Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2) (23 page)

His friend holds a hand up to wave. I wave back, still blushing.

“I’m gonna take off so we can go talk. You okay with that?” he yells over the ice.

“I think that’s the first smart thing you’ve done in a week,” his friend yells back.

“Real nice, Trent. Real nice,” Andrew laughs, his hand finding the back of his neck as he shakes his head, but peers up at me. This is his version of embarrassed. I remember it, too.

“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you by the front doors,” he says. His eyes stay on me, and his mouth is in this forever-quirked smile, small enough to erase, but there.

I nod and walk to the front lobby where I came in and spend a few minutes looking over the plaques and trophies and clippings in the case along the wall. There’s only two photos of Andrew in the bunch—one the team photo, and another a clip of him from the school paper, the picture of his face looking busted and bruised, just like last night. The headline reads HARPER THE BRUIN’S BRUISER. It makes me smile.

“That was after the opener, against Southern. I spent a lot of time in the box,” he shrugs.

“I bet it makes the other team think twice about being aggressive,” I say, giving him an excuse for being rough on the ice. He seems embarrassed by it, but smiles sheepishly when I say that.

“Yeah, that’s sort of my job. I’m like the guy they put in the basketball game just to foul out,” he chuckles.

I don’t look at him, but I catch his eyes in the reflection in the glass in front of us. It feels easier to look at him this way, even when he’s looking back.

“So, you hungry? I skipped breakfast,” he says.

“Uhm, yeah…I could eat,” I say, my chest suddenly feeling tighter.

“Come on,” he says, nodding toward the front door. I look away from his reflection, to the real him, and I follow him out, walking a few steps behind, watching his form. His body is still bruised, but the swelling in his face is gone. His shoulders are broader, his T-shirt clinging to his back, his jeans loose around his waist. His feet are in flip-flops, sliding along the ground.

“We can go somewhere close. I don’t want you to have to carry your bag far,” I say.

He chuckles.

“Nah, let’s go get pancakes at Estos,” he says. Estos is far, maybe a half an hour away, which means I’ll be with him for most of the morning, alone, away from my roommate, who’s sort of dating him, I think…

“Oh no, it’s okay, close is fine,” I say, fumbling to make an excuse, to stay near home base, to keep the option of backing out of this crazy idea if I want to. I stop talking, though, when I notice his car parked in the lot. Suddenly breathing becomes hard, and that night comes crashing over me—the lights flashing, the man on the road, my hands numb, my eyes burning, my future gone.

My lips open with a gasp, and I suck in a hard breath.

“My heart…” I say, my words almost a whisper, my voice cracking and stopping before I say too much.

“Huh?” he asks, turning and seeing me. He drops his bag and reaches for my hand when he fully takes me in. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit…I’m so sorry, Emma. I thought you’d like to see it, my car, all fixed up. I just got it back, and I was excited. I didn’t even think about what…I…I just didn’t think.”

I look down, my fingertips in his palm, his other hand on my arm. It’s a cautious touch, but he did it so fast—on instinct.

He’s always acting on instinct…for me.

“I’m…I’m okay,” I pant. “It’s weird, I haven’t panicked like that in a while. I’m fine, really,” I stammer, my mind catching up to the words I said, the admission that I once panicked. Five years ago, the panic came often, hitting me when I least expected it—sparked by seeing a fire truck race by, from riding in a car through the woods or sometimes a nightmare. I’m not sure when it began to fade, but one look at his car brought those feelings screaming back to the surface.

Andrew keeps his fingers loosely tangled with mine, and his eyes move down to where our hands are touching as he peels his hold away one finger at a time. I feel sadder with each finger that leaves my hand. Everything gets colder. It feels like…loss.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” His voice is quiet, and his face is wearing a mix of disappointment and worry.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I push my lips together and force a smile, begging my stomach to stop clenching.

I move to the passenger side and pause, looking to him before I tug on the handle.

“Owen…he had it fixed,” he smiles.

I grin back, then glance down at the handle again, still swimming in memories. Some of them, though…are good.

“So you mean I don’t get you opening the door for me like a gentleman anymore,” I smirk. I’m flirting. I shouldn’t be flirting. It’s my nerves.

Andrew stops at his door, pulling it open but leaning over the top of the car, both hands flat on the surface as he stares at me, one eyebrow raised.

“I will open doors for you anytime, Emma Burke,” he says, the left side of his lip raised as he chews at the inside of his cheek. His eyes are soft, and smiling with his lips, then he taps the roof of the car once and climbs in. I do as well.

Andrew is flirting back. I swallow hard.

Inside the car is almost worse than outside. While the gashes, poor paint and other exterior things are all gone from the outside, covered in a fresh coat of slick, racing black and polish, the inside is still the same—still packed with memories everywhere I look. I focus intently on my seatbelt, on pulling it tight, on the vents in front of me. I tuck my purse between my feet and squeeze, focusing on the feel of my muscles pushing against it. I focus on anything I can that isn’t the feel of my legs on Andrew’s lap, my lips on his, his hands around my waist—and the crash.

“Are you sure? We could walk,” he says, the keys perched at the ignition, his hand gripping the wheel, his head tilted to the side, eyes bruised, but looking so full of hope.

“I’m okay,” I exhale, letting my body relax a little. I glance to the side of his face, then smile bigger. “And you still have holes in your ears.”

His head falls forward on the wheel, and he laughs hard as he turns the engine over. “Yes, Emma. Yes, I do,” he says, continuing to laugh as he looks over his shoulder and pulls us out onto the road.

He drives slowly, always five miles slower than the limit, and he doesn’t speak. He’s being careful and cautious for me. He doesn’t have to say so; I know he is. The first ten minutes in the car with him is nothing but silence, even the radio on a gentle hum. Looking at it, I doubt it can go any louder. I laugh to myself because I doubt Andrew even likes the slow rock music that’s playing. My mind is racing with all of the questions I still have, but I don’t know how to start them.

Every now and then, he glances to me, then back to the road. Each look is full of an
almost—
a question, an answer. Finally, one comes.

“Where…” he starts, but stops, his tongue held between his teeth as his eyes squint into the distance ahead. “Damn, I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk to you. It’s hard, though. Is it hard for you?”

He glances at me, swallows once, then looks back to the road. I suck in my bottom lip, nodding. “Yeah, it is,” I admit. “But maybe, now that we’ve said it, it won’t be so hard?”

He chuckles, flexing his hands along the steering wheel, moving them to the top then around the sides, lengthening his arms into a stretch. I imagine his arms around me again, then just as quickly work to force that vision out of my head. “I’m pretty sure it’s still hard to talk to you, Emma,” he sighs.

I feel sad when he says this. We used to talk. That was our one thing—or at least it was on his end. He could talk to me, and I listened, never judging. He told me about his father, about James. I regret that I kept so much from him.

“You said
where.
Where what? Ask me, Andrew. Let’s get through this…whatever it is,” I say.

He smiles, glancing over his shoulder a few times as we merge onto the highway toward the next town over. “I’m not ready for
where.
That’s a big question. I need to work up to it. How about…how about I start with a who,” he says, the right corner of his mouth twisted with his pause, still unsure.

“Okay, who. Go for it,” I say, just happy we’re talking more easily.

“Who’s the guy who walked you home the other day?” he asks. My chest constricts a little, like someone just jumped out from a corner to scare me. I’m not sure why, because Graham isn’t really anything…yet. He’s my mentor’s son, which I guess makes him…complicated.

“He’s just a guy,” I answer. The lamest reply possible, and it takes Andrew all of half a second to call me on it.

“Just. A. Guy.” He laughs once, the sharp belly kind, then clicks the blinker to exit the highway, the sign for Estos standing above a hill. “Okay. We’ll go with that for now. I’ll let you have that one.”

I sigh lightly, watching out the window as we pull in to a space near the door. Andrew cuts the engine, but sits still, watching families and old couples walk in and out of the restaurant.

“There really isn’t much more to say,” I say, feeling defensive. I can’t really explain who Graham is without connecting him to how we met.

Andrew nods, then steps out of the car, leaving the door open, his feet on the pavement outside, but his body still inside with me.

“Where do you think I went?” he asks, his back to me. Everything about him is suddenly deflated, his shoulders lowered, his head sunken. “You said you didn’t know where I went. You didn’t know about Lake Crest. Where…where was I in your world?”

“Iowa,” I answer quickly.

His body rises with a silent laugh, his shoulders raising once, but dropping back into sadness.

“Iowa,” he repeats, standing slowly, turning and leaning into the car. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

His door closes, and I take this small moment in his car alone to
gasp
, letting my body make a small sound, a short cry, so I don’t do it in front of him. Then I get out and step around the car, joining him at the front door to the restaurant. He steps in front of me, pulling the door open, his head tilted to the side as I step through.

“Just a guy, huh?” He smirks. We look at each other, his hand finding my back as he guides me inside and I pass him, his touch gentle, but purposeful. I let him. I relish it. And I know I won’t be able to let it go.

The hostess guides us to a booth in the back of the restaurant. It’s away from the front windows, away from the view of his car. I’m glad. Looking at it is hard.

The waitress takes our order quickly. We both order a short stack and a coffee. When she walks away, Andrew sets his eyes on me squarely, his head leaning slightly to one side. I look back into his eyes, holding on as long as I can. It feels like a game of chicken, and eventually I lose, moving my attention to the rolled up silverware and napkin in front of me. I unravel it and move my knife and fork to the side, unfolding my napkin and spreading it on my lap. When I glance down at my hands, I realize just how badly they’re shaking. Then Andrew’s foot finds mine under the table, his shoe tapping into mine. It makes me laugh.

“There she is,” he says. I let out one more breathy laugh, and it mixes with a cry. I choke it down quickly, before he can see.

I rub my hands on my cheeks, thankful when the waitress comes to quickly fill our coffee mugs. I thank her and go to work adding creams and sugars to my cup.

“Wow,” Andrew chuckles. “That might be the unhealthiest cup of coffee I’ve ever seen.”

I nod in agreement.

“I’m a little high strung,” I shrug, blowing over the top of the liquid before attempting a sip. It’s hot, so I set the cup in front of me to let it cool.

“Yeah, I’m sure the seven packs of sugar and liquid fat will totally help calm you down,” he jokes.

“Feed the beast,” I say with a shake of my head.

He chuckles at me, then pulls his arms up to rest his elbows on the table, leaning his face into one hand. His eyes haven’t left me once in the last five minutes.

“I was in Iowa,” he says finally. My eyes lower and my brow pinches as I try to understand. “Not at first, but after…when I got out of Lake Crest. I moved to Iowa with my uncle.”

Every new piece he shares from his life fills these missing gaps in my world of Andrew Harper. Some of the things he says erase what I thought, strike out the story I’d believed and replace it with something sadder. He’s careful when he shares, too—like he’s testing me a little each time to see how I react. I think he’s wondering if I care. He has no idea how much I do.

I care. I care, and it feels so dangerous to let myself, like caring about him could topple over so many other things that lay in the balance. This is how it’s always been with us—our feelings on a teeter-totter.

“When did you move there? To Iowa?” I ask, hoping he says it was only a few weeks after the accident, that he wasn’t at Lake Crest for long. I don’t want my parents to have lied to me.

“Junior year,” he says. His eyes are hard, almost stoic. His foot slides away, and I’m tempted to chase it. Instead, I bring my legs up to the booth, folding them under me.

A test.

“So you were at Lake Crest…for a year?” My eyes sting, but I hold in my cry. My mind races through memories of my mom, how she told me my dad went to look for Andrew, how they were told he was with family in another state. So. Many. Lies.

“Ten months, really. I came home at the end of spring, sophomore year,” he says, pulling one of my empty sugar packets from the center of the table and folding the small paper into a fan pattern.

“Sophomore year,” I repeat. He was home. And he never came to see me. My parents lied. And Andrew gave up too quickly. I shudder in the booth, and I know he sees it. His eyes flinch and his gaze lowers as he continues to study me; he’s waiting to see if I’m pretending. “Why didn’t you visit me? Before you left.”

He shrugs quickly and pushes the small folded paper off to the side, running his palms over the table, clearing the few grains of sugar away that had spilled out.

“You’d moved on,” he says, his eyes moving up to meet mine briefly. I gaze at him, my forehead low, not understanding. His teeth hold on to his top lip for a second. “You never wrote back,” he finally adds.