Her eyes softened, and her cheeks colored. “I would have,though.”
Before Jacques could respond to that promising remark, the car behind them let out a blaring honk. He jerked back around. The light had changed, and they were holding up traffic. Hitting the gas, he let himself feel the slow slide of warmth that ran down his chest at herwords.
He glanced at the mirror. Rainey was leaning back again, her eyes closed. Now was not the time to ask her out. But he would. In a day ortwo.
Traffic choked as they approached Johnston Street, and Jacquesslowed.
“I need a distraction.” Her voice came out thready andtired.
He smiled. He’d thought she’d fallen asleep because she hadn’t moved. Her eyes remained closed, but the corners of her mouth tipped up slightly as she apparently waited for him torespond.
“Want me to turn up the music?” he asked, putting his fingers to the dial, the low, somber notes of a cello following those of aguitar.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’ve never heardthis.”
He hadn’t heard the Los Campesinos! song in while, but he warned her anyway before the vocals started. “It’s kind ofintense.”
She kept her eyes closed. “Turn itup.”
So he did, hoping the mood of the lyrics wouldn’t be too much for her. The depression. Thefrustration.
He listened to the words, not singing along this time, though he’d memorized the lyrics years before. He’d play the song on his guitar up in his room again and again. The tension building and building until he could scream thewords.
“This thing hurts…like…hell…
BUT WHAT DID YOUEXPECT?!”
Her eyes were open now,but she wasn’t looking back at him. She was listening intently, as the cymbals crashed and the voices rose, picturing, he imagined,“a thousand years in perfectsymmetry.”
He had to bring his focus back to the road, so he couldn’t read her face anymore. He could only relive what the song had meant to him in his late teens when he was still so angry at his parents. At both of them. And he would play songs like “One Step Closer,” “Gray Street,” and “Enter Sandman” to leach the anger from hisbones.
As the song wound down, she spoke up. “What’s it called?” Her voice carried reverence and wonder. He knew what that feltlike.
“‘The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future’ by LosCampesinos!”
He glanced back and watched her eyebrowsclimb.
“That’s some title.” She dug around in her backpack purse and came up with her phone. “What was itagain?”
He told her, and he heard her tapping on herscreen.
“Thanks.” And a moment later. “There. I boughtit.”
Jacques pressed his lips together to keep his smile in check. He wished he had his guitar. He felt the sudden urge to play his whole repertoire for her alone. His playlist flipped to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” and shegiggled.
“You have great taste inmusic.”
This, coming from the daughter of Doc Dylan Reeves, gave him a head rush. The girl was born into music. For all he knew, she was a musician herself. If she were, what would it be like to play withher?
“Take your protein pills and put your helmet on…”she sang softly from the back seat. The sound of her voice was sweet, delicious, and he found himself chuckling under hisbreath.
Even delirious with exhaustion, she wasadorable.
He sang along quietly as they coasted down Johnston Street. And a few minutes later, he realized he was the only one singing. Jacques glanced back to find Rainey Reeves completelyout.
When he stopped at the light at Camellia Boulevard, he nudged down the volume of Melanie Martinez’s “Training Wheels.” The sound was a perfect lullaby, but he was afraid the prick of music box xylophone might wakeher.
She was still asleep when he pulled into the driveway of the rustic modern house on Oakview. Jacques put the car in park and set the emergency brake. She didn’t wake. Then he killed the engine. A hushed stillness fell aroundthem.