“I…” I started, momentarily at a loss for words. I haven’t seen someone so intense for a long time. Why did he want to know so badly?
Except he didn’t push me. He didn’t yell at me to spit it out. This worked against my defenses, so long used to dealing with jerks and assholes.
I shrugged, “Not much yet. I remember you on the swings. I think I remember us talking. Most of what I remember from that summer is…well…” Here my pulse quickened again, the memories a warm flush in my skin, “A boy from school, honestly.”
Part of me still didn’t quite believe it. Didn’t quite want to believe it. It was too much.
Dash waited a little longer, perhaps hoping for more. When more didn’t come, he nodded. He stopped that intense stare, dropping his eyes to the ground.
I wanted to go to him. The impulse was strong, shockingly so.
“Maybe we’ll both remember more. Especially if you stay longer,” I said. I could still feel that heat in my skin. It had been so long since I’d thought about that time. Since I thought about that boy.
Life got in the way. Obligations and responsibilities and bad boyfriends.
I wanted to remember more. My mind searched, poking in old, cobwebbed corridors and closets of memory. But nothing gave up any secrets yet.
Dash turned back to the park and surveyed it. His jaw set in a hard line and even though I saw him in profile only I could see the way his brow furrowed in concentration.
Then he gave it up with a shake of his head. “Come on, let’s go get your clothes back. No point in putting it off any longer.”
We got back into the truck and the engine turned over after one complaining, coughing attempt.
I pulled away from the curb, both of us distant with thought.
“What happened to your mother?” I asked. “Does she still live here?”
“No, she doesn’t.” Here, Dash hesitated. His jaw clenched a little tighter and I wondered if maybe he struggled with whether or not to say anything more. “She died seven months ago.”
I caught the quick glance he shot at me, as though that amount of time should have meant something to me.
It tugged at something in my memory, but at that moment I couldn’t tell you what. I kept trying to wrap my head around the two of us knowing each other when we were young. Well, that and getting my clothes back.
“I would say sorry,” I said. I made a left down Oak St. The truck’s suspension groaned in protest. “But I lost my dad and I know from experience that ‘sorry’ doesn’t really make anyone feel better except maybe the person saying it.”
I felt him look at me and it took a lot of effort to not divert my attention from the street to return his glance.
“You just had the urge to say ‘sorry’ to me, didn’t you?” I said.
“Guilty,” he replied.
From the corner of my eye I caught the ghost of a smile on his lips.
“Well, we’re going to have to put the interrogation on hold,” I said. I parked the Ranger in front of a Chinese restaurant that closed a couple years ago. Soap on the windows obscured the interior.
It was something of a relief to be able to backburner this conversation and those feelings. I wasn’t certain I could confront them yet.
“I recognize that alley,” Dash said. He nodded between the Chinese restaurant and the Second Hand Rose store. “Do you think your ex and his pals are still waiting?”
“No,” I said. I noticed that my fingers still gripped the steering wheel hard. That, and the Ranger’s engine still growled beneath the hood. The blood quickened its pace in my veins.
It was part fear that we might run into them again, part remembrance of our earlier fight with them and just how thrilling it had been.
“You don’t sound certain,” he said. He reached over and killed the engine. The Ranger stopped its gentle vibrations and the world suddenly felt far too still.
This whole town is too still and quiet now, I thought. The sign coming into Pleasant said “Pop. 4300” but I would be surprised if more than half that still lived here.
“I’m eighty…no, ninety percent sure they’re gone.”
“I’ll take those odds. Let’s go get your things back. Then at least you won’t be able to hold that over my head,” Dash said with the barest hint of a sarcastic smile.
He put his hand on my shoulder. If my pulse raced before, it galloped then. I could feel the heat of his palm through the cotton of the button down.
“Okay, yeah. Let’s go,” I said.
They aren’t going to be there, I repeated to myself when I climbed out of the truck. They aren’t going to be there.
Chapter 9
DASH
I cupped my hands and peered in through the small window of the back door to the laundromat.
The thin film of dust and age obscured the interior a little, and I squinted against it. I could make out the square shapes that were the washers and dryers.
A laundry basket—Ellie’s presumably—sat on one machine near the door.
I tried looking to the left and right, thinking that someone wanting to catch us might hide beside the door if they were smart. I couldn’t make anything out in either direction.
“What’s taking so long?” Ellie said. Her hand landed on my shoulder and tugged. It was a Take a hike so I can get a look, pull.
However, I wanted that touch to linger. My heart pumped harder in my chest at the gentle yet insistent pressure of her palm.
I tried to hide my reaction. This was, perhaps, a mistake.
“No need. There’s no one inside,” I said. I glanced back at her and saw her frown. “Let’s go.”
I knew that one of us should have gone down to the mouth of the alley and checked for Bobby’s Trans Am. Or for one of his boys guarding the door just out of sight.
But I wanted so much to be right. I actually wanted to be the impetuous, risk-taking hero. And he was definitely a guy I’d left in the dusty trails of my travels.
“Lead the way,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, indicating the door with a wave of her hand.
I almost went and made a Ladies first joke, but didn’t. It stopped right at the back of my throat.
It’s just all these memories coming back. They’re really throwing me off my game. Like with Ellie. I don’t actually like her. She was just so familiar to my mind that it made me think so.
I gave my head the slightest shake, as though that might send everything out.
Then I grabbed the latch, thinking, If this thing only opens from the inside I’m going to look really stupid.
I turned the latch. No lock stopped it. The door swung outward.
I glanced inside quickly, then looked back at Ellie, who stood behind me with her arms crossed tightly across her chest in a way I found both endearing and annoying.
“It’s empty,” I said.
It wasn’t.
A hand reached out from the corner beside the door that in my haste I didn’t bother checking. It grabbed my shirt and yanked.
“Bobby! I got ‘im!” Someone yelled.
“Hang on to him!” Bobby called. It sounded like he stood somewhere on the street in front of the store, watching out for my bike or Ellie’s Ranger.