Dani waves to us from the porch, the small light above her illuminating her features, before she disappears into the house, closing the door behind her. I’m still sitting in the car with Jaden by my side, the two of us watching her in silence with only the sound of the heating whirring in the background. The boat at the back of the driveway looks old and dismal.
One hand on the steering wheel, Jaden reaches up and turns on the small light so that he can see me better. His eyes meet mine. “Do I really have to take you home right now?” he asks quietly, wetting his lips. “Because I don’t want to.”
I don’t want him to take me home, either. Not now, not when we’re alone finally. My house is only a few minutes away, and a few minutes aren’t enough, so I give him a small smile as I shake my head. “Take me for a drive.”
He nods and turns the light back off, putting the car into reverse and craning his neck to look out of the back windshield as he backs out of the driveway. I sit in the passenger seat with my hands inside the front pouch of my hoodie and my full attention on Jaden while he heads out of Ponderosa Drive again, retracing the way we came from. I like watching him drive, especially in the dark. His face is shadowed and I stare at his hands on the wheel, at his tight knuckles, at the emboldened veins that disappear under the sleeves of his hoodie, and I sigh, shaking off the urge to touch him.
“Are you ever going to take your dad’s boat out again?” I ask carefully. I would never, ever have brought up Jaden’s parents before, but on Sunday he told me that he likes talking about them, so I figure it’s okay to mention them, despite the fact that I find that hard to understand. In my family, mentioning Grace is unbearable. Maybe it’s because we have nothing to talk about. We only have a name, and even that is enough to send Mom cascading into tears and enough to silence Dad for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s why we’ve never been able to move forward: We haven’t confronted the past yet.
Jaden looks at me, surprised that I’ve mentioned his dad, and then he turns back to the road. “I don’t think so,” he admits. “We own it, and I wanted to sell it, but Dani wants to keep it. I don’t know why. It’s just been sitting there, rotting away for the past year. The insurance ran out and neither of us has a permit to drive the damn thing.”
“I don’t think you should sell it,” I tell him. “I think you should keep it. Your parents loved that boat, and I’m pretty sure they’d want you to use it.”
“I know.” The streetlight briefly sets his face aglow, and I see that, for the first time, he looks sad. He props his elbow up against the door and rests his head on his palm, absentmindedly playing with his hair as he drives. “Do you remember when they took us out on it last summer?”
“Yeah.” I stare out of the windshield at the dark, near-empty streets of Windsor. “That was pretty fun. It was my first ever time on a boat.” Growing up in Colorado, it’s slightly insane that I’d never gone boating until then.
“They really liked you,” Jaden murmurs quietly, and my gaze finds its way back to him again. He’s staring rather blankly at the road ahead as we turn onto Main Street, a small, sad smile on his face, lost in thought. We have to stop at the traffic lights right outside of the 7-Eleven where we bumped into each other a few weeks ago. Jaden chuckles and nods towards it. “I bet they’d be real pleased that we spoke that night. I think they’d be happy we’re together right now—though Mom would probably tell me to keep both hands on the wheel.” Rolling his eyes, he takes his arm down from the door and places his hand back onto the steering wheel. Waiting for a green light, he stares down at his hands and brushes his thumb against the wheel in soft strokes. I watch in comfortable silence, wondering if he’s thinking about them. I know that he is.
The lights switch and Jaden takes the right exit off Main Street, heading northbound. “So why were you really buying that booze?” he asks. He says it playfully so I think he’s trying to lighten the mood, clearly unaware that the subject matter is just as dark. “I once successfully bought beer, so I swear I’m not judging you. Although posing as your mom is an interesting method to use . . . ”
Clearly, my excuse at the time didn’t convince him. I groan and press my hands to my face, partly wanting to avoid the discussion and partly out of my total embarrassment.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, sensing my discomfort, and I flinch when he gently wraps his hand around my wrist and moves my hand away from my face so that he can look at me. He glances quickly between the road and me, trying to pay attention to both, and with his warm fingers still wrapped loosely around my wrist, he grins and teases, “Aren’t you glad I was the one to witness it and not anyone else?”
I just nod quickly at him. I am very aware of his skin against mine and the fact that he isn’t letting go. I adore the feeling of Jaden’s touch after so long, and I love the sense of comfort and anticipation that comes with it. “I’m actually glad you were there,” I murmur after a while, “because otherwise we might not be talking right now.”
“And what a shame that would be,” Jaden agrees. He lets go, his fingers disappearing from my wrist, and moves his hand back to the wheel as he takes a turn. Suddenly, I know where we’re going.
At the end of the street is a small parking lot, and behind it, Windsor’s prime attraction: Windsor Lake. It is the hallmark image of this town, something that we all love. It’s absolutely huge, and it’s surrounded by a trail that loops around the entire perimeter. People come here for walking or biking, and there is nothing better than the view of the Rockies in the distant background. In the winter you can even see the snow on the caps. It’s always busy in the summer, with kids playing on the small beach and people swimming, kayaking, fishing. When I was little, my parents used to take me to the lake a lot. Dad would swim with me in the water while Mom anxiously watched from the sand in panic, even though it wasn’t that deep. I used to hang out a lot with Holden and Will here too, though not so much anymore. We used to ride our bikes around the lake when we were twelve. And, of course, I still remember the long walk Jaden and I took last summer, back before everything changed, when the sun was setting over in the horizon as we walked hand in hand, talking about anything and everything. Every time I come back here it reminds me that Windsor isn’t all that bad.
Right now, however, it’s late and it’s cold. Jaden pulls into a parking bay in the empty lot, facing out over the shoreline. At this time of night it’s just a huge, dark pool of water and the only thing to see is the moonlight glinting off the still surface. We can imagine the view in front of us, because everyone who grew up in Windsor has it ingrained in their minds. It feels nice to be here, knowing there’s so much right in front of us that we can’t see. Peaceful, somehow. Windsor Lake always has been.
Jaden shuts the engine off, and we become part of the silence. I feel almost afraid to breathe. Jaden leans forward and rests his chin on his crossed arms, staring blankly out of the windshield at the darkness in front of us, watching the gentle ripples of water roll around, lit up by the moonlight.
“I come here a lot,” he tells me quietly, his soft voice cutting through the silence. “Mostly at night, because I prefer it when it’s empty. I sometimes just park up right here, or I’ll go for a walk around the trail.”
“To think?
“No,” he says, then inhales deeply, holds it for a seconds, and releases it again. His eyes reflect the dark water. “Sometimes I think too much and my head feels like it might explode, so when that happens, I come here not to think. To just focus on something else, to clear my head.”
For as long as I’ve known Jaden, my favorite thing about him has always been how honest and open he is with me. That, and his adorable little birthmark. I’ve always taken comfort in the fact that he trusted me enough to share things with me and it’s reassuring to know that he still trusts me now, even after all that I’ve done. He can’t say the same for me, though. There are a lot of things I’ve kept from him, things that hold me back from telling him that sometimes I think too much too, that sometimes I wonder if Mom will ever laugh the way she used to, that sometimes I wish I had the answers as to why I never got to meet Grace.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. Releasing my seatbelt, I cross my legs on the seat and pick at the material of my jeans, staring blankly down at my hands. I swallow hard and glance back up at him, my voice shaky as I ask, “What do you do when you miss them, Jaden? Your parents?”
Slowly, Jaden sits back from the steering wheel, pulling one knee up onto the edge of the seat as he looks at me. “I think about the time Dad accidentally hurled a football at my face in the back yard,” he begins, rolling his eyes, “and I think about the time Mom once accidentally food-poisoned us all. And it makes me laugh, because I’m so lucky that those crazy fools were mine.” He shakes his head as he reflects on this, smiling to himself. My heart is breaking in my chest as I listen to him, unable to understand how he can possibly be smiling right now. “But most of the time,” he says, smile faltering, “I try to think of everything they taught me and everything I’ve learned since.”
“And what’s that?” I urge, my voice cracking. Hearing him talk about this is almost unbearable, but I need to hear it. I need to understand him, and I need him to help me understand myself.
Jaden must see the heartache in my eyes, because he leans across the center console and takes my hand in his, interlocking our fingers the same way he did on Sunday. He squeezes his hand tightly around mine and gives me a reassuring smile and a nod to let me know that everything is okay before he answers my question. “They taught me to be a good person,” he says, “and to believe in myself, and to work hard to get to where I want to be, and to look out for Dani, and that it’s okay to mess up along the way because they were always there to forgive us.”
With his free hand, he reaches for the pocket of my hoodie and gently pulls me closer. There are only a few inches separating us as we hover over the center console, his gorgeous blue eyes piercing mine, overflowing with an emotion that I can’t quite decipher. Delicately, he moves his cheek to mine, his lips by my ear. “But most importantly,” he murmurs, and my entire body shivers from the breathy huskiness of his voice, “all of this has taught me not to waste time, because there might not be time. It’s taught me that if I want to do something, then I need to do it right now.” His breath is warm against my cheek, and his lips brush my skin as he lightly trails his mouth along my jawline. “Exactly like this,” he breathes, and then presses his lips to mine.
It’s been a long time since I last kissed Jaden, so it feels like the first time all over again, soft and gentle, slow and long. My eyes are closed, my entire body shivering beneath his touch, until I gradually relax into it, losing myself in the movement of his mouth against mine. Our hands are still interlocked, and his other finds its way to the back of my neck, his fingers weaving into my hair. Slowly, he leans back, tearing his lips away for a split second. Our eyes flicker open at the exact same time, and he’s so close that I can see the detail in his glossy eyes, his lips parted right before mine.
We look at one another for a long moment and I try to process why I’ve been lucky enough to have Jaden Hunter forgive me, to have him give me a second chance, to have him wait all this time for me to come back to him. I may not know why, but I do know that I’m so, so glad that he did.
Smiling, Jaden exhales against my mouth as he closes his eyes again, leaning back in, capturing my lips once more.