Nobody but Us (3 page)

“Will, do you think there will be this many stars in Las Vegas?”

He looks at me for a long time before answering, and I feel my face flush with heat. He smiles at me, his easy smile, and looks back to the road.

“Sure. Stars are the same everywhere, ain’t they?”

That doesn’t sound right, so I laugh at him and he laughs back, but I don’t contradict him because I can’t put my finger on the right answer, either. Something about the hemispheres, but it’s hardly worth taking the time to remember right now.

“If there ain’t, I’ll get you some of those glow-in-the-dark sticker stars to put on the ceiling, okay?”

I blush again because suddenly I’m thinking about the apartment we’ll share and the room we’ll share and the bed we’ll share. We’ve been together for almost two months now, but he’s never put a hand out of place. I think he’s like that because he respects me. I hope so, at least. But sometimes I wonder about his hands out of place, and the thought of it brings heat to my cheeks.

“Sounds good.”

I doze again, dreaming of greenish sticker stars in the sky. Will wakes me up when we’re about to cross into South Dakota, and I search for a Welcome sign. It’s my first time out of my home state. Not for Will, though. He was born in Nevada and made his way here by little hops and moves throughout his life. He tells me I’ll like it there, even though he left when he was four and probably doesn’t remember Nevada. He wants me to like it because … I think we’re going to be there, together, for a long time.

I believe him—that I’ll like the desert, the Southwest—because he never lies to me.

I expect there to be more excitement as we cross into South Dakota. And maybe there are more lights, but the road is still quiet and lazy. I can’t figure out why Will keeps checking his mirrors, jittery like we’re in the middle of some big-city rush hour. I see the sign, and my heart quickens for just a moment before I settle back into the serene darkness.

“That was it,” I whisper to the window.

“We shoulda brought confetti so you could throw it out the window. Or a camera.”

It feels a little as though he’s making fun of me, but I push the discomfort aside. Of course he’s not making fun of me. Just teasing a little, maybe. I can do it, too.

“Yeah, but that means I’d have to teach you to use one.”

“It’s just pressing a button.”

“
And
pointing it. That’s two things at once. I’m not sure if boys can manage that much.”

“Ha!”

He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and aims it toward me, flicking on the car light at the same time. I hear the click of the camera and he turns the phone around so I can see myself on the screen.

“There. Now you got an ‘Entering South Dakota’ picture.”

I study the face on the phone. The tired eyes, the swollen lip. The new shadow on my temple. I close my eyes against it. This is what Will sees. He sees it when my face is naked, when I have my makeup on: it doesn’t matter. This is what he sees when he looks at me.

“I look awful.”

The car swerves so abruptly that my seat belt locks as I’m thrown to the right. We hit gravel and he slams on the brakes. I worry that I’ve made Will angry when he gets out of the car, slams his door shut, and comes around to open mine. He unbuckles my seat belt and pulls me out of the car.

“You. Are. Beautiful.” His arms are strong and tight around me. Desperate, even. “Don’t ever say you’re nothing but beautiful, understand? This—” He touches my lip, my eye. “This will fade and your heart will heal and you’ll never have to worry about hiding nothing ever again. Understand?”

Tears spring to my eyes under the intensity of his gaze. I tuck my head into his chest to avoid his eyes and burrow against the softness of his shirt.

“You’re so beautiful. No one’s ever gonna hurt you again.”

I nod.

“I’m so excited for this. For this life.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

“Okay.”

He moves aside the pillow and blanket so I can get back in the car. He tucks me in again, even though I’m too warm. I’m warm even though it’s early spring and still coat and hat and mittens weather. I reach my face up to kiss him, long and slow, and my skin is suffocating under the blanket. Will puts a knee on my seat so he can better reach me and spreads his hands on my face. They are like a brush of night breeze against my skin.

“Amazing,” he says once he’s pulled away. “You.” He says it like he means it, and I have to believe it’s the truth.

He closes my door gently and returns to his side of the car. He gives me a smile and another kiss and pulls back onto the highway.

I LOVE THE TASTE OF HER.

Sweetness and a little bit of acid.

Alive and warm.

It’s the most delicious taste ever. It’s been hours since she was awake, and the sun’s practically up, but her flavors are still right there. Right in my mouth.

The gas tank thing’s on
E
and has been for a few miles now, but if I stop for gas, she could wake up. If I stop for gas, they might catch up. Her dad. Shelly. The cops. I’m waiting for them, but I’m also waiting for that free feeling, that one where my fingers don’t shake and I ain’t gotta keep looking over my shoulder. When does that come? How far I gotta travel for that?

I know there ain’t a whole lot of gas stations in this corner of the world, though, so I gotta stop at the next one. She stirs when I pull off the highway and slow the car. I creep to the pump, like she’ll adjust to the changing car speed if I do it real slow.

Her breathing changes. She’s waking up. I wrap my fists around the steering wheel and grit my teeth. Like it’s so much to ask that I could do this one thing right.

“Sorry. We need gas.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers.

“You need anything from the store? Are you hungry?”

She shakes her head.

“We’ll stop at the next diner we come to for breakfast, okay? I’ll just grab some water for now.”

She nods and rests her head on her pillow again but doesn’t close her eyes.

I feel her watching me as I walk into the 7-Eleven and grab a bottle of water. I feel her watching me as I pull two twenties out of my wallet, for the gas and the water, and toss them to the clerk. I don’t look at her when I walk back to the pump, but I’m smiling ’cause I can’t help it and now it’s a game. She wants me to look at her, I know it, and I wanna tease her instead.

I try to wipe the smile off my face and look cool, but I don’t got much control in the Zoe department and she sees it. She always got to me, stripped my bullshit down with a look. Charlie never missed a chance to tell me I was whipped.

I still ain’t looking at her, even though I can hear her laughing at me. I clear my throat real loud, set the latch on the gas pump, and pop my head in through my window.

“Okay, you win.”

“Yep.”

“You always gonna win at this game.”

“Yep.”

Her eyes are bright and all crinkly at the corners when she smiles like that. I’m gonna make her smile like that all the time.

I stifle a yawn, and her smile slips a little.

“Don’t worry about it. I ain’t tired. Just need something to drink.” I break the cap on the water and chug half the bottle. The cold goes right to my head. Burns inside my chest. But at least I feel awake again.

“I can drive,” she says. “You’ll have to teach me. But it’s not like there’s any patrol out here.”

I hesitate before answering her. Look around, sweep the gas station parking lot. The roads. Like the cops’ll show up just ’cause she said their name.

I nod. She should learn to drive. She needs to, and this would be as good a place as any to teach her. Plus, it’s the perfect excuse to give her the ID I got made for her. I’ll tell her it’s for driving, and not ’cause she’s fifteen and I’m eighteen and I don’t wanna get screwed when someone finds out I’m with this girl in another state. There’s rules about that. I know that shit.

I open my wallet and look at her ID. It looks good, made from her yearbook photo, with the ugly white background. It should look good. It cost enough. I pull it out and close my wallet. I look at my car, and I look at Zoe. My car’s pretty much all I got, but it ain’t worth as much as she is.

The gas pump lever clicks off.

“All right. Gas station guy says there’s a town with a diner about thirty miles up the road. You can drive there. I’ll be all right once I got something to eat.”

She’s all excitement and happy squeals and I suddenly want to pull her out of the car and kiss her until she makes more of those noises, but for me, not the steering wheel. But I turn back to the pump instead and screw the gas cap on.

“Let’s get away from the station before I let you in my seat. If you hit one of these pumps you’ll blow us all up.”

“Ha-ha.”

She’s clutching her seat all bouncy-happy, and my chest swells, ’cause that’s me who did that. I made her excited.

When we get a mile down the road, I pull off onto the shoulder and trade places with her, passing the keys off when we meet at the front of the car. She dangles the keys in my face with a laugh and hops in.

“DON’T KILL ME,” HE MUMBLES AS I SLIDE INTO THE driver’s seat. I sock him in the shoulder. Then I kiss him because I feel bad. When I pull back, he pats the car with exaggerated sympathy, looking at me sideways the whole time, and I don’t feel so bad about the punch anymore.

“Here.”

He passes me a card and it’s my face staring back at me.

“I probably should already have one of these,” I say. “I mean, a real one. When did you get this made? And … eighteen? Wow. I don’t—I don’t think I can pull that off.”

“You’ll be fine. You’re mature. And it’s only a couple of years. You
look
legal now.”

“To drive? I only have to be sixteen for that.”

“Yeah.” He looks over his shoulder for a second. “And, you know, to do whatever you want.”

I follow his gaze, seeing nothing but desolate land in the space behind us.

Whatever I want?

“Um, that sounds good to me. Doing whatever I want.” I shove the card in my jeans pocket. “Now teach me to drive this bad boy.”

He looks back again, laughs. I grin in response.

“Okay. That pedal on the far left is the clutch. You gotta push that in when you start the car and when you shift. Do that with your left foot. Use your right for the brake and the gas.”

“At the same time?”

“No, not at the same time. Do you want to stop and go at the same time?”

“No.” I snicker.

“The brake’s in the middle and gas’s on the right, the narrow one, there. Put your foot on the gas when you wanna go. On the brake when you want to stop. The car’s in neutral right now, so go ahead and try starting it up. Remember, push the clutch in when you start it up.”

He’s so nervous and trying so hard to hide it from me. But he can’t relax in his seat and it’s so funny that I can’t get the key in the ignition because I’m giggling too hard.

“Push in the clutch!” he barks.

“What clutch?”

“On the left.”

“What’s a clutch?”

“It’s the—” He stops when he sees the look on my face. “Okay, know-it-all. You do it. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride.” He doesn’t sit back at all. It doesn’t seem possible, but his back gets stiffer. And it takes an act of supreme willpower to steady my hand enough to insert the key in the ignition.

I press my foot against the clutch, a little surprised at how much effort it takes to get it to the floor. Then I turn the key.

The car growls to life beneath me. I feel it trembling in my legs and arms, and I shiver with excitement.

“Put your right foot on the brake.”

I follow Will’s instructions because now that the car is alive I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility, like the car is a child depending on me. I need to get this right.

“Okay, first gear is up here. You’ll start there. Once you got it in gear, release the clutch slowly and press on the gas at the same time. Slowly.”

I cover the gearshift with my hand and his covers mine and I shiver again. I look at him, catch his intense expression, and completely forget his instructions. I’m doing this.
We’re
doing this.

We shift into first and I press on the gas.

Slowly. All the way down.

The roar of the engine comes so fast and so loud that I yank my foot off the clutch. We fly down the road, thrown into the backs of our seats, until I shriek wildly and pull my other foot off the gas. I cover my face with my hands as the car instantly halts with a shriek and tosses us forward like rag dolls.

It’s silent.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

He’s laughing.

“It’s all right. I think you left the transmission back there, though.” Will turns in his seat and studies the road behind us. I’m sticking my tongue out at him before I think about how childish it is. But he doesn’t think it’s childish. He grabs me and tugs me to him, across the stupid stick shift, and finds another use for my tongue.