So? “No.”
He was only offering to give her a ride because it included me. It would only encourage him.
Elle fell back, and I kept walking.
“It’s nice to be nice, Emmy,” she called after me. “Please?”
I slowed, her pathetic whine making me feel guilty. I stopped and rolled my eyes, sighing. Him giving her a ride would make her year.
And who was I kidding? He wasn’t going to give up if I refused a ride tonight. The creepy-stalker-weirdo would follow me in that damn truck. Right up to my front door.
I turned around, seeing her already heading back into the parking lot, a morose slump to her shoulders.
“Wait,” I bit out.
She spun around, smiling ear to ear.
I joined her again, and we both walked over to Will’s truck, still parked.
“You’re sitting up front,” she told me. “My house is first.”
Huh—?
But she shoved me at the door of the huge, black Ford Raptor and pulled open the back door, climbing into the truck before I could utter an argument.
Seriously?
I yanked open the door and stepped up into the truck, ignoring Will’s eyes as I plopped my ass down and slammed the door.
But just then, the back door opened again, and I shot a glance over my shoulder, watching Elle quickly exit the truck again and close the door.
“What are you…?”
She walked past my window, swinging around and moving backward as she winked at me. “Have a safe ride!” she sing-songed, doing a taunting little wave.
What the…? I stopped breathing as realization dawned. This was a trick. Dammit.
The locks clicked, the parking lot still swarmed with people, and I was officially done for the day, shaking my head as I watched her disappear into the crowd.
“That’s what I get for trying to make a friend,” I grumbled.
I pulled my seatbelt on, glaring over at Will as a smile curled his lips and he started the engine.
So clever, wasn’t he? Must’ve worked that out with her in the thirty seconds it took for me to get off the bus.
He pulled ahead, driving through the empty space ahead of us, and exited the parking lot, turning up the volume as “In Your Room” played on the stereo.
We drove down the road, heading back toward the village, and I clasped my hands in my lap as my bag and flute sat on the floor.
It smelled good in here. The leather seats cooled the backside of my thighs, and my stomach dropped a little as he went over the bumps and dips.
The darkness of the cab engulfed us, hiding us, and it felt private. Like we were alone somewhere we shouldn’t be.
Sneaking a glance, I watched his long fingers drape over the T of the steering wheel and then looked up to his face, seeing his eyes narrowed on the road ahead and the unusually stern expression on his face.
His chest rose and fell, steady and controlled, and if there was one thing I knew about Will Grayson III, it was that when he was in control you should worry.
Like in the pool last night.
When he got serious, he got to me.
I looked back down at my lap, breathing hard and feeling a little sick because my body was raging with a lot of different things.
I liked it.
We crawled closer to my house, and he hadn’t said a word, but I didn’t care. I just soaked up the feeling for as long as I could. Feeling him next to me. Riding with him. The goosebumps on my legs, because I felt kind of pretty in the skirt now. Did he like it?
He turned onto my street, and I clutched the hem of my shirt, seeing my house ahead, but I didn’t want to leave him.
He drove too fast, though. Why was he driving so fast? He had to stop in a second.
But we passed my house, not stopping or even slowing, and I popped my head up, looking back at my place through his back window.
He maintained speed, not slowing as my house came and went, disappearing again.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, despite my heart leaping a little. “You have to take me home,” I said. “I can’t be late.”
I couldn’t muster any more than a soft voice, because I really didn’t want to go home. I just knew I had to.
Finally, he glanced over at me. “What are you afraid will happen? You’re good at saying no to me, right? You can stay with me for another hour.”
I arched a brow. What the hell was he going to try that would make me need to say no?
I checked the clock on the dash. It was only 9:19. As long as I was home by ten, Martin probably wouldn’t ask questions. Probably.
He would know the bus had arrived already, though.
Will drove us through the neighborhood and pulled onto Old Pointe Road, heading toward Adventure Cove.
I tensed. What was he up to? The place closed at eight, and there was nothing else out here.
He turned and pulled into the parking lot of the theme park, the whole place empty for the night. He stopped the truck, not really bothering to fit into any particular space, but he kept the engine running and turned down the radio.
I let my eyes trail around the deserted lot, the empty ticket booths and darkened rides looming beyond the entrance gates. One single overhead light shone on the parking lot.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as he leaned back in his seat, staring out the window as the weight of the silence made my heart skip a beat.
“Do you see the Ferris wheel?” he finally asked.
I followed his gaze, looking out my window and finding the Ferris wheel to the right, on the edge of the theme park.
“If you head past it,” he said, “about five-hundred yards east, you’ll come to Cold Point.”
Cold Point was a part of the cliffs that jutted out into the sea a little more than the rest of the coastline between here and Falcon’s Well. With the theme park in the way, it was nearly inaccessible now.
And for good reason, given its history.
“Do you know that story?” he asked me.
“Murder-suicide,” I muttered.
He was quiet, and then I heard his soft, “Maybe.”
I turned my eyes to him as he leaned his head on his hand and stared ahead.
“In 1954, Edward McClanahan was my age,” he told me. “Senior, basketball star, bit of a bad boy, but only where it counted…” He smiled, teasing me. “He was good to people. He showed up for people, you know?”
I didn’t know much about Edward McClanahan, other than the basketball team made an annual pilgrimage to his grave. I never really cared.
But I stayed quiet.
“That season was supposed to be their greatest,” he said. “They had the team, the coach, the years of training… They could anticipate each other’s moves, even their thoughts.” He met my eyes. “That’s what years of playing together had brought them to. They were a family. More than family. They were in perfect symbiosis.”
Like the Horsemen. Watching them sometimes, the other players didn’t exist. Michael, Kai, Damon, and Will were like the four limbs of a single body.
“And that rarely happens,” he continued. “They relied on each other and would do anything for each other, and they were going all-conference. Everyone was hyped for what was coming that season. The games, the parties, the celebrations…”
I wondered how true all of that was. He painted a nice picture, but we believe what it suits us to believe, and nothing more. Everything seemed better in hindsight.
He smiled. “Elvis had just hit the scene, everyone wanted a Chevy Bel Air, and “Sh-Boom” by the Crew-Cuts was the number one song in America.” His face fell a little, and he continued, “Homecoming Night, a girl from Falcon’s Well—one of our rivals—showed up at our high school dance. Alone and wearing a pink dress of lace and tulle. The twinkle lights above the dance floor glittered across her hair and bare shoulders as she walked in, and no one could take their eyes off her. She was so nervous, knowing she didn’t bel
ong there.” He paused, turning his head and holding my eyes. “Feeling like a mouse in a snake pit. She kept holding her stomach like she was going to throw up or something. But she was pretty. So pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.”
McClanahan.
I looked off, past the Ferris wheel and toward Cold Point, seeing her in my head. The strapless pink dress that poofed out the way dresses in the fifties did, while young men wore suits.
“They say she came to cause trouble,” he told me, his soft, low voice drifting into my ear. “That the rival team sent her to sow discord. They say she taunted our whole team. Tried to get them to do things to her that night so she could play the victim the next day.”
Why was he telling me this?
“No one knows how they knew where to find the body, or if she even screamed, but she was found through the morning fog hours later, broken on the jagged rocks below,” he said, “her pink dress stained red and the waves plastering her hair to the stones as her dead eyes stared up at the cliff above. The last thing she saw was the person who pushed her.”
I tried to lick my lips, but my mouth was too dry.
“They say the team was going to have to forfeit the season under all the media scrutiny and investigation.” He drew in a long breath and exhaled. “They say all the guys who didn’t come from wealthy families were going to have to forego their hopes of athletic scholarships because of it. They wouldn’t go to college.” He paused. “They say the coach would have to be fired and move his family, the prospects of finding another job after such a scandal not high.”
I didn’t know all that. I listened as he went on.
“All I know is,” he sighed, “a week later, Edward McClanahan left a confession on his parents’ kitchen table and then followed her over the cliff. The last line of the confession read ‘We want what we want.’”
I turned my eyes on him as sweat cooled my pores.
We want what we want.
“They say McClanahan sacrificed himself so the season could go on.”
Like he took the blame? He didn’t do it?
“That’s what they say, anyway,” he mused, a gleam hitting his eyes. “But the whispers tell of something else.”
A flutter hit my stomach, and I barely breathed, waiting for him to continue.
“They say she was caught between two best friends—McClanahan, who was in love with her, and A.P., her boyfriend. He wasn’t wealthy like McClanahan, but he was clever. And ambitious. Not someone to be underestimated.”
My interest piqued even more. A mystery.
I liked mysteries.
“They say she was pregnant,” he told me. “They say she jumped.” And then he looked at me again. “They say Edward… didn’t.”
Didn’t jump? So the rumors say Edward was pushed instead?
A smile played on his lips. “They say the note on the kitchen table was a confession, but not his.”
He took another breath and looked out the front windshield again. Everyone revered Edward because they thought he took the fall to save the team’s season. Save some kids their college scholarships and a coach his job.
I always thought it was moronic. Edward clearly didn’t understand all that life could throw at you. He had far bigger things to survive than a scandal.
But I liked the way Will told it. Like nothing was what it seemed, and there was a story waiting to be unearthed.
After all, no one really knew what happened out at the Point all those decades ago.
“I like it here,” he almost whispered. “I like mystery. Sometimes I’m dying to know what happened that night, and other times, I hope I never find out, because it’s more interesting this way. Reality always disappoints.” He turned to me. “I think that’s why I’ve always liked this time of day best. People hide in the dark. They quench their thirsts in the dark. They build their secrets in the dark. We’re more ourselves here than anywhere else. I get to be me...” he swallowed, staring at me, “when nightfall is coming.”
I gazed into his dark green eyes, his whole face enshadowed in the cab of the truck, and I wanted…
Every nerve on my lips hummed, feeling the weight between us like each end of a string tied around him and me, and it kept getting shorter.
I want…
“We want what we want,” he whispered.
I dropped my eyes to my lap, fisting my hands.
And then his voice came again, barely audible, “Come here,” he said.
My heart dipped into my belly, and I could feel him in my hands. I looked at him, seeing him grind the steering wheel under his fist and breathing hard
“Come here,” he said again.
I absently shook my head. “Why?”
“Because I’m your man.”
My heart cracked and splintered, aching with the warmth of those stupid words. Who the hell was he, huh? He didn’t get to decide that someone belonged to him just because it struck his fancy.
And that’s all I was. A passing fancy. He didn’t listen, and he didn’t take no for an answer.
If I let this happen—let him love me and protect me and all that shit he spewed—I’d just be trading one abuse for another.
He’d use me, dump me, and I’d be worse off for it.
I’d be shattered.
“Take me home,” I demanded.
He blinked, but didn’t move otherwise.
I unlocked my door, yanked the handle, and pushed my door open, jumping out.
I’d walk then. Fuck you.
Slamming the door, I heard his open on the other side, and he’d rounded the car and stopped me in my tracks before I even made it to the tailgate.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he barked, backing me up.
“Why did you tell me that story?” I retorted.
“Why do you think?”
“To prove again what I already know?” I yelled. “That Thunder Bay boys always get away with it.”
I stopped, and so did he. “You think Edward McClanahan got away with anything?” he fired back.
I didn’t give a shit about Edward McClanahan! I just… I just wanted… I just wanted to go home!
“I told you, because I like this place,” he finally answered. “I wanted you here with me, because…” He searched for words, his hand shooting to his hair and gripping it. “Because we want what we want, Em! Jesus!”
“Take me home.”
He inched in, his eyes on fire. “No.”
I chuckled once, aghast. Was he kidding?
“This isn’t happening,” I spat out, getting back in his face. “I’m not going to be the one all over you in the school hallways tomorrow in front of everyone. I’m something dirty you hide!”
“Speak for yourself,” he growled. “I think you’re the one ashamed of me. That you want me. That you want this.”
I laughed. “And who told you that? Your secret society of date rapists who advised that me walking away from you the last fifteen times was a ‘signal’.” And I held up my hands, doing air quotes.
He snarled and advanced on me, but then backed away and turned around. He ran his hands through his hair again, and I could see him breathing hard, the vein in his neck bulging.
“I would never stop touching you,” he said, his voice almost tired. “And I would touch only you.”
He turned and looked at me, and he was so beautiful I wanted to believe him.
Raindrops started to fall again, lightning flashing across the sky, followed by thunder cracking overhead.
Out of all the boys in school, Will was the biggest threat. Not because he was handsome or because he was one of the only ones who was ever somewhat interested in me, but because…
He never gave up. Deep down, I loved that, because I was going to be an effort for anyone, and he wasn’t easily discouraged.
Right now, I wanted him to pick me up.
But instead, I circled the truck and climbed in the driver’s side, immediately locking the doors. If he wasn’
t driving me home, I’d drive myself.
Rain tapped against his window, and I watched him come around and stand there, a glint in his eyes at my challenge.
I waited for him to try to stop me, but…he didn’t.
Shifting the truck into gear, I punched the gas and sped off, pulling a quick U-turn as the tires screeched against the pavement.
I sped past him and headed out of the parking lot, not even taking one last look in my rearview mirror.
I turned onto the dark road and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, speeding back to Thunder Bay and gripping the wheel like it was his damn neck.
Who did he think he was? Did every girl just roll over and thank her lucky stars for his attention? Is that where he got such confidence?
I just wanted to go home. Study. Graduate. And leave this town.
I didn’t want anything else!
“Ugh!” I growled, turning up the radio and inching up in my seat because I could barely reach the damn pedals, and it was too dark to try to figure out how to adjust the seat in this stupid truck.
God, where did he get off? He’s all like “Hey, babe. I’m—insert hair flip and surfer boy tone—Will Grayson. Should we like, maybe get together and mate? We can totally honeymoon in Hawaii. I’ll put a stamp in your passport and make all your dreams come true.”
Which of course, we wouldn’t need our passports, because Hawaii was still in our own country!
I growled under my breath, breathing hard as rain fell harder, blurring the road in front of me.
I turned on the wipers, my brain calming a little.
Okay, okay. He wasn’t that dumb.
He wasn’t dumb at all. He would know Hawaii was in America.
And he didn’t say ‘like’ and ‘totally’.
I hooded my eyes, sighing. And he could be kind.
And sweet.
I hesitated a moment, watching the rain really come down now before I slowed on the empty highway and pulled another U-turn, heading back to him.
He was persistent to the point of exhaustion, but…I couldn’t let him walk home in this. I couldn’t do that to him.
Speeding back to the Cove, I turned into the parking lot again and spotted him kicked back on a parking stump, hood up and ankles crossed.
Nightfall Page 16