It was no wonder she felt like I was turning into Alder. I sounded a bit like her in that moment.
Frankie cocked her head and blew her bangs away from her face. “I know. You’re right,” she said, shaking her head. “Your whole world is spinning, and I’m feeling sorry for myself because you have a gallon of paint on your hundred-dollar jeans, and you haven’t even mentioned it.”
I looked down. “These aren’t that expensive, are they?”
She nodded.
Horrified, I stared at the Skittles-colored denim. “Why didn’t Julianne say anything?”
“She bought them for you?” Frankie deadpanned. “Of course she did. You’ve been shopping at the secondhand store your entire life, like the rest of us. Why did I think you’d know what you were wearing?”
“How do I get paint out of jeans?” I asked, scrambling to wet a clean rag. It was too late though. The paint had dried.
“So, what is it like, not having to worry about anything?” Frankie tried to cover the bitterness in her voice but failed.
“I still have worries. Sam and Julianne still have worries. They’re just different.”
“How so?”
“Basically, they’re the same worries you have, except for paying for things. They worry about me. They worry about the future, about their friends, about work—stuff like that. Having money doesn’t make the hard stuff go away.”
“Wait for it,” she said, holding up one finger. “I might be shedding a tear for rich people everywhere.”
I threw my rag at her, trying not to smile. “What I meant by what I said earlier was that my life has been split in two—then and now. This was a huge part of my life before Sam and Julianne.”
“And Weston?”
“No. He’s the only thing that’s part of both. He’s the bridge that carried me over.”
“You did the carrying today.”
“I owed him one—or fifty.”
We continued cleaning, only waiting on a half-dozen customers before closing time.
“Ride?” Frankie asked, for old times’ sake.
“No, thank you,” I said without mentioning the obvious.
“Adios, bitchachos!”
I waved to her and sat in my car, laughing once and shaking my head. I pushed the ignition button, and the engine growled awake. I wasn’t scheduled to work again until after graduation, and even though I was going to miss Frankie and the Dairy Queen, it wasn’t my safe haven anymore. That was now my house, my parents, and Weston. Those all made me feel protected and secure.
Thoughts of Weston, Sam and Julianne, Gina, Frankie, and how much everything had changed swirled in my mind as I drove home, but it was no accident that I bypassed the Aldermans’ house and went straight to the Gates’ home.
Weston’s truck was parked in the street. The days were getting longer, so the setting sun was casting pink and orange hues onto his cherry-red paint. I crawled up into the bed of the truck and popped the lid off the cooler in the back. After sloshing my hand through the ice water, I settled on a Fanta Orange. I pulled the can out and then plunged my dripping hand in for another.
The neighbors must have gotten a new puppy because a small German shepherd bounced and barked behind the fence next door as I followed the curved sidewalk connecting the drive to the front door. I hadn’t been this way too many times. I usually came through the garage with Weston.
The lit doorbell button blinked when I pushed it, and cathedral-like bells began to ring in a formal melody. A few moments later, Veronica opened the door with a warm smile and tired eyes. After a second of recognition, she took a step back, opening the door wider, and gestured for me to come in.
“He’s downstairs,” she said, looking down at my paint-covered clothing.
“It’s dry,” I promised.
“I should hope so.” Amusement undermined her efforts to retain a scolding tone.
She cupped her hip with her palm and shook her head as I walked past. I easily navigated the path to the finished basement. With each downward step, familiar fluttering in my stomach amplified. It wasn’t gravity pulling me down the stairs. It was an irrefutable force that had been borne in the bed of a red Chevy truck and fostered in a pair of emerald-green eyes. I wondered if the light-headedness that came over me when I was about to see Weston would ever stop feeling quite so powerful, and it occurred to me how devastated I would be if that day ever came.
Halfway down the steps, Weston’s face came into view. He was sitting on the couch, his torso twisted, his back facing a paused episode of a reality show. His elbow pinned down a small throw pillow next to him. He was paint-free, his skin shiny and red from scrubbing.
“Hey,” he said, watching me walk all the way to the front of the couch.
Before I could respond, he grabbed me and pulled me down until my back landed on the cushions. He planted a warm wet kiss on my mouth. His hands were beneath me, squeezing my body against his, while he searched my mouth with his tongue. I knotted my fingers in his hair and parted my knees, letting him settle in between them.
When he finally pulled away, we were both breathless.
“Sorry,” he said, his eyes still focused on my raw lips.
“What was that about?”
“You smell like ice cream,” he said simply, brushing a piece of hair from my face.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
The hunger in his eyes flattened, and he sat up with a frustrated sigh. “Fine, Erin.”
My body followed him with my hands perched behind me. “What did I say?”
He looked over at me, and then his expression softened. “I’ve been asked that about a hundred times today.”
“What happened?”
“Something about dehydration from the new bronchodilator. It happens to a fraction of a percentage of people. Just a freak occurrence. I’m really fine. Two bags of saline, and I’m golden.”
“Two bags?” I noted the evidence on his hand—a Band-Aid partly covering a new bruise.
Weston targeted the corner of the room where the wall met the ceiling, his jaw flitting under his five o’clock shadow.
“Why are you so angry with me?”
“I just want to talk about normal stuff. You make me feel like an invalid. I’m not dying.”
“I can’t be concerned? You were taken to the hospital by an ambulance a couple of days ago.”