Page 24 of Wild Like Us

Akara turns to me. “Why do you think you won’t have another boyfriend?”

“I don’t trust people that easily,” I say, resting my chin on my knee. But really, I’m thinking,maybe because the guys I like are the ones who don’t even want me.

“You’ll trust someone enough again,” Akara encourages, but his Adam’s apple bobs, and I wonder if he’s hoping I won’t. I always had the feeling that he didn’t love Will Rochester when I started dating him, but he never told me to break up with him either.

My insides twist. “I’d rather just be friends with you two than ruin that with some virginity thing.”

Akara nods tensely.

Banks barely reacts.

I just take both responses as the damage is done. We’ve crossed the Rubicon, and there’s no turning back. Not even Akara’s “shake the hand, reintroduction trick” could really change that.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

I’m headed to Montana, and this endless car ride is going to be four-fifths full ofawkwardtension that I can’t erase.

Akara eyes the road as a paparazzi vehicle hugs too close to us.

I buckle my seatbelt and pick up my tablet again.

“Take the next right and circle around,” Akara tells Banks. “We’ll lose the last one and then you can jump onto the freeway.”

“Right on.” Banks swerves to catch the next turn.

I tune out their security talk.

“Shit, it’s blowing heat again,” Akara says after a minute or two, but he doesn’t fiddle with the vents. We’re all just sitting in an uncomfortable swelter, which is not all my Booger Baby’s fault.

I break the quiet. “We’re still headed to REI?”

“Yep,” Banks says.

“Alright, good.” I try to focus on the checklist, but I can feel their eyes ping to me every so often. My neck is burning. My face is burning.

My whole fucking body is burning.

Concentrate, Sulli.

Right, we have to pick up more supplies before hitting the official road to Montana. I have most of the climbing gear—stuff I picked up from my parents’ house last week—but I didn’t want to grab the camping equipment. My mom would ask questions, and I’d spill every last detail. Hell, Istillwant to spill even without her asking.

“Fuck this heat,” Akara complains as he pushes his hair back with two hands and then reaches for the vents again. I think he’s being kind by not sayingFuck this Jeep.

I barely glance up. “I can take her into a shop once we’re in Montana.”

“I’ll just take a look at her,” Banks says to me, and he catches my eyes in the rearview. “My ma’s a mechanic. Spent my teensworking in the shop with her.”

I knew he had the skills, but didn’t know how he got them.

“That’s cool that you did that with your mom.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Yeah, I didn’t see it like that until I got older. Back then, I didn’t have a choice, really. Needed the money, and I didn’t want to work as a busboy like my brother.”

His brother is going to marry my cousin.

The fact rolls up to me now and again. Sometimes I wonder if it’d complicate anything between me and Banks. So far it hasn’t, but I guess we’re not much of anything anyway.

“Weren’t you a lifeguard?” Banks asks me.