He gives me a sidelong glance. “No.”
My eyes roll, and I turn to check the back seat. “My navy bag?”
“It’s more of a sky blue.”
“Okay, well, I already guessed the sky.”
“You did.” He nods.
I peer around the vehicle, wracking my brain. I should have known he’d trick me after what I just pulled on him. “Did we pass a blue house or a blue barn or something?”
“No. It’s in the car. And it’s one of my favorite things.”
“You’re full of shit, Gervais.” I flop back, crossing my arms, trying not to pout but failing.
His eyes meet mine again and stare just a beat too long. “No. I’m not.”
This time it’s my hands that fly up, right as warmth blooms on my cheeks. “Okay. I guess I’ll keep things fair and give up. I don’t know.”
This time when he talks, he doesn’t look at me. He stares at the smooth road like there’s something remarkably interesting there. He swallows, and I watch the column of his throat work beneath the stubble. “It’s your eyes.”
I go very, very still. “My eyes?” I repeat stupidly. I heard him clearly. I just didn’t expect that to be his answer. Not even close.
He shrugs like it’s nothing. “Yeah. A robin’s egg is more accurate. Remember when we were walking to the river that one time and the shell fell out of the tree in front of us? You were so excited about there being baby birds, and I remember picking it up and looking at you, thinking that it matched almost perfectly.” He chuckles when he finishes his sentence, like it’s just a friendly walk down memory lane. But inside, I’m the one who’s spinning now.
I clear my throat and suppress the swirling feelings. “Yeah. Violet and I checked on those robins every day. If we climbed the opposite tree, we could see into the nest.”
He smirks. “You two were always climbing trees.”
I smile and drop my chin to my chest. “Yeah. We were always trying to spy on you guys. Or eavesdrop. Once, we saw all of you skinny dipping in the river. Violet wanted to stop after that because she said she’d never recover.” I hadn’t felt the same, but then, I hadn’t been looking at my cousins.
My eyes were stuck on a nineteen-year-old Jasper, who was home for the summer from playing junior hockey. A nineteen-year-old Jasper who looked like he spent all his free time working out.
The same man barks out a laugh beside me. “I think she recovered.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I think she did.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t get that one.” He’s teasing me, oblivious to the effect he has on me—but that’s nothing new.
That would never happen.
I scoff and reach across to poke him in the ribs, smiling when he flinches. “How am I supposed to look at my own eyes?”
“Most people use a mirror.”
I poke him again and he snorts.
“Use the mirror, Sunny. What color do you think they are? Tell me that isn’t robin’s-egg blue.”
Pushed toward the center console, I peer into the rearview mirror. They’re blue. But so are the circles under my eyes. The vein that no concealer can ever really cover. So is the way I feel inside right now if I really reach down and dig my fingers into that stone at the bottom of my gut. “They’re just blue, Jas.” I flop back. “And I look tired.”
“They’re not just blue.” He says it like it’s fact and not his opinion.
My stomach flips.
And then I deflect, not wanting to linger in these memories for longer than necessary. Not wanting to face all the shit I’ve opted to run away from. Not yet. I launch back in. “I spy with my little eye . . .”
We play several more rounds.
But we play the baby version, and neither one of us calls the other on it.
12
Jasper
Jasper: Any news?
Harvey: Nothing. If I hear anything, you’ll be my first call.
Jasper: Okay.
“I think we should stop for the day.”
We haven’t been on the road for long, but I feel the tug of sleep at the center of my forehead like a weight that wants to push my eyes shut. It’s only gotten worse since the world’s most awkward game of I Spy fizzled out and left us sitting in silence.
All I can hear is the hum of tires against the road. It’s a white noise machine at this point.
Robin’s-egg blue. What was I thinking? It’s just so easy, so reassuring, to fall back into those memories. Sometimes I wish we could go back. It was simple then. I wasn’t recognized everywhere I go. Beau wasn’t missing. She wasn’t running from her life.
But me? I’ve always been running from mine, trying to escape attention.
“Okay.” Sloane looks at me a little too closely, and I raise one hand to bend the brim of my hat, like it might prevent her from seeing me. Because it’s always felt like she looks at me in a way I can’t hide from, like she sees a little too much. “You alright? Want me to find a good place to stop?”
“Yeah. I’m just . . . honestly, Sloane, I’m just really fucking tired. I was all gung ho to leave and now that I have, I’m exhausted.”
“I could drive for a bit?” She says it lightly, but we both know she knows the answer. She’s the only one who knows that whole story, every dirty detail. Everyone else has bits and pieces, but with Sloane, I laid it all out. She was too young to really understand, which I think meant she was too young to judge me.
I sometimes wonder if she judges me now.
I keep my eyes peeled on the rocky rises of the surrounding mountains, so tall and ominous you can see them from the city. We’re well in their midst now, traveling through the rolling yellowed foothills and into the jutting peaks capped with pristine snow. “No. Not with the load we’re hauling. You don’t have any experience with that.”
Her eyes narrow, and I feel it more than see it. “And you do?”
One of my shoulders pops up. “Not recently. But yeah, I’ve hauled plenty of loads of hay in the summer when I was younger. You don’t live at Wishing Well Ranch and not become a full-blown country-boy.”
She doesn’t respond, instead she pulls her phone out, thumbs flying across it. I see a call come in and the screen flashes. Sterling. She quickly declines it and keeps searching.
“You ever gonna talk to him?”
“There is a town called Rose Hill coming up that has a hotel by a lake. Looks pretty.”
I nod. “I know it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We had a dry land training camp there once. Beautiful spot. How far does it say?”
“Thirty minutes. Turn off at Junction 91.”
“Okay. I just need you to keep talking to me.”
She straightens in her seat. “Okay. What do you want to talk about? Should we trash talk your coach for forcing you on leave?”
I grumble out a laugh. “No. I already asked you a question.”
Her head swivels away from me to glance out the window, and she taps one thoughtful finger on the tip of her nose. “I forget what it was.”
My lips flatten, and my palms tighten on the steering wheel. She’s lying, but that’s okay. We both have secrets we keep. “I asked if you were ever going to talk to him.”