Play On - Michelle Smith Page 0,33

wipe the tear stains away, but I grip the steering wheel instead. Friends. She wants to be friends. Rein it in.

“Austin.” She looks at me, one corner of her mouth turned up in the tiniest hint of a smile. “Are you going to stare at me all night, or take me somewhere?”

My heart leaps into my throat. I’d be perfectly happy with staring at her all night, if she’s giving me her permission. “Are you okay?” I ask.

She inhales deeply, looking back to the windshield. “Honestly? I’m kind of a mess tonight.”

Yeah, I can’t resist anymore. Using my thumb, I wipe her cheek, clearing it of a tear that slipped from her eye. “You say you want some quiet time?” I ask. Head still down, she nods. “Then I know the perfect place. But you have to trust me.”

She buckles her seatbelt, finally seeming a little more relaxed. “I do.”

Those two words sound better than anything I’ve heard in a long time. Trust is something that’s earned. I’ll take trust any day.

I hit the gas and drive through the caution light, taking us past the county line. It only takes a few minutes for us to leave civilization behind, surrounded by nothing but trees and the open road ahead of us.

“You’re not kidnapping me, are you?” she asks. “Taking me out to the woods to slice and dice me?”

Called it. I flash her a grin. “Told you that you’d have to trust me. But if you want peace and quiet, this is probably the best place in a twenty-mile radius to get it.”

“I feel like we’ve already driven twenty miles.”

I chuckle. “Not even close. Lean back, kick up your feet, and relax. You’re not used to backwoods drivin’, are you?”

With a smile, she rests her head against the window and closes her eyes. “No. This is a first for me.”

It takes everything in me not to stare at her, but I’d rather not drive this truck into a tree. By the time the road turns into the familiar dirt path, the moon shines brightly ahead of us. I slow down. The sound of rocks crunching beneath my tires takes my nerves down a notch, same as always. There’s not much that beats that.

“Austin?”

Except for her voice. Marisa looks around as I park by the pond’s edge, beneath the massive oak tree. And immediately, I regret coming out here. This place holds a lot of memories, memories that have no business attacking me while she’s in my truck.

“Wow,” she breathes, leaning forward to look out the windshield. “The stars are amazing tonight. They’re like little diamonds. There have to be millions of them.”

For the first time tonight, her face is peaceful. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Sometimes the best remedy is a few minutes out in the middle of nowhere, away from everything. Being alone with an old dirt road is better than therapy. It’s one of the few things I’ll miss about this place in the fall. I have a feeling there aren’t too many dirt roads in Columbia.

“Do you come out here a lot?” she asks. “Since it’s so far out?”

And the lump’s back in my throat. I used to come a lot. Jamie and I would drive here when we wanted privacy for certain things, but I’m not about to tell Marisa that. “Not really,” is my answer, and at least it’s mostly the truth. It has been a while. Crap on a freakin’ cracker, I really shouldn’t have come out here.

“Crap on a cracker?” Marisa says. “That’s new.” Wide-eyed, I turn to her slowly. She shrugs with a small smile. “And you can tell me that you used to bring your ex out here. It’s okay.”

“Sorry, what?”

She kicks her feet up on the dashboard. “Don’t worry, I’m not psychic. A little psycho once in a while, but not psychic. I just don’t think you realize you’re saying stuff out loud sometimes.”

I shake my head. There’s no way. Jay would’ve called me out on that a long, long time ago. “I think you’re full of it. I think you’re hiding some psychic mumbo-jumbo up your sleeve.”

“I’m tellin’ you, you do it all the time.”

My jaw drops. “You just dropped a ‘g.’”

She narrows her eyes. “Huh? No, I didn’t.”

“You definitely just dropped a ‘g.’”

“Maybe you should focus on the fact that you talk without even realizing it.”

I can’t even be embarrassed because that was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever heard come