I slipped into the back door of the Dairy Queen, tying on my apron as I walked to the front.
“Hey chickiedoo! How was your day?” Frankie said, closing the window after her latest customer walked away.
“Weston got kicked out of class for taking up for me. The Erins and some of the guys were waiting for me after school.”
“Aw! Wait . . . what?”
“You heard me,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning my butt against the counter.
A minivan pulled into the parking lot, and several kids filed out. The mom came to my window, already looking worn. I took each of their orders, three of them changing while I was making them, and sent them on their way. After that, the lines formed and people kept adding to them until dark, so we didn’t have much time to talk. When baseball practice let out, Weston’s truck took off down Main Street, without stopping at the DQ. None of the players did..
We cleaned up, closed the shop, and walked outside. “Ride?” Frankie asked, but then stopped, mid-step.
Right outside the back door was Weston’s red Chevy, towering over us. He was smiling down at me from the driver’s seat. “Wanna take a drive?”
Frankie looked back at me, pleading with her eyes for me to say yes.
I nodded, and Weston disappeared, leaning over to pull the lever of the passenger door and pushing it open. I walked around the truck, but not without noticing Frankie’s cheesy grin. I climbed up into the seat, and shut the door.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “I just kind of left you there to deal with them alone.”
“Stop. Don’t you dare apologize to me.”
When I didn’t respond, he pulled the truck into gear and pulled away, down my street and past my house, straight out of town. I knew where we were going, and I was glad. It felt better than going home, or to school, or even the Dairy Queen. It had become the one place where I could relax and be at peace.
The Chevy’s engine turned off, letting the silence of the night surround us. Weston opened the door and walked directly to the tailgate, pulling it down. This time he waited for me and held out his hand.
I stared at his fingers. They were long, and the nails had been bitten down to the quick. “I’m not . . . helpless.”
“Oh, I know. I just think you’re due for a little special treatment.”
I looked at his outstretched hand.
He shrugged. “Just let me be nice to you.”
I let him help me to the tailgate and watched as he climbed up and sat next to me.
“Oh,” he said, leaning back and opening the cooler. He handed me a Fanta Orange, and he ended up with a Cherry Coke.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip. “What did your parents say? About today?”
“They don’t know.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t the school call them?”
“They didn’t call Brady’s, so they didn’t call mine.”
I sighed. “Well, I’m glad. I guess they didn’t give you detention, either?”
“Nope.”
I nodded. “Why did I even ask?”
He laughed once, without humor.
“When I got home, after practice, my dad had an acceptance letter in his hand. He was smiling from ear to ear. I wanted to puke.”
“Why?”
“Because it was from his alma mater. Duke University. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good school. My sister loves it there.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Another acceptance was in his other hand, from the Art Institute of Dallas.” I waited while he took a sip of his Cherry Coke. “He didn’t know I’d applied, and I tried to beat him home every day to check the mail so he wouldn’t find out what I’d done.”
“But today you didn’t beat him, because you were standing on the corner with me.”
“It’s not your fault. He didn’t even mention it. He didn’t even care. He was too amped about the football scholarship, and even if I didn’t get one, his mind was made up. It didn’t even matter that I applied behind his back.”
“What are you going to do?”
Weston pulled a wadded-up piece of paper from his letter jacket pocket. “I fished it out of the trash can.”
I felt my eyes light up. “You’re going to go?”
He stared at the paper. “I worked my ass off getting that application together.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
He looked at me. “What do you think? My parents won’t help me with the tuition, much less an apartment.”
“So you work and go to school. You’re not the first student in the world to do that.”
“I’m not scared of doing that. I’m just . . . that’s a pretty big slap in the face to my parents. It’s a big deal.”
“It’s your life.” Those words were simple and overused, but that was always true of the truth. “What would your thirty-year-old self say?
“If he’s sitting in an office pushing legal paperwork, he’s probably cussing me.”
I shrugged and looked up at the sky. “Sounds to me like you know the answer.”
“It’s a difference between want and should, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You should do what you want.”
He looked over at me and smiled, and I met his eyes. He watched me for a moment, and then his gaze fell to my lips. “You smell like ice cream.”
My breath caught. “So?”
“I’m just kind of wondering if you taste like it.”
After a short pause, I choked then burst out in howling laughter.
He grinned. “What? What’s funny?”
I couldn’t stop the ugly cackling bubbling up from deep inside of me, like it had been waiting there my entire life to be set free. My eyes watered. Weston quietly chuckled, too.
“Man,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m glad it’s dark.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, wiping my eyes.
“Because my face has got to be bright red right now.”
I nudged him. “Don’t be embarrassed. Two weeks ago if someone told me you’d be saying that to me, I would have thought they were legitimately insane.”
“Would you have wanted me to kiss you two weeks ago?”
I could only manage a side glance; then my line of sight dropped to my feet dangling from the tailgate. “No.”
“No?”
“For the same reason I don’t want you to kiss me now.”
His eyes lit up with realization. “Alder.”
“Yes,” I said, pressing my lips into a hard line. He nodded once, conceding. “Is there something going on at the Diversion Dam tonight?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
Weston leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
I crawled up next to him, and while looking up at the stars, we exchanged memories about grade school, how much we loathed Mrs. Turner, and everything else in our world with the exception of Erin Alderman.
“Are you going to miss high school? I mean, you must,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. “You’re like a god here.”
He laughed once; then his face crumbled. “The god of Hell is the devil. Not really much of a compliment.”
“Touché.” I let my legs swing back and forth, feeling the chilly spring breeze blow through the thin fabric of my pants. It was warm enough that the bugs were chirping and buzzing in the grass. I listened to their symphony, our own little private show.
We drank our pops, and Weston crunched them in his man hands and tossed them behind us. He helped me down and walked around to my side, opening the door. I climbed up and sat, and he looked up at me.