by Lena Maye
“It was the car’s fault. It seduced me.” I give her a thin smile.
“Yeah, I’m sure it was the car’s fault.” Her eyes slide past me to the passenger seat. “Hello, Kepler.”
“Always a pleasure.” He reclines against his seat and throws on an at-ease expression, but a razor of tension vibrates underneath it. I don’t remember him this tense around Sloane before. Perhaps a few arrests have changed things. Or him being ridiculously high.
“Insurance and registration,” she says to Kepler. “Since I assume this car is yours.”
“I think the best choice—” Kepler digs in the glove box and pulls out an envelope.
I shake my head—as if that will get him to shut up.
“The best choice,” he continues despite my cautioning, “would be to let us off with a warning.”
Sloane snorts out a laugh. “You think that’s the best choice? Then it’s good I’m making the decision.”
“So there is a decision?” I tug on my seat belt and smile up at her.
Sloane’s eyes swivel between us. “This is not a debate.”
“It was my fault.” Kepler leans partway over me to look at Sloane through the window. Tea and cloves—it takes all my self-control not to fill my lungs with him.
I shake my head and give Sloane my best big-eyes. “It was the car’s fault.”
“Don’t punish Jean for the car’s predilection for speed,” Kepler says.
“Insurance and registration,” Sloane repeats. But there’s a ghost smile on her lips.
Kepler hands her the papers, his arm brushing against my shoulder. She gives a cursory glance at the insurance, but it’s the registration that makes her smile fade. “Seventy-thousand-dollar car, eh? Seems like you should take better care of it. Perhaps not take it speeding down twisting mountain roads in the middle of the night. Since it could pay for Jean’s college education.”
Kepler freezes in his seat like Sloane just pinned him with her flashlight.
So, so many questions pop into my head.
“Can we go yet?” I grip the steering wheel. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
Sloane shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Why are you all the way out here anyway?”
Sloane glances behind us. “Got a call about some kids starting a bonfire somewhere off Route 12. It’s my night off, but Andy’s dealing with stuff in town. So I’ve been driving around for the last hour looking for fire and smoke.” She raps her knuckles on the door. “I heard your tires coming up the road.”
“Sounds like a thrilling night off,” I mutter.
“Yours or mine? Stay here.” She waves the insurance card and registration before walking to her SUV.
As soon as she’s gone, I turn on Kepler. “Seventy grand? Did you buy this with some kind of ridiculous credit offer?”
His hand sits on the console between us, his fingers close to my leg. “No, I bought it with cash.”
“I thought you couldn’t be one of those guys who wears their wealth.” It feels like a thousand degrees in the car.
“That’s because I don’t wear it.” He raises an eyebrow. I can’t tell if it’s meant to be teasing or appeasing. “Maybe I drive it?”
“No, you probably smoke it.” I flip on the air conditioning. Which works, unlike the a/c in my car that sputters out something stinky and makes a whining sound. “You lied about that to my sister.”
Sloane’s shoes crunch on the gravel, and she leans in to hand the documents to Kepler. Then she waves a pink piece of paper in my face. A paper with my name on the top and a form below, all filled in with her neat handwriting.
My mouth drops open—which is for show. I already knew what she would do. Sloane doesn’t believe in sisterly exceptions. She gave me a ticket because I’m her sister.
“I gave you forty-four in a thirty,” she says. “You should thank me. And why are you driving anyway?”
Kepler shifts in his seat to shove papers into the glove box. Is everything about this car tiny? Small, cute, and dark. I try not to dwell on the obvious comparison between it and me.
“I’m driving because I felt like driving, Officer Sloane,” I say. “Is that relevant to this citation?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She leans in the car. Her hands wrap around the window frame, and her cop gaze settles on Kepler. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to your face?”
“A minor disagreement.” Kepler resettles in his seat.
Sloane eyes him before turning on me. “Can you please step out of the vehicle, Jean?”
“What?”
“I’d like to give you a roadside.”
“You aren’t serious.”
“Step out of the vehicle, please.”
“This has got to violate some coppy ethics rule. I’m not under the influence.”
She just steps back from the car, allowing me room to open the door. Kepler raises his eyebrows and glances at the road in front of us. He wants to run? He really needs to flip his logic button back on.
“It’s just Sloane,” I whisper. “She’s all bark.”
He rubs his hands on his jeans. “Tell that to my arrest record.”
Me and my thousand questions get out of the car and follow Sloane to the patch of gravel between Kepler’s “just a car” and Sloane’s SUV. Kima stares at us from the backseat.
“Stand on one leg,” Sloane orders. She still has her ticket pad, and my speeding ticket, in her hand.
I oblige while shooting daggers at her with my eyeballs.
“No shoes?” she asks.
“Is that necessary for the sobriety test?”
“Keep your leg up. It’s against the law to drive without shoes.”
“Why don’t you give me a Breathalyzer and get this over with?” Pain prickles over the bottom of my foot.
“I’m not that worried about alcohol. Although I smell beer on your breath.”
“I drank half of a beer. My usual alcohol consumption level.” Which is true. I’m usually too busy with boyfriends to bother with drinking.
“You might be sober, but Kepler’s high. I don’t need to send Kima sniffing around the car to tell me that.”
I plop down my foot and wince at the sharp gravel. “So that’s the reason for the faux-roadside.”
“I can’t arrest him for being high,” she says—quieter and directed at me this time, not at some random person she’s pulled over and yanked out of the car for a roadside. “But he told me he wasn’t smoking anymore.”
“Yes, Sloane. And people are always honest with cops.”
Sloane lets out a sigh so big it’s practically a groan. “He’s a friend. I thought that earned me some honesty. Look, Jean, getting arrested isn’t what you need. And if he’s still…” She waves a hand at the little black car. The swirling lights on her SUV are so bright I can’t see into the windows.
“It’s not illegal.” Why am I always defending Kepler to other people?
“That proves my point. If he’s smoking and lying about it, he’s covering something bigger. He’s got problems.” She glances towards the car. “Is this part of that guy issue you were talking about last time?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not with Kepler.” I squint to see her in the bright lights—they prick at my eyes and leave white streaks through my vision. “Can we just stick to the matter at hand? Give me the damn ticket, and I’ll drive slower?”
“No.” Her hand rests on the hilt of her gun. It’s a habit. She rests her hand there even when she’s in street clothes. Not that I’ve seen her in street clothes in a long time. “You got in someone else’s car and drove recklessly on mountain roads. And that someone has issues—as evidenced by the growing shiner. Did Kepler get into a fight?”
“It was nothing.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Just a stupid guy scuffle where no one got hurt.”
She shakes her head. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re lying too?” Sloane flips her ticket book closed. “K
epler’s hiding something. And if you find out what it is, you need to tell me.”
I chomp down on my bottom lip. “There’s nothing going on. He’s just… Kepler. The same guy you’ve known for years.” I curl my toes, trying to relieve the constant pain on the soles of my feet.
She stares at me. “Who’s his supplier?”
“What kind of a question is that? Like I know that?”
She sighs and tugs on her polyester uniform. “Need gauze for your feet? I’ve got a first aid kit.”
“It’s nothing a warm bath won’t cure. I’m sure the barefoot walk across the blacktop littered with gravel helped.” I turn and limp back to the car, and when my ass hits the leather seats, I let out a breath of relief.
Sloane reaches over me with the ticket. I try to grab it, but Kepler snags it out of the air. Hair falls across his forehead as he raises his hips and slides the paper in his back pocket.
“Slow the fuck down, Jean.” Sloane’s swearing shakes me out of my Kepler-staring. For a second, I think she’s talking about Kepler. Then I realize she’s talking about the driving.
Maybe.
When Sloane’s halfway to her SUV, I rev the car. Kepler raises an eyebrow as I peel out, but he doesn’t seem concerned by the gravel hitting the underside of the car as it careens onto the road.
I hope at least a few little chunks of gravel head Sloane’s way. Not enough to hurt her, of course.
The dark road stretches before us. It’s cut with a double yellow line that fades in and out.
“You own a seventy-thousand-dollar car,” I say after another mile. I should turn around, but heading into Rock Falls sounds like a big ball of claustrophobia, and Kepler hasn’t said anything about going back.
“Yes.” He’s returned to the usual calm expression painted on his features. “Does that bother you?”
“No. I like driving it.” But there’s a lot that bothers me. “But I want the story behind it. How some townie from Rock Falls has it. And why you felt the need to hide it from me.”
“I wasn’t hiding it.” He stretches his legs, and his knees hit the glove box. He seems so much taller in this little car with the way his shoulders are wider than the seats.
“I don’t believe you.” No one knew where he lived growing up. Or how, as far as I know, he’s never had a job but can afford all the weed he wants. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
“Find a spot to pull over.” He rubs a hand over his neck. “And we’ll talk about it.”
I’ve been looking for a spot since we left Sloane, and I’ve already got the turn signal on. Kepler is not getting himself out of this conversation. Even if he is giving me smoldering smoke eyes as we pull into a private outlook over a valley of glittering town lights, under a sky laden with a half-full moon and twinkling stars.
No one else for miles. No one to hear us.
What an excellent spot for kissing.
Damn my brain.
Eleven
The car that could pay for my college education slides into an overlook. I stop under fat ponderosa pines that give way to a sharp cliff. Kepler opens his door and sucks in a breath of air before swinging himself out, the resin scent from the trees filling the car. Getting out of the car doesn’t sound like much fun with my aching feet, but of course Kepler would want to unfold himself. So I shove the door open—only to find him standing right there.
He leans towards me, one hand heading towards my back and the other attempting to squeeze under my knees.
“No way.” I push against his chest. “You are not carrying me.”
“Stop arguing,” he says. “Your feet are injured and everything is covered in pine needles.”
I let his long fingers inch under me. I’m heading down a path of evilness. If I let him carry me once, he’ll think he can do it again. My mind flits to images of Kepler hoisting me over his shoulder and cave-manning me away from some blond boy. Before I can dump the image, I’m pressed against his chest.
“I won’t give in to your Neanderthal desires.” I squirm against him. Oh, soft t-shirt and strong arms.
“You never do.” There’s a hint of laughter. It makes me smile and resume my squirming. But soon the squirms become a wiggle. Then a twitch. Then I’m relaxing into his chest as he closes the car door with his foot and carries me to a small grouping of rocks that edge the cliff. He sets me down on a rocky seat farthest from the edge—not as gracefully as he picked me up. Maybe the green’s still affecting him.
I scoot myself forward along the rocks until I’m sitting with my feet dangling over a craggy valley that plummets down. A short tumble below my feet, a limbering tree stretches out its branches like a hand waiting for someone to jump into its palm.
Kepler inches himself onto the rock next to me.
No guy has ever carried me anywhere. More significant and disturbing, I kind of liked it. Although I’ll never admit that to Kepler. “Don’t fucking do that again.”
He chuckles, and I want to bury myself in the sound. It’s not a smile, but it’s something.
He glances down at our dangling feet, his hands plastered flat against the rock he’s sitting on. An animal scratches in the trees, but the mountain night is quieter than usual.
“Do you realize this is the first time we’ve been alone together?” Kepler asks.
That can’t be possible, can it?
As I think back on it, he might be right. There was always someone around our house—Sloane or my father or one of my mom’s boyfriends. There was always the feeling of someone else lingering. Even in the past few weeks, it’s been parties or the library. Except for a few minutes alone in the car, which feels entirely different than this stretch of earth and trees that don’t know the meaning of time.
“Why do you think that is?” he asks in the low tenor that reminds me of every inch of my skin.
He shifts on the rock, and I count the centimeters between us. He’s so present next to me—solid and sure. One of those hands moves to rest behind me. His shoulder behind mine. His closeness is a drop in pressure.
Is he going to kiss me again? This isn’t swirls of lust mixed with anger at some college party. This is something else. Something new that makes my breath catch at the same time it expels.
“Never seen shoes before?” Kepler’s voice is low and close to my ear.
I jerk up.
He swings his Adidas-clad feet. One shoe untied, the other with laces tucked carefully in. I swear the guy couldn’t be more of a contradiction if he tried.
Long fingers press against my lower back before smoothing a path up my spine to the nape of my neck. His gaze is casual and interested. I’m a science experiment, and he’s evaluating what his touch will do.
His tongue rolls over that wider bottom lip, and I lean forward a dangerous centimeter.
His fingers track a small circle on the side of my neck, just below my ear. “I have no expectations.”
I laugh. I don’t believe him. I bet he has a million expectations.
“Well, I have expectations,” I say.
“Care to enlighten me? Or should I figure it out as we go along?”
I shrug, feigning an indifference I don’t have. “You claim to be intelligent. I’m confident in your ability to figure it out.”
This time it’s Kepler who slides forward the dangerous centimeter. “Unfortunately, my genius is confined to things like physics and math. As much as I’d enjoy applying a little Schrödinger equation to you, I think you would somehow defy the laws of quantum mechanics.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Most definitely.” There’s something beyond certainty in his answer. He chuckles that beautiful sound.
“Ouch.” He presses the back of his hand to his lip, and when he takes it away, there’s a smear of blood. “Can I admit a secret?”
“Depends. Is the secret that you’re some skeezy drug dealer who hangs outside the elementary school gate and that’s how you own a car that cou
ld pay for my college education?”
He raises a sexy eyebrow. “That doesn’t happen to be my secret.”
“Then do tell.”
He glances over his shoulder, his voice fading as he stares at the offending, beautiful thing. “You seem very focused on an inanimate object. It’s just a car.”
“Said like someone with a spare seventy thousand dollars hidden behind torn jeans and well-worn tennis shoes.”
“Nothing’s hidden.” He pats his front pocket, where I’m sure that joint still lingers. “I don’t hide as much as you, Lo.”
I tense. I don’t know what I hate more: the way he calls me that name or that he’s right. But he’s hiding too, and I won’t let the questions go. “Why don’t you want me to see where you live? Because you’ve got a drive-up druggie window?”
“It’s nothing like that.” The clench in his jaw works steadily as he stares down the cliff. I can’t tell if it’s just about me or if the height has him on edge too. “My grandfather was an inventor. Green energy stuff. I inherited… I live in his house.”
The man who dropped Kepler off at school every day in an old powder-blue Lincoln. They would sit in that car with words swinging like a pendulum between them in a steady rhythm. It reminds me of conversations I had with my father. And what it’s like to lose someone. “I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m never sure what to say for things like that.
He nods. His gaze finds trees and sky in this jumpy pattern that says so much more than words.
“My grandfather was the steady one.” He crosses his legs at the ankles. The shoelace dangles. “With the way my parents would come and go.”
I don’t know much about Kepler’s parents—other than a vague memory of his mother’s disapproving glare.
“What does that mean—‘come and go’?”
His eyes flit to me, but there’s nothing casual in the movement. “You understand the phrase, right?” The bite in his words makes me lean forward.
“Yes, I understand the phrase.” I keep my words quiet and closed. I’m not looking to start an argument. Wait—that’s progress, right?
But I’ve never been a girl to back away from a conversation. Unless it’s about myself, of course. “Where did your parents go?”