I silence my phone and close my eyes, leaning back against the headrest. We drive in silence for a few miles, and I swear I’m about to doze off when we take a sharp right turn into the parking lot of a fast-food place. I open my eyes to bright lights and the tinny sound of a teenager’s voice over the speaker.
“I’ll take a large strawberry milkshake and…” Ian glances in my direction.
I should ask for a glass of water. Or decline altogether. I have no real appetite and nothing on this menu has any actual nutritional value. Instead, I say, “Vanilla.”
Ian pulls around and fishes his wallet out of his back pocket. I search for mine, but I’m in sweats. My wallet’s on my nightstand back at The Chapel.
“I got this,” Ian tells me. “Afterall, I’m driving your car and eating up your gas.”
“Yeah, to do a welfare check on my best friend.”
He shrugs. “Either way, this car is a freaking dream to drive. Don’t tell Shelly, my ten-year-old Civic, that I said this, but your car is my new favorite.”
“Next time Shelly and I talk, I’ll keep that to myself,” I joke. It’s crazy. The last few hours have been a rollercoaster. I’m overtired and stressed, but Ian has me cracking jokes.
He pulls up to the next window and takes our shakes and hands them both to me. I’m getting the straw situation handled when he pulls into a spot on the far side of the lot, turning the engine off, but leaving the heat on.
“I feel bad for cheating on Shelly like this, but these heated seats? No contest.”
My mouth curves into a smile, but I’m still not sure why we’re parked in a nearly vacant lot instead of heading back to school. “Do you need to go in? Use the restroom or anything?”
He shakes his head, but I’m still confused as to why we’re parked here. “Then…do you want to stretch your legs? Or I can drive?”
“I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania. Did you know that?”
I shake my head and take a sip of my shake. Wow, that’s a lot of sugar. But it tastes good.
“Yep,” he tells me, relaxing into the seat. “I’m the son of dairy farmers. And the middle brother of dairy farmers too.”
“Oh, cool. So, that’s why you wanted to stop for milkshakes?” I understand nostalgia, but I’m not sure drive-thru milkshakes compare to what he could get, like, straight from a cow or whatever. But I’m the last person to be telling anyone how to process childhood memories, so I just nod and take another sip.
“Yes and no. My dad drives a truck, of course. It’s what we use to get to the farmer’s markets. Mom’s always had a minivan. And there’s a beat-up truck that belonged to my grandpa. We use that to drive around the land, repair fences, that type of thing. But there was also an old Jeep on the property. It was my dad’s car in high school. It wasn’t anything fancy, just standard-issue black, with a roll bar, and the kind of windows you have to zip up. It wasn’t a very practical vehicle, in terms of a farm. Or in terms of a family with three kids. But my dad loved that car. I did too.”
“I never took you for a car enthusiast,” I say, clueless as to where this conversation is going. But the sound of Ian’s voice is soothing. It’s soft, and a little sweet, with just enough of a rasp.
“I’m not,” he corrects. “I know nothing about cars except how to drive them. But the Jeep was special.” He shifts, turning toward me. “So, in my family, I’m kind of the odd one out. Not that they’d ever say that. And not even in a bad way, but I’m…different, you know? My brothers are both over six feet tall with jet black hair.I’m the only one of us who even wanted to go to college, much less graduate school. Everyone in my family is happy to work outside in the sun, getting their hands dirty.”
He looks down at his hand, and in the faint glow of the parking lot lights, I can see his soft, fair skin, his long, elegant fingers.
“Anyway, we get a decent amount of snow back home. And my dad and I had this tradition when I was a kid. After the first snow, we’d take the top off the Jeep, drive into town to the Frosty Freeze, and get milkshakes. My mom and brothers thought we were crazy. Luke had no issue staying out in the snow for hours, picking a snowball fight with anyone who came near the yard, but he drew the line at drinking icy cold beverages in below-freezing temperatures.
“We’d talk or not, bullshit about nothing for a while. I’d tell him about my classes, and he’d just listen, though school was never his thing. But it didn’t matter. My dad is the best listener I know.”
He takes a drink and looks over at me. There’s a tiny pink dot of strawberry milkshake stuck on the corner of his lip, and I get that itchy feeling in my fingers again. If I were a braver man, I’d wipe it away.
But I’m not.
“Anyway,” he shrugs, “tonight has been a lot to process. Your hands have barely stopped shaking since we left the cabin, and that’s not judgment, just concern. So, I thought maybe you could use a freezing cold drink in freezing temperatures.”
“Thanks.” I’m grateful, and I’m not sure what to do with that. And I’m definitely not sure what to do with the fact that I can’t stop staring at his forearms, lean and strong. At the set of his shoulders, at the square line of his jaw. So, I force my mind to wander back to safer topics. “But the heat’s on. For a more realistic experience, shouldn’t we be freezing our butts off?”
He laughs, and I feel like I’ve just scored a goal in the last few seconds of play.
“Uh, no. Young Ian was immune to the cold. Now? Hell, no. I like my creature comforts.”
I nod and we descend back into silence. I go to put my drink in the center console cup holder. My stupid hands are still shaking, and I miss. The cup flails for a moment, and though my hands can maneuver a hockey stick with ease, deftly directing the puck where it needs to go, tonight, they’re useless.
Luckily, Ian’s reflexes are sharper than mine tonight, and he rights the cup before it can topple and make a mess.
