He pulled the door open, and the sounds of the spring downpour doubled. We were standing shoulder to shoulder, or my shoulder to his ribs, so I felt it when Adair’s chest expanded beneath his rain jacket as he took a big inhale.
I did the same.
Petrichor, the Coast, and faint, sweet blooms.
“Love that smell,” he murmured, mirroring my thoughts. “Ready?”
I looked out into the darkened early morning and tucked my longboard under my arm just in case it cleared up later. “Ready.”
Then we stepped out into the rain together.
24
ADAIR
The drive from our house on Camellia Lane to the small visitor’s lot behind Zinnia House was laughably short, and now that it was over, I almost wished Jillie had found us a place just a little further from here.
“When do you think you’ll need a ride back to the house?”
Ireland’s head was tipped back, her gaze fixed on the Jeep’s sunroof. She watched the rain droplets hit the glass. Rain blurred all the windows now that we weren’t moving and I’d turned off the wipers. She had one of my rubber ducks—the EMT one—clutched in her hand and was turning it in her palm mindlessly.
“Not until after my class at nine, if that,” she answered. Besides the day with the soup and the hug, she’d always spoken that way. Calm. Even. Self-contained.
“So, you’ll be busy until about ten?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
She slowly shifted her gaze from the rooftop rain to me, a hint of suspicion in her indigo eyes.
Oops.
“Yes. Why?”
I looked away and stretched languidly, nonchalantly, buying myself some time as I came up with a good response.
“Just curious,” I rasped out as my back popped.
Nailed it.
She put the duck back on the dashboard carefully, and her phone vibrated loudly in the cupholder between us, rattling around in the plastic enclosure.
I’d gotten a little thrill when she put it there. It’d felt familiar, like a tiny, positive sign of her comfort with me.
The suspicion lifted from her eyes, but her shoulders slumped, and she looked at her phone with something almost like dread.
I didn’t know what to do, what I wasallowedto do, so I reached back behind her seat and blindly stuck my hand in the little box I kept back there, swirling its contents like soup.
She reached for the door handle, ready to push it open, so I let fate decide and grabbed one at random.
Her phone buzzed again. “I’ve gotta go,” she whispered.
“Here,” I said, reaching in front of her. “This is yours.” I rotated my hand and opened it in offering.
Ireland stared at it for a moment, and I held my breath.
Then her lips twitched.
“It looks like your grandpa,” she said.
“Rea—?” My voice cracked, and I had to clear it before trying again. “Really?”
