stare either, the glow of his sunset eyes in fact brightening fiercer than the sun.
Turned out that we were only twenty minutes away from the entrance to the preservation, and that we’d looped around it once already today.
James was none too happy when he heard that.
We made it back to his car, demands to stop at the nearest fast-food restaurant already rolling off my tongue as he set me on the hood of the car.
“Just shut up about food for five seconds so I can check my phone,” he snapped.
My eyes rolled as my shoulders slumped, and I made a show out of counting to five on my fingers for James as he held his phone up to his ear. Irritation dropped his eyebrows together in a harsh slant.
“I have six missed calls from your father.”
“Needy much?”
He held out a finger to me, waving me off as he pressed that nagging finger against his ear as he listened to his phone.
He showed me his back and I kicked my feet back and forth on the hood of his car, waiting with very little patience to get going and get a burger in my belly.
“Aw, fuck.”
I perked up as James cursed, swiveling around with his phone fisted in his hand.
“What’s wrong?”
He held a strong beat between us for a moment, visibly digesting whatever my father’s voicemails said. Whatever it was, James was less than thrilled about it.
“I didn’t check in with him last night like I’m supposed to and he got worried.”
“So?”
James' shoulders slouched and his expression followed suit.
“He’s sent another agent to come fucking babysit us.”