Happenstance 2 (Happenstance #2)(4)
Author: Jamie McGuire

A line formed between his eyebrows, and he turned to face forward, slamming the gear into reverse. He was unhappy with my response, and quiet, lost in thought while he drove to the vacant lot of the former pizza place. Everyone else was already standing at the brick wall, getting supplies out and ready when he pulled in and parked.

“This is new for me too, Erin,” Weston said. “I didn’t care if Alder dumped me. I didn’t worry every night that when she left for college, I might never see her again. All of these bizarre, awful, amazing things are happening to you, and it would be completely understandable if you said you didn’t have time to try to make this work with me…and I’m crazy about you, Erin. Do you have any idea how much that freaks me out?”

“You wanna talk about being freaked out? You already know that my mom is a good cook, because you’ve already dated her daughter. You’ve probably had sex in the room I sleep in. You know my house and my parents better than I do. I’m living someone else’s life, Weston. So tell me more about how you’re afraid of getting dumped.”

I gasped and covered my mouth. He exhaled like I’d just punched him in the gut.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry I said that.” My hands muffled my shrill words.

He shook his head, rubbing his bottom lip with his index finger. “There are no rules for this. I might have deserved that. I don’t even know.”

“Nobody deserves that. Your feelings are just as important as mine. We’ve both been through a lot. I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for him.

He switched off the ignition and turned to pull the door handle. A jolt of fear went through me.

The door opened just a few inches, and then he paused. He turned and wrapped me in his arms. The tears I’d been holding in all day finally escaped in streams down my cheeks.

Mrs. Cup rapped on the driver’s side window, and we both turned to see the top of her head. Weston pushed open his door.

“Come on, you two. You’ve got work to do.”

I wiped my eyes with my sleeves, nodding.

When we climbed out of the truck with our paints and brushes and walked over to the wall, several pairs of eyes glared at us. If we had been anyone else, detention or at least a stern talking-to would have ensued. There was something about being an Alderman, or a Gates, or a Masterson, or a Beck. Rules didn’t seem to apply to people with those last names. Not in Blackwell.

Chapter 2

FRANKIE PRACTICALLY MASSAGED THE SOFT SERVE INTO THE blue-and-red cup in her hands. Even though she filled it with the perfect amount of ice cream and then tossed in the precise amount of strawberry sauce and bananas, she was absently chatting away about her kids and their weekend.

“I woke up with not only gum in my hair, but also two boogers and a Popsicle stick. I mean, only me, right?”

My eyebrow arched, and she shrugged, dipping a waffle cone in chocolate dip cone sauce. She stared at it for a moment until she was sure the chocolate was dry, and then shook the Blizzard concoction inside the cone without even a smear of white on the chocolate.

“Will you ever tell me your Blizzard waffle-cone-making secrets?” I asked.

“What’s the point? You’ll be leaving me soon.”

I frowned. “I still have four months, thank you very much.”

Frankie held the cone out the drive-through window and then slid the glass shut. “You don’t need the money anymore, Erin. Go be a kid. Enjoy the rest of your senior year.”

I made a face. “I haven’t worked this long to have to ask someone for money.”

“They’re your parents, Erin. That’s what kids do. And it’s okay. You deserve it.”

“I understand what you’re trying to say. I still don’t want to depend on someone else for money. Not even Sam and Julianne. Besides, I may or may not miss you.”

“Aw,” she said, flipping the OPEN sign. “I hate you.”

“I hate you too.”

The sound of Weston’s Chevy rumbled behind the shop while we restocked and cleaned.

“I kind of miss you turning me down for rides,” Frankie said.

“I kind of miss you barely asking because you know I’ll say no.”

“Why do you let him and you never let me?” she asked, wiping down the soft-serve machine.

“He lets me drive,” I said with a smile.

She held out her hands and let them fall to her thighs. “You could have driven my piece-of-crap Taurus! All you had to do was ask!”

I chuckled as I followed her out of the storeroom. “’Night, Frankie.”

“Good-night, Erin. Hi, Weston!” she said with a wave.

Weston waved back to Frankie, and then looked down to me, his elbow resting against the red paint of his door. “What?”

His maroon-and-white baseball cap was turned backward, pieces of his brown hair peeking out. He’d already had a shower, and I imagined his Old Spice body wash—which was now my favorite smell—would probably hit my nose the second I climbed into my seat.

His cheeks were flushed, and his slightly pointy nose was still a little shiny from being freshly scrubbed. The pair of emerald pools that sat within those long, dark lashes smoldered against his tanned skin.

I used to steal glances of him as often as I could, and now I could stare at him for as long as I wanted. He’d said a few times now that he loved me, and it wasn’t a recent epiphany. Weston Gates had loved me since we were kids, and all that time I probably loved him too. I just didn’t recognize it for what it was because I couldn’t. There was no hope then. And there he was, sitting high above me in his jacked-up truck, the glasspacks announcing to the world that he was at the Dairy Queen to pick me up from work, and it was becoming a normal thing. For us and everyone else in our tiny town.

“You’re not going to say sorry again for earlier, are you?” he asked, clearly not wanting to rehash it.

“No, I was kind of hoping we could stop out at the overpass before you take me home.”

He beamed. “Oh yeah?” Before I could answer, he disappeared, leaning over to pull the handle of the passenger-side door and push it open. His face popped back into view. “Hop in, babe. I’ve got a Fanta Orange in a cooler in the back with your name on it.”

I walked around and climbed in. “You’re so romantic.”

He pulled me closer to him and rested his hand on my thigh. “You’re welcome,” he said with a teasing smirk.

After a quick peck on my cheek, he pressed on the gas and pulled out onto Main Street, making a quick left to head to the overpass. Our overpass, as he called it.