I swear if I was standing, I’d faint right now. My mouth goes dry, the pulse in my ears intensifying.
“You do?”
“Ahh, I don’t know,” he grumbles. “But I do think there’s something to be said about us both winding up here together after everything. I think, yeah, maybe we were meant to find one another again.”
No words come to mind, my mind short circuiting. So, instead of responding, I lean down, pressing my lips to his. Kissing Josiah feels so good. So right. The way he tastes, the way his tongue feels brushing up against mine, how I can feel his heart race a little faster under the palm I have resting on his chest.
And maybe he’s right. Maybe we were always meant to end up here. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe us finding each other again is something much larger than him or I.
Truly, I don’t know, but I’m more than happy to cling to that notion as I relax into him, letting my lips and my tongue do the talking.
40
SEGAN
“Okay, got the keys. Ready to go?” Josiah asks.
Glancing up from where I’m sitting on a bench inside the loud and bustling Salt Lake City airport, I nod, grabbing my bags as we head out the sliding glass double doors. It’s been a little less than a week since Josiah came home from Nevada and told me there wassomethingwrong with my mom. We still don’t know what’s wrong, though.
I went back and forth for days. I wasn’t going to come. Then I was going to come. Fought betweenfuck her, she doesn’t deserve me coming thereandwhat kind of fucking son wouldn’t visit his probably dying mom?It was a vicious cycle, and to be honest, I’m still not a hundred percent sure I made the right choice. But like Josiah said, I’d rather have come and it go badly, than to not come at all and possibly regret it later when she’s dead.
Because she has to be dying… that much I know. There’s no way Chevy would’ve been as adamant as Josiah said he was if it wasn’t something terminal.
Following Josiah out to the parking lot, he takes us over to the rental car he got for us for the trip. When he stops in front of a royal blue Dodge Ram pickup truck, I can’t help but snort. “A truck? Really? That’s what you rented?”
He throws me one of his panty-melting smirks over his shoulder, shrugging. “Why not?”
Shaking my head at him, I can’t help the smirk that creeps onto my lips as I climb inside this massive vehicle. It’s a damn nice truck, if I’m being honest.
It’s about a forty-five-minute drive from the airport to our small hometown, and my stomach is in knots. Josiah holds my hand for the entire ride, despite the fact that I know it’s a sweaty mess. He’s been so patient with me this past week, even though I don’t feel like I deserve it. When all of this is said and done, I’m going to have to remember to thank him tremendously.
There’s one hotel in the whole town where we’re from, so once we get checked in there and bring our stuff to the room, Josiah drags me out, telling me he has plans for us, but he won’t tell me what. It’s late, and the sun’s already set by the time all is said and done, so I won’t be attempting to see my mother until tomorrow. I don’t know if that fact is better or worse for my out-of-control nerves.
We pick up some burgers, fries, and Cokes from a place in town before he hits the road again. When we finally park in the middle of an empty field, a slew of memories hit me like a Mack truck.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, taking off my seatbelt and turning to face him. It’s dark, the lights from the dash the only thing illuminating us in the cab.
For the first time all day, I see a flicker of nerves pass through Josiah’s eyes as they meet mine. “Maybe you’re not the only one here to make peace with the past.”
My brows pinch tightly, heart squeezing. “What do you mean?”
Josiah climbs out, and so do I. He grabs the backpack he brought with him, unzipping it, and pulls out a blanket he stuffed in there. “Do you remember the last time we were here together?”
How could I forget?“It was Lana’s seventeenth birthday,” I reply plainly.
He drops the tailgate, hopping up into the truck bed, and lays the blanket down for us. Extending his hand to me, he takes the brown paper bag full of our food, and then the drinks, before I hop up beside him.
“When I came here that night to see you, it was one of the first times I experienced real difficulty keeping my hands to myself,” Josiah mutters as he passes me my food. It smells amazing.
I take a bite out of the burger, groaning at how good it tastes.
“Yeah, but you didn’t keep your hands off me,” I retort. “You gave me a back massage in the back of a truck much older than this one.”
Glancing over at him, we both chuckle, because he knows I’m right.
“Okay, yes,” he agrees. “But there was so much more I wanted to do to you that night, and the guilt I felt for wanting those things was gut-wrenching.”
I knew Josiah feltsomethingfor me back when we were younger, but I’ve never been able to truly pinpoint when his feelings ofmorestarted. Of course, that night in the fields, I was already in deep with my feelings for him. I wanted more, but I didn’t know if he did. And I never wanted to ask or assume.
