by JK Cooper
Bubba grinned widely and patted the seat next to him. Sadie rolled her eyes and closed the door, sitting as far away from Bubba as she could—all two inches. They backed out and headed down the road.
“Kale,” Bubba said, “you got my girl Beyoncé?”
“For sure,” he said, pulling it up on his phone. Soon “Deja Vú” pumped through the speakers.
“Country-pop to hip hop?” Shelby asked. “Anything real on that phone?”
“What?” Kale said. “You don’t like Beyoncé’s female empowerment?”
“Empowerment?” Sadie scoffed. “Is that what wearing as little as possible means now?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Bubba said. “She can get empowered around me anytime she wants.”
“All right then, Shelby, you choose,” Kale said.
“No, it’s fine. I doubt you have anything I like. I’m strange with music, I guess. It’s all good. It’s your car.”
“Not from what I saw earlier,” Bubba said. “Shelby, girl, where you pick this loser up from, anyway?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out, actually,” she said.
“Hey now,” Kale said. “Can’t we all just get along?”
Bubba shook his head. “Nah. You do not get to say that, man. You can’t quote Rodney King. Nope. Ain’t never gonna be Momma’s fried chicken for you again.”
“Your momma would rather have me over for dinner than you. You know it.”
“Maybe I oughtta just bust you in the head.”
Kale looked at Shelby. “He hates it when I’m right.”
She smiled, her interest piqued. Time to dig a little. “Is that a common occurrence?”
“What?” he asked.
“That you’re right?”
“Oh, this is gonna be good,” Bubba said, settling into the back seat like he was at a movie. “You got some popcorn in here somewhere?”
“I’m only right when I am, I guess,” Kale said.
“Oh? How often is that?” Shelby asked. She felt the mischievous smile starting to spread across her lips.
“All the time!” Bubba blurted. “You can’t tell this boy nothin’!”
“Good to know,” Shelby said with a wicked grin.
“Well, feculence! Can we stop by the store and pick out curtains for you two on the way back?” Sadie asked. “You’re all making me sick.”
“You say the sweetest thangs,” Bubba said, looking dreamily at Sadie.
“I’m kinda feeling sick now,” Sadie said.
“Kale let Shelby drive his truck,” Bubba said.
Sadie’s chronic look of near-grossed-out disappeared, replaced by disbelief. “Shut up!”
“Truth, girl.”
“Why is that such a big deal?” Shelby asked.
“Because the only thing Kale loves more than football is this truck,” Sadie said. “. . . except I guess, apparently you.”
“Dat’s more truth right there,” Bubba said.
“Damn straight,” Sadie said, giving Bubba a fist bump that exploded, then she covered her mouth.
“Little slip, Swearing Sadie?” Shelby teased.
“I don’t love this truck more than football,” Kale said.
Shelby looked at him as he drove. What about me? she almost asked, but stopped herself. Instead, she turned to Bubba and Sadie. “Wait, you two are all buddy-buddy now?”
At the exact same time, Bubba said “More than that,” while Sadie said, “So disgusting.”
“But you’re missing the point,” Sadie said. “Kale Copeland let you drive his truck, the T-rex.”
“Raptor,” Kale corrected.
“Unbelievable,” Sadie said. “Still missing the point.”
“Momentary lapse of reason,” Kale said. “I assure you.”
Shelby turned in her seat toward him. “Are you quoting Pink Floyd?”
“Who?”
“You said, ‘momentary lapse of reason.’ You know, the 1987 album?”
Kale raised his eyes to the rearview mirror. “You know this Pink Floyd guy, Bubba?”
“Nah, homie, but he sounds like he know you, talking lapse of reason and all.”
Shelby rolled her eyes, her hopes that Kale knew some good music fading.
They arrived about fifteen minutes later at a turn off and pulled onto a dirt road through a cut section of the barbed wire fence. It didn’t seem like there was anything but sagebrush and cacti where there were headed. Two other cars followed. A few hundred feet later they stopped at a large clearing. The place was obviously a popular hangout, with old fire pits and soda cans strewn about. A couple beer bottles, too, but maybe they were just IBC root beer bottles. Some other kids were already there—maybe a dozen—with a bonfire blazing and music pumping. Country, of course. Awesome. Shelby sighed. It was Texas.
This time, Kale did get Shelby’s door for her. Sadie made a point of exiting before Bubba could get his bulk out of the truck to even attempt to open her door for her.
“Why’s it gotta be like dat?” Bubba called after her.
Shelby broke out her phone and sent her dad a drop pin of their location. She didn’t need to because the Find My Friends app was always running in the background, but she did it anyway as a way of connecting to her dad, letting him know she was safe.
“Wow, he makes you do that?” Kale asked.
“No. I just do. Habit.”
Kale seemed to understand, and Shelby was a little annoyed by what she perceived to be pity on his face, but she let it go.
The crescent moon rose bright and clear in the cloudless night sky. Shelby met new people and was regaled by stories of the past school year as well as warned of all the teachers to watch out for. Kids sang and danced, kicking up sand around the fire. Shelby had never imagined people in cowboy boots could move so fast. She utterly failed at making s’mores, much to Sadie’s delight. The marshmallow dropped from the metal prong to the sand in a gooey mess of blackened, sizzling sugar.
“If you can’t even cook a marshmallow, how can I trust you?” she asked.
Shelby still ate the chocolate, of course.
Near 10 p.m., the fire burned low, and the atmosphere mellowed. Kale and Shelby sat together on a blanket, arms resting on their knees, staring into the red coals and yellow flames. What was he thinking about? Did he know about the whole “bonded” thing? Would he try to kiss her? Sadie said maybe the bonding only happened after a kiss. Did she want to him to try?
“It can be so mesmerizing,” Kale said. “Fire, I mean.”
“You a little pyro, Kale Copeland?”
“Nah.”
They were silent for another minute before Kale said, “So, this is kinda strange, right?”
“What?”
“Us.”
Us. Was there an us? She wanted to tell him all that she had felt, all the emotions that had swum through her since meeting him, how she yearned to never be apart from him; but words failed her. How could she even begin to express how she felt without sounding like a complete psycho? It had only been one day! Just more than twenty-four hours! But, didn’t he already know how she felt? She had seen his reaction at dinner last night, sensed his longing for her when they locked stares.
“Shelby,” Kale spoke, “I’m trying to figure out how to . . . how to say what I’m feeling. I just can’t come up with the right words.”
“Me either,” she said softly and leaned her head on his shoulder. He smelled so wonderful, like a forest just after the rain.
“I was hoping you could explain it.”
“Nope.”
“When I met you last night . . . no, even when I just came in the house, before I saw you, I had this rush of . . . just . . . something. It has to have something to do with our . . . other sides.”
“I know,” she said.
“Come on, help me out here,” he said. “I’m floundering.”
“You are.” She reached up and wrapped her hands around his arm, her head still on his shoulder. Her hands barely made it all the way
around his biceps and triceps.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I’m just trying to understand this intense feeling you make me feel.”
“No, I meant flex for me.”
He looked at her, then down at her hands on his arm. “I’m not.”
Shelby smiled. “Sure you’re not.”
Kale looked away for a second then flexed his arm briefly, the muscles going rock hard under her soft touch.
“Not bad,” she teased. “My dad could still take you.”
Kale laughed. “Yeah, he might be the only human that sort of scares me. So, why are you here? I mean, what brought you here?”
“You and your T-rex truck.”
“I’m going to kill Sadie.”
“I cussing heard that!” Sadie called from across the fire, maybe fifty feet away.
“You were meant to!” Kale yelled back.
“You’d have to catch me first.”
“She’s right about that,” Kale said to Shelby. “You’d think she’d join track. That redhead is the fastest wolf I know.”
Shelby noted that tidbit with interest.
“So, really, why did you and your dad come here?” Kale asked. “There must have been something that drew you here.”
We’re done discussing the “intense feeling” already? She’d have to work on his focus.
“My mom told my dad what to look for, I guess. Hints and clues, he always says. He doesn’t share much more than that.”
“You mean like to find a pack?”
“I guess.”
“Well, whatever it was, I’m glad you’re here,” Kale said, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
“Are you always this dramatic?”
“Only when I’m floundering.”
“Home,” Shelby said and lifted her head from his shoulder.
Kale looked at her, the firelight reflected in his dark eyes.
“That’s what it feels like,” she said. “The feeling I get when I’m around you, like I’ve known you for a thousand years but I’m still only just discovering you. Again. Or something. Like I finally belong and . . . wow, I sound really, really stupid. I’m sorry. I’m not a freak, I promise.”
“Floundering,” Kale teased softly.
“Pathetically,” Shelby agreed.
They stared at each other, only a few inches separating them, but those inches suddenly felt like miles. Kale reached his right hand to her cheek, softly caressing it and pulled her toward him. Her breathing became unsteady, the nape of her neck suddenly moist. It was too soon, her mind told her, too fast. She couldn’t, not yet. She should be terrified . . . but she wasn’t. Not around Kale. There was no logic to her desire as she stared into the eyes of this boy she had only met yesterday. He had a faint scar above his right eye, something she hadn’t noticed until the orange glow of the bonfire had hit it just right. In a fleeting thought, she wondered how it had happened. More than that, she wondered how his lips would taste.
Just before the tension in the charged air around them became unbearable, her lips touched his. Everything changed. They were warm and full, firm but inviting, and sent a jolt of warm lightning racing through her body. His scent, musky and male, filled her as she buried her fingers in his hair to draw him closer. She traced another hand delicately down his jawline.
The roughness of his face, the day’s growth of whiskers just starting to be noticeable, made her want him even more.
The world around her melted away as everything she thought she knew shattered to pieces and then was rebuilt anew, reforged into something grander, something more graceful and pure. Inhibitions fled as she deepened the kiss. Within her, a connection opened—something supernal—a force, both scalding and biting cold, reached out beyond her soul and found him there, in some distant ether. Kale. Except that wasn’t who he was, not his real name. He was a part of her and she of him, a bond that extended back past the millennia, to a realm that predated anything she knew, where they had once been one. In this sublime vision of this faraway but somehow familiar ether, she saw that a rupturing had occurred, splitting their . . . what was it even called? Substance? Spirit? Oneness? Whatever it was, whatever had happened eons before to separate them, they had found each other.
Her eyes stung, and she broke the kiss. Sucking her lips into her mouth, she savored the taste as she tried to regain her wits. Her eyes blinked tightly, trying to ward off the sting. It had only been seconds. Kale exhaled heavily. His eyes glowed with amber flecks, and he turned away, fighting the same urge she fought. Oddly, she could feel him fighting it and knew that he could feel her doing the same.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Don’t be. I’m not.”
“Did you—”
“Yes,” he said. “I felt it. I know you. I don’t know how but I know that . . . that I . . .”
“Love you.”
Kale looked back to her. “Wholly and completely.” A love flowed from him that filled her, and she reciprocated, sending it forth to him through the bond that had been forged by their kiss. Not words, more: a depth of emotion springing up from an unknown but bottomless well.
All fear left. Uncertainty, anxiety, doubt, worry. Gone. Only the brilliance of a love she knew to be uniquely theirs remained and it filled her.
“Hey you two, get a room!” Sadie yelled.
Oh. Right. There were still people around. How annoying. “Hey fly honey,” Bubba called out to Sadie from the far side of the dying bonfire, “you just jealous. I got enough love to warm even your cold-hearted self. Come on over here, and I’ll show you.”
“Not gonna happen, Tubba.”
“C’mon, now! Why’s it gotta be like that?”
Kale took Shelby’s hand, interlocking their fingers. His very touch a caress to her heart. Tenderly, he kissed the back of her hand.
“This is like . . . fairy tale stuff,” Shelby whispered.
Kale smiled. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“Obviously, but I still don’t believe in it.”
“So, it’s real, but you don’t believe in it. Got it.”
“Shut up, Kale Copeland. I’m trying to figure it out.”
He kissed her again, only for a second, and as some of the same feelings as before resurfaced, her mind went blank.
“Thanks,” she said, “that’s really not helping.”
“You’re complaining?”
She shook her head. Just then, her phone buzzed. “Crap. It’s my dad.”
“What time is it?” Kale said, looking at his own phone.
“Almost 10:15. I gotta go.”
“What did his text say?”
“‘Don’t make me send out search and rescue.’”
“You sure it didn’t say ‘search and destroy’?”
Kale speeded down the road, not wanting to get Shelby home late from their first date. That would certainly not do a lot for the trust of her father. Still, the thought of being apart from her now was difficult to process. But that bond between them . . . would he ever feel apart from her completely again? He didn’t think so.
Their hands interlocked as he drove, resting on the center console. The truck’s engine roared as he pressed down the accelerator and Kale smiled. There wouldn’t be anyone on this long desert road. Time to let the Raptor open up a bit.
“Man, we gotta have some tunes, homie. Feel?” Bubba said. “This silence is killin’ me.”
“What do you want to hear, Shelby?” Kale asked. “Your choice.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Someone pick something, sweet Lord above,” Bubba said.
“You sound like your mom,” Kale said.
“Leave my momma out of it, boy.”
“She’s putting in adoption papers for me. She tell you? Yeah, letting you go and taking me in.”
“Watch, no blocking for you on the field tomorrow. Watch. You gonna go down flat ten times, minimum. I�
�ll let my boy Jarvis know. Watch.”
“You love me, Bubba.”
Shelby asked, “You have any old Genesis? Before they got all commercial?”
“Who?” Kale, Bubba, and Sadie asked in unison.
“Or early Chicago? When they were still experimental?”
“What language she speakin’, Kale?” Bubba asked.
Shelby took Kale’s phone and started flipping through it. “Anything embarrassing on here I need to know about?”
“Nah, all my pictures of Bubba’s mom got deleted.”
“Always playin’. Always got jokes,” Bubba said. “Watch. Tomorrow. You’ll see.”
“Ah, here we go,” Shelby said. “Pandora. Let’s see . . . Jethro Tull station. Perfect.”
“Thick as a Brick” started playing through the Bluetooth connection, and Ian Anderson’s melodious flute tones soared. Everyone in the truck looked at Shelby.
“What?” she asked innocently. “You gotta expand beyond Beyoncé and Taylor.”
“Eh, your girl human?” Bubba asked.
“Maybe half,” Kale said.
Shelby turned to see Sadie in the back seat with a look of “uhhhh” on her face.
“That’s cold, man,” Bubba said. “You can slap him, Shelby. I’ll protect you from him.”
“Like you protect me on the field?” Kale asked, catching Bubba’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Bubba squinted and pointed ahead of them.
“What the heck is that?” Bubba asked. ”In the road.”
Kale saw the spike strip too late and plowed right over it. The steering wheel jerked ferociously in his hands, but with an iron grip he steadied it and carefully brought the truck to a stop.
He pulled on the door handle and nearly leaped out of his seat to survey the damage but Sadie beat him to it.
“All four,” she said. “Shredded.”
Kale ran a hand through his hair. “This was deliberate.”
“Really? I thought coming across a strip of tire spikes was completely normal,” Sadie said.
Up ahead of them, maybe fifty yards, headlights came to life on the shoulder of the road followed by the sound of an engine. Sadie ducked, going down to one knee.
“Easy,” Kale said. “Just wait.”
Shelby opened her door.
“No,” Kale said. “Stay inside.”