by Carrie Elks
“Sure. Why? What’s happening?”
“They installed the audio visuals earlier. I want to check them out.”
Van caught Zoe’s eye. “I need to head to the drive in,” she said, covering the mouthpiece. “Will you guys be okay if I’m gone for a couple of hours?”
Zoe bit down a smile and nodded, her eyes never leaving the laptop screen.
Their mom looked up from Jeopardy. “Fine by me.” She lifted the remote control and turned the volume up, curling her legs beneath her on the sofa.
Ten minutes later, Van pulled her car up at the entrance to the drive-in. It was still unpaved – that would be the last thing done once all the heavy vehicles no longer needed access. The construction team had started to erect a brand new overhead sign that could be seen easily from the road. She and Tanner had gone back and forth about whether to change the name or not, but in the end nostalgia had won out.
The Chaplin Drive-In Theater, Virginia’s First and Best was outlined in bulbs on the pale-blue painted wooden sign. Once the electrics were finished, they’d illuminate the way they had back when she’d worked here as a kid. Looking up at it made her chest feel all tight.
“You staying in there all day?”
She looked up to see Tanner walking toward her, wearing jeans and a black Henley, his dark hair hidden beneath a grey Boston Bobcats hat, no doubt given to him by Cam.
“I was just admiring our handiwork.” She grinned at him, climbing out of the car. “I can’t believe we’ve got so much done in such a short time.”
He pulled her into his arms, pressing his lips against her brow. “Everything okay at home?”
She knew what he really meant. Is your mom sober? “Yeah, it’s all good. Mom and Zoe are in the living room watching a Jeopardy rerun.”
“Here’s your question for two hundred. What’s the most boring program on television?”
“Stop it.” She smiled up at him. “Just because you never get any of the answers right.”
“They’re not answers, they’re questions.” He pressed his lips to hers, making her toes curl in delight. “And for the record, I always beat you in quizzes.”
“Because I let you.” She kissed him back, already breathless at his touch. “Otherwise you’d cry like a baby.”
“I don’t cry.”
“You did when you lost that chess tournament.”
He slid his hands into the hair at the nape of her neck, tipping her head back. He had one eyebrow raised, his expression amused. “I was seven years old, Van. And that other kid cheated.”
“It’s okay,” she told him, tracing her finger along his bottom lip. “You’re allowed to cry. Just not over stupid stuff like chess.”
“Did I tell you I’ve been playing against Becca?”
“And how’s that going?”
“She pretty much hates me and wants me to move out. Which is a good thing, since I paid the deposit for the house on West Street this evening. I can’t wait to get the keys and take you there.”
She loved the way he was looking at her. There was wonder in his eyes, as though he couldn’t quite believe his luck that she was standing there in his arms. But right now she felt like the lucky one. As though she’d spent the last ten years in some kind of hazy limbo, unwilling to build the bridges back to him, yet standing on the other side, staring longingly at the life she once had.
“I have to pinch myself everytime I realize you’re mine,” he told her. “You were the wisp dancing in the wind. I’ve spent most of my life trying to capture you in my hands.”
Her mouth felt dry. Every time she looked at him, emotion flooded her body. Not just because there was all this history, but because he was everything she’d pretended she didn’t want.
A man who looked inside and saw the real her. Who knew that sometimes she would smile even though she wanted to howl. He peeled away the masks she wore and still liked what was underneath.
He’d always been her guiding light. She’d known it from the moment he’d written her name for her, meticulously tracing the three letters of her name, his tongue pressing against his cheek in concentration. They’d been children. Innocent of the knowledge they had now. The world had felt unfair, but it still had a logic to it. A logic that had disappeared the day she’d told him she never wanted to speak to him again.
And now it was back. Her sun rose and set on him. He was the fulcrum to her see-saw life. Always there, always steady. Holding onto her whenever she wavered.
He was changing her, day by day. Making her want things she’d never allowed herself to consider. She felt bold and afraid all at the same time.
“When you look at me like that…” Tanner’s voice was low, thick. “It makes me hope so damn bad, Van.”
“Hope for what?” she whispered.
“Hope that you feel the same way about me that I feel about you.”
She grabbed his hand, placing his warm palm in the dip between her breasts. “Do you ache so bad, right here, that you wonder if your heart might have something wrong with it?” she asked him, sliding her fingers between his.
He nodded, his eyes not wavering from hers.
“And when you see me,” she continued, sliding his hand down until it was warm against her belly. “Does your stomach feel like you’ve just fallen off a rollercoaster?”
“Every damn time.”
Her lips curled up. “And here?” she said, feathering his fingers against the center of her. “Do you feel like you’re on fire?”
He grabbed her hand and pulled it against him. She blinked at his hardness. “What do you think?” he asked, his voice guttural.
“I think you’ve got it bad.”
He laughed. “I do. I’ve got it something awful for Van Butler. Every time I see her it feels like my world’s tipped over.” He lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips, his throat undulating as he swallowed hard. “I’ve loved you from the moment we first met. Before, maybe. It’s like there’s always been a Van-shaped hole in my life. And it grows bigger every year. Sometimes you filled it, heck sometimes you were way too big for it.” He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling. “But now, you fit it just right.” He dropped his head to hers. “You make me happier than I have a right to be.”
Her throat felt scratchy, as though it was trying to swallow a sob. The air between them felt thick, full of meaning. She breathed in a ragged mouthful of air, her eyes still captured by his. “You make me happy, too.”
He loved her, and it was everything. It was bright like the sun, eclipsing everything that tried to compete with it.
“I’m glad to hear it. Now get in my car and I’ll make you happier still.”
She laughed at his abrupt change in conversation. “Are you talking about car sex?”
“Nope. I’m talking about movies.” He slid his hand around her waist, steering her around the back of the half-constructed ticket office.
She blinked when she saw what was there. An old orange Camaro, white stripes painted down the hood, rust clinging to it like a lover. “Is that what I think it is?” Van asked, not sure whether to laugh. It looked exactly the same as Tanner’s first car. He’d been so proud of it.
“I saw it three days ago in the grocery store car park.” He led her to the passenger door, pulling it open. “Paid the kid who owned it three times what it’s worth.”
She laughed, running her finger over the split leather upholstery. “I can’t believe it’s been in Hartson’s Creek all this time. How many kids do you think have driven it?”
“Since I sold it?” He shrugged. “I guess at least three more owners. I can check.”
“No, don’t.” She shook her head. “I kind of like the mystery.”
He tapped his hand against the wheel. “She still drives like a dream.”
“A nightmarish kind of dream?” she teased.
He grinned and started up the engine, both of them holding their breath in the long second between his turning of the key and the motor cat
ching. He pressed his foot on the gas, a loud growl rumbling from the hood.
She leaned forward to turn on the radio. It crackled and hissed, but no music came out. “The stereo’s still kaput. And it still smells like the creek. But god, it’s good to see it.”
“Buckle up,” he told her as the Camaro lurched forward, the complete lack of suspension flinging her body up and down as Tanner steered it across the freshly cut grass toward the gravel drive. “It’s movie time.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tanner unlocked the Camaro’s trunk, tugging at the stiff lid until it finally gave way and opened with a groan. Lifting the box he’d hurriedly put together before leaving the house, he carried it back to the driver’s seat, laying it on the torn leather. “Stay here,” he told Van, who was watching him with an amused smile. “I just need to start the movie.”
“What are we watching?”
“Wait and see.” He winked and closed the door. He walked across the gravel parking lot toward the projection room, following the directions the audio visual team had given him, starting the digital screen and loading up the movie. As he sauntered back to the car, his cap pulled down low on his brow, his hands pushed into his jeans pockets, he looked at the Camaro, feeling a flash of warmth as he saw Van’s blonde hair spilling over the cracked leather seat.
He’d meant every word he said to her when he’d held her in his arms. He was in love with her. And if she hadn’t said it back yet? Well he could wait. He’d been waiting for ten years, after all.
Ten years of being without her and he could barely remember how that even worked. How had he woken up without her being the first thought in his mind? How had he slept without her curling her warm body against his?
The opening credits had started. Production companies’ logos flashed on the screen, one after another. He’d parked the Camaro in the front row, around thirty feet from the screen. To the right was the playground that kids could use whenever they got bored of what was being shown that night. To the left was the refreshment stand, though it hadn’t been completed yet. When it was, it would have state-of-the-art equipment to make popcorn, burgers, hot dogs, and fries.
Pulling the car door open, he lifted the box of food and slid inside.
“Is this the movie I think it is?” Van asked, as a big globe came on the screen, along with a little satellite orbiting around it.
“Almost certainly.”
“Jerry Maguire?” She looked at him, smiling. “What made you choose it?”
“It reminds me of Cam.” He shrugged. “And we watched it back when we were kids, remember?”
“The Tom Cruise summer series. I can’t tell you how many people complained that year.” Van sighed. “He’s a love-hate kind of actor.”
“He’s made some good movies though.”
“Yeah, he has.” She leaned forward to lift his baseball cap off, raking her fingers through his hair. Sitting back, she jammed the cap onto her own hair, her golden waves spilling out beneath it.
He looked at her and his stomach clenched. It was stupid and infantile, but he loved that she was wearing something of his. And of course, his girl rocked it.
His girl. Was that what she was?
He pulled up the Chaplin Drive-In Theater app on his phone, opening it up and linking it to the Bluetooth speaker he’d stashed in the glove compartment. The sound came on, synced perfectly to the screen.
He’d had to pay for the app to be designed, thanks to the contract he’d signed when he’d sold his business. It had rankled him to fork out for something he could have coded himself in less than a day, but those were the terms he’d agreed to.
Sometimes it sucked to be a grown up.
“Are there still only six billion people on the planet?” Van asked, as Tom’s opening monologue blasted out of the speakers.
“Around seven and a half billion now,” Tanner told her. “This was made almost twenty-five-years ago.”
“We were three-years-old.” She grinned. “Hadn’t even met yet.”
“We probably had and didn’t know it. Hartson’s Creek is so small we had to have passed each other in our strollers.”
“I’d have known it,” she said, her voice sure.
He opened a can of Coke and passed it to her. “How?”
“Because when I look at you, you turn my world upside down. You always have. Especially the first time we met.”
“When I knocked you over?” He grinned.
“Yeah. That time was literal.”
“Do you think there was always something between us?” he asked, tipping his head to his side as he looked at her intently. Tom was still talking, though neither of them were paying attention to him.
“You mean something something?” she asked, her eyes dancing. “Because I don’t know if I was thinking about something when I was six. I just knew my life didn’t work unless you were in it.”
“How about the last ten years?” he asked, wondering if she’d come to the same conclusion as him. “Did they work?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, her gaze moving to the screen. Jerry was walking into a sports bar, his hair slicked back, his suit expensive and perfectly cut. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean I thought they did. I thought I was doing okay. And then I came back here and saw you and everything I believed in was a lie.”
“How about guys?” he asked softly. “There must have been some.”
“A few.”
His stomach tightened.
“But nothing serious.”
The band around his gut loosened a little. “Did you live with anybody?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“Nope. You?”
He shook his head. “No. I was too busy working to think about relationships.”
“I don’t believe you were a monk for ten years.”
“I didn’t say I was. I had… needs.” He winced. “God, that makes me sound like a dirty old man.”
“There’s nothing old about you,” she said, leaning forward to cup his cheek. “Though you are kinda dirty.”
He laughed, and knocked the cap up from her brow, pulling her closer until their lips met. Kissing her made his heart hammer in his chest. God, she was perfect.
“Ow.” Van winced and rubbed her side. “Damn gear shift.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just remembering why making out in cars is uncomfortable.”
He leaned over to the backseat and grabbed a blanket and the speaker. “Let’s go sit on the grass. It’ll give us some more space.”
She joined him at the front of the car, watching as he laid the blanket out, then offered her his hand. She was still holding her Coke can, and she took a sip, smiling at him as Tom visited his concussed client in the hospital.
“How many concussions has Cam had?” she asked Tanner as the camera panned out to show a football player in a neck brace.
“Too many. Five, I think.”
“Ouch. I saw the one he got against Chicago. It looked awful.”
“Yeah, I flew up to see him that time. He was unconscious for more than twenty-four hours.” Tanner sighed. “I’m hoping he thinks about retiring soon.”
“He’s too young for that, isn’t he?”
“I guess so.”
“Does he have plans after he stops playing?” Van asked. “Maybe he could become an agent like Jerry Maguire.”
“Ha! That would involve having to actually talk to people.”
“It’s funny how often people got him and Logan mixed up at school,” Van mused, smiling at him over the rim of her can. “And yet you could tell the difference as soon as they opened their mouths. He’d mumble a few words…”
“And Logan would never shut up.” Tanner laughed. “I guess they’ve always been that way. A bit like you and me.”
“As in you’re the talkative one, and I’m the strong silent type?” Van asked, her brow arching.
A bolt of pleasure shot down his g
ut. He loved her like this, all smart mouthed and strong. “As in, you never shut up,” he said, grinning.
“You’re cruising for a bruising, Hartson,” she murmured, biting down a grin at her own pun.
He mock-winced. “Maybe I am.”
She put down her can and rose to her knees, then launched herself at him, pushing his back to the wool blanket. She landed on him, her thighs on either side of his, her hands grabbing his wrists and putting them over his head.
He was hard almost immediately. She scooted forward, her body brushing against him as he let out a sigh. Then she was kissing him, her hands still tethering his wrists to the ground, her body wriggling all over his.
He could have pulled his hands away easily. Could have flipped her over and ground his body into hers until she was gasping with pleasure. But he was curious as to what she’d do next.
“Hmm,” she breathed, his nose brushing against his. “I kind of like being in control.”
“When it comes to us, you’re always in control,” he said, swallowing a groan as she laid herself over him, her groin pressing into his.
“If I’m in control then I can do this, right?” She tugged at his Henley, pulling it up until his skin was exposed to the cool evening air. Then she slithered down, pressing her lips against his stomach, her mouth warm against his skin.
He was achingly hard. So aware of her lips as they slid down his abdomen, reaching the thick leather of his belt. Her fingers pulled it loose, then deftly unfastened his jeans, her hand sliding under the waistband of his shorts, until she closed her fingers around him.
Slowly, she slid her palm up, the friction oh-so-good yet not nearly enough. He thrust his hips against her and she looked up at him with a smile. “Am I torturing you enough yet?” she asked.
“Oh yeah.”
Without saying another word, she slid her hands beneath his waistband and released him, sliding her lips around his plush head. He closed his eyes, Jerry Maguire and his money long forgotten, as he submitted himself to the pleasure only she knew how to give.