“No hints? Not even for another hefty pour?”
He reaches for his glass and drains it completely. “I’ll never break.”
I know it to be true, so I don’t press.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
can you at least tell me what I should wear?
Noah:
watch out, you’re giving me too much power
wear whatever you want, but definitely comfortable shoes
like strolling-through-downtown comfortable shoes or two-mile-hike comfortable shoes?
shoes you’d wear in the dirt
we’re going to get dirty?
I hope so
For half an hour I debate whether to wear my expensive running shoes or a pair of old athletic sandals, and eventually the sandals win out. I tug the last strap over the back of my heel and take a good look at myself in the mirror. Teal-green Spandex running shorts, tight black sports bra, and an unbuttoned sunflower-patternedshirt. Finally, I pull a black baseball cap over the loose curls of my bob. It really completes the hot-vacation-mom look.
I’ve just pulled my phone out to ask Noah where we’re meeting—hestillhasn’t told me—when the doorbell rings downstairs.
And god damn him, Liam beats me to it.
I’m halfway down the stairs when I see him silhouetted in the doorway, wearing his house robe. He and Noah are already shooting the shit when I sidle up next to them. Liam’s got his glasses pushed down his nose, and he’s peering at Noah from over the rims. “And you’ll have her back before curfew, yes?”
“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t dream of missing it.” Noah’s hands are clasped seriously in front of him. From the line of tension in the side of his jaw, I can tell he’s trying hard not to laugh.
“All right, then,” Liam huffs dramatically. “You kids have fun.” He pats me on the back, pushes me into Noah’s chest, and closes the door behind us.
“Hey, you.” Noah skims his palms over my shoulders and down the sides of my arms. Despite the immediate shock of the Texas heat, goosebumps follow the path of his hands.
“Hey.” I curl my fingers over the fabric of his shirt. He’s wearing a sleeveless green tank top, gray shorts, and a stuffed backpack. His hair’s tied up into a knot, shining copper in the sunlight. I like how short his shorts are. They show off his thighs. “Is this the part where you finally tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
I stretch up on my toes to peer over his shoulder. His bike’s propped up in the middle of the driveway. Noah reads my mind before I have a chance to ask. “Saddle up, Sadie. I’ll be driving again today.” Leading me out into the sun, he swings one leg over the bike and holds it steady as I step up onto the pegs. I wrap my hands around the straps of his backpack and shake them once.
“All right, then. Giddy up, cowboy.”
Noah sets off. It’s late morning, so the heat’s not so bad yet, butI can feel it emanating in waves off of the dark pavement. Noah tries to keep us under the shaded parts of the road, and as he picks up speed, the wind rushing past almost feels cool. We wind through one of Heller’s oldest neighborhoods, and as we pass by the well-loved houses, I imagine who lives in each. The sage-green house with the wraparound deck belongs to a retired elementary school teacher with dozens of grandkids. The brooding maroon house with the awkward spire jutting from the second floor is the home of an introverted professor who surrounds himself with books; he’s secretly a vampire who checks his mailbox only at night. The purple-painted house covered in vines with an overgrown lawn full of flowers obviously belongs to a witch. As I yell my theories into Noah’s ear, I wave at kids with dripping popsicles gripped in their fists and at old folks watering their carefully cultivated flower patches. Noah’s right; biking really is the best way to get to know a place.
Eventually the houses become more spaced out and then disappear entirely, and we’re left under the glare of the open sun. I look up. The sky is soblue;it’s never this blue in New York, where you can barely see the sky for how the buildings crowd around you. Noah takes a sharp turn at what I thought was a dead end and swerves onto a dirt path, and I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep my teeth from chattering against one another. Soon we arrive at a small unpaved parking lot under a canopy of trees, empty save for two cars and a bike rack. There’s a board with a yellowing map of the surrounding trails posted behind scratched plastic.
“Wearegoing on a hike,” I realize, delighted.
“A short one, but yes. I want to show you my favorite spot.”
After Noah locks his bike into the rack, we set off onto one of the trails—though, truth be told, it barely deserves the name. The worn dirt path is narrow and overgrown in spots, and the red trail markers painted onto the tree bark every twenty feet or so are faded and difficult to spot. Vegetation presses in so tightly around us that it’slike I’m crawling through a tunnel. But Noah doesn’t even look for the markers; he already knows the way.
I try not to jump too much at the sound of rustling in the overgrown grass and focus my attention on Noah’s topknot bouncing ahead of me.
