Page 28 of What He Always Knew

But she was smiling. That was a win.

“Stripes,” she deadpanned. “As in, the car game we used to play when we were in college.”

“The one and only.”

It was a road trip game we played, mostly when traveling to parties off campus or making our way across country for spring breaks. Any time you saw that stripes sign, you called outSTRIPES, and everyone whodidn’tcall it first had to take off an article of clothing. First person to call stripes three times won, and everyone else had to strip completely at that point.

Charlie laughed, crossing her arms as her eyes found the road in front of us. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not playing that. I’m thirty years old,” she pointed out. “And you’re thirty-one. We’re adults.”

“So? You still have great tits, and I want to see them. Strip.”

Charlie’s jaw dropped again and I belly laughed, tossing my head back before meeting her eyes with a challenging gaze.

“Did you just say I have nicetits,” she said, but already she was laughing, too. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that. Ever.”

“Well, it’s true,” I confessed. “Now, are you going to strip, or is my girl backing out of a challenge because she’stoo old?”

Charlie laughed incredulously, her arms still crossed as she shook her head at me. She opened her mouth to argue again, but then simply closed it before she leaned up and stripped off her socks from her feet. She’d already taken her boots off earlier, and she sat back with one eyebrow cocked, popping her feet up on the dash.

“There,” she said. “Happy?”

“I mean, I would have much preferred the shirt, but I’ll take what I can get,” I teased.

Charlie chuckled, looking out the window again as her now-bare feet bopped along to the song on the radio.

She was peeking out of her shell, and I knew I had to make another move while I had the chance.

I slipped my phone from the center console, thumbing through it until I found the song. OnceAin’t No Mountain High Enoughstarted playing, I tapped the plus volume button on my steering wheel, watching Charlie as I did.

At first, she didn’t respond, other than to cast me a confused glance as to why the music was suddenly so loud. But as the melody floated in and she recognized the familiar intro, she smiled.

“This always makes me think of the summer before our senior year,” she said. “Remember? When we all drove up to Erie?”

“I do,” I said. “Ready for the duet?”

She scoffed. “Oh,please.Like you’ll sing. I tried to get you to for years and—”

But before she could finish the sentence, I was already belting out Marvin Gaye’s first verse, and for the third time, Charlie’s mouth hung open.

I finished the first verse, using my right hand to grip an imaginary microphone as I tilted it toward her.

But she didn’t sing. She just gaped.

“Come on, don’t leave me hanging,” I said as Tammi Terrell’s part faded out. I sang Marvin’s next little part, still holding the microphone for her to jump in, and then, just before the chorus hit, I saw another sign.

“STRIPES!” I called out, and then I pulled the microphone back, belting out the first part of the chorus as Charlie whipped around just in time to see the sign pass by.

She turned on me, mouth open in a surprised smile, but she only paused a moment more before she ripped her shirt over her head and spun it around like a rodeo rope as she joined in on the chorus. We both laughed our way through the words, though I was more than a little distracted now that her simple, nude bra was exposed. My hand drifted over with the microphone, but as she leaned to sing into it, I dropped down lower and cupped her breast with a squeeze.

Charlie swatted my hand away, still laughing as the second verse kicked in, and then she threw her hand up and pointed out the window.

“STRIPES!”

I’d seen the sign, too, but not before her. So, I held the wheel steady with one hand, stripping out of my sweater before peeling it off that arm and tossing it toward Charlie. She caught it on a laugh, and then the second chorus started.

We sang loud and entirely off key, but neither of us cared. And when I looked over in the passenger seat, I saw Charlie — all of her.

I saw her when she was nineteen and nervous, her hands tucked between her thighs in my old Pontiac.