The answer seemed to satisfy him, and he made his way forward, sitting down next to me on the step. His arm pressed against mine slightly, sending a wave of memories from two nights earlier. It felt like we’d lived a whole lifetime since we shared a sleeping bag.
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s alright. They’re keeping her there for a while to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”
I waited for a beat, eyeing the defeated slump of his body.
“How’d you sleep?”
He shot me a teasing smile. “It wasn’t any worse than camping with you.”
“Hey, I slept great camping.”
“I know. My shirt is still lined with your drool marks.”
I nudged his arm, hoping he was joking.
He looked exhausted. I wasn’t sure why he was still sitting here and not sleeping in his bed.
“So…what did your dad say? Is he going to buy you another truck?” I asked.
A slow and reluctant smile crept across his lips. Slowly, he turned, and without warning, his hands found my hip as he slid me away from him, to the edge of the stairs. Before I could react, his head was in my lap, his face turned away from me, and ever so slowly, his arms wrapped around my legs.
I hesitated for a long moment before I dropped my hands on his head and felt his visible sigh of relief when my fingers began toying with his hair.
“You need a haircut,” I said lightly.
“Not if you’re going to do that.”
The morning breeze lifted the strands of hair against my cheek while my fingers rhythmically strayed through his locks. It was the way he casually clung to my legs that had me not moving an inch. We went on like that for so long that I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. The lower half of my body was growing numb, but there was no way I was moving. If Jake needed me for a pillow right now, then a pillow I would be.
“My dad wants to pay for her medical bills.”
His voice came soft, almost detached in a way. For me, my mind was stuck on all the information I was still missing.
“Wait. What? What did he say?”
“That it wasn’t about me. He had to do it for himself. And for my mom.”
“And you’re thinking about it?”
“Layne thinks I should let him.”
The words sat in the air between us for a quiet moment.
“What do you think?” he asked, as he adjusted his position on my legs.
“You’re the only one who can decide that. But I’ll be behind you one hundred percent, either way.”
“That’s a cop-out answer,” he protested, his hand landing on my knee, squeezing it until it tickled. I squirmed away, laughing.
He peeled himself off of me and sat up, to my great disappointment, and stretched, looking like he needed to collapse on his bed.
“What was it like with him?” I had to ask. I’d been dying to ask that question.
He shrugged. “I really wasn’t in the mood to be talking.”
“What happened?”