He pulled his lips away and brushed his thumb softly against my fingers before releasing them. My arm fell listlessly to my side, and my hand was lost. He’d completely seduced it with one kiss. He owned my knuckles.

“So Wes, how do you feel about banging?” Lennon asked tearing me from my euphoria.

“I love it.” Wes grinned back, not missing a beat. I stepped back putting some distance between us, feeling a little embarrassed by the way my body had reacted, and a lot disappointed at the obvious fact that he did not have the same reaction.

Lennon whooped out a laugh and put her fist out to pound his. Wes reciprocated and watched her become immediately distracted and prance away to a guy strumming a guitar on the tailgate of a pickup truck. Awesome. They were like twinsies.

Still chuckling, Wes nudged my shoulder with his elbow. “C’mon C, let’s go hang by my sweet ride.”

“Yep.” I followed his lead, but he fell back and waited for me to catch up.

“So, um…” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and kicked a rock across the asphalt. “Whaddya think?” He waved his hand flippantly in the air.

I smiled over at him. “This is great, Wes.” I felt guilty that I’d never come before. Staying away from Wes used to be more of a priority. I’d have to reinstate that ASAP.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Really,” I reassured him, truly impressed with the turnout.

“Thanks, C.” Wes smiled and suddenly hip checked me. Being much larger than I was, that nudge sent me careening into the car to my right. I landed on the front end with a thud, and my heels wobbled from underneath me, sending my ankles collapsing in on themselves. Before I fell to the asphalt, I grabbed onto a giant headlight in a panic.

Wes laughed. He laughed when I teeter-tottered. He laughed when I slipped. He laughed when he helped me up from my perilous position dangling from a headlight.

“You all right?” he choked out. Ah. He speaks.

“About as all right as I can be after being hurled into a boat,” I said righting myself onto the point of my heels with his help.

“Okay, that’s not a boat. That’s a ’54 Buick Skylark.” Wes gestured toward the car like Vanna White.

“It looks like it has a nose.” I dusted the pebbles off my butt.

“It does, huh?” Wes laughed, staring at my butt. “Most of the Buicks here today have noses.” His eyes found mine again. “C’mon. Let’s take a walk. I’ll teach you a thing or two about some classics.” Wes tapped my butt.

“Wes!” I hissed looking around to see if anyone had seen, but truly trying to hide my panicked blush.

“Shouldn’t we get to your car?” I asked fanning my cheeks from behind him, careful not to catch up until I’d reined in my emotions.

Wes turned before I had the chance and dangled his keys in the air before shoving them back into his pocket. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” I breathed, feeling the coolness of the sea air on my face again. “School me, Wes.”

“Oh, I can scho—” I shook my head and put my hand over his mouth mid crude comment, but not soon enough to stop the eyebrow waggle. Then, there it was, the moist, balmy tickle. Wes licked my palm.

“Eww, Wes.” I pulled my hand away, laughing in disgust, and wiped my hand down my jeans. “That was gross.” His reaction was to stick his tongue out at me and waggle it profusely. My eyes zeroed in on its movements and widened in shock. Then, instead of being disgusted, I became irritatingly turned on.

“So that over there,” Wes pointed casually just ahead of us, and I was thankful, so damn thankful, for the diversion. “Is a Ford Thunderbird. It looks a lot like my Bel Air, but if you know your cars, you can see the difference immediately.”

“Besides the emblems on the front that say what they are?” I asked proud of my recovery.

“Yeah, smartass.” He chuckled lowly. “See the fin on the back?” he asked walking toward the rear of the car. “The Thunderbird’s fin is horizontal. When we get back to mine, you’ll see the fin angles down.”

“I like horizontal,” I said pointing at the Thunderbird. I swore Wes stifled a laugh next to me, but I was immediately taken by the smooth edges of the car and the way the light reflected off the paint.

“How do you feel about vertical?”

“Seems like it wouldn’t be very effective.” Wes snorted behind me. “I mean, I imagine if the fins were straight up and down, they’d catch too much wind.”

“Depends on who’s driving. I could nail it,” Wes said confidently. I bet he could. If anyone could, it would be Wes.

“Okay. What about parallel? Ohhh. Or perpendicular?” Wow, he was really into this, which was kind of cool since I was enjoying it, too. There weren’t many people who I could talk with like this. Well, there was no one I talked to like this. I found that unless you had the mind of an artist, discussions in shape, texture, depth, or anything like that lost people to boredom fast.

We walked away from the Thunderbird and strolled through the aisle again.

“Ummm, I guess, perpendicular? Is that even possible?” I questioned Wes.

“So possible, C. I’ll show you just how possible it is.” Wes’ laugh pitched like a little boy at his response, and immediately, I realized what he was doing.

“Oh, my God, Wes!” I punched him in the arm. “What’s wrong with you?” I scoffed over a hidden laugh. “You’re aw—”

“—some. I know. I’m super awesome.” Wes laughed and draped his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into him. I went willingly and reminded my fluttering heart that this was a brotherly gesture.

“Sometimes,” I grumbled snuggled up in the crook of his arm.

“Just sometimes?” he said aloud. “I guess I’m gonna have to try harder.” He squeezed his hand over my shoulder and ran it softly down my arm tickling up goosebumps. That was so not brotherly.

My nerves kicked up, sending slightly chilled blood through my veins. I clenched and unclenched my fists to settle them and caught a glimpse of my heartbeat through my palms. To my surprise, it wasn’t erratic. It wasn’t pinging off the walls of my chest. It was strong, and it was steady.

“Marilyn!” Wes’ arm dropped when turned toward the haggard voice.

“Heya, Bluebell,” he called over his shoulder and placed his hand on the small of my back, clearly driving me away.

“Awww, c’mon. Find a pretty lady, and we ain’t nothin’ anymore?” another voice shouted up at us mixed in with a deep laughter. “And here I thought we were somethin’ special.”

Wes shook his head smiling and waved the guys off but kept nudging me forward. “Who are they?” I asked, though I was more concerned with why he clearly didn’t want me to meet them.

“Those are the guys from the shop,” he said as he kept ushering me away.

“So why don’t we go say hello?” I pressed my feet firmly into the ground. “Why don’t you want them to meet me?” I crossed my arms over my chest and cocked my eyebrow at him.

“Not want them to meet you? That’s ridiculous,” he said mimicking my stance. “They can be really vulgar and… well, they’re assholes. I thought you might be uncomfortable.”

“Now, that’s ridiculous,” I said unfolding my arms and passing Wes to retrace our steps back to the group.

I put my hand out to the first one, an older gentleman with a long, scraggly beard and long hair tied back into a low ponytail. “Hi, I’m Capri,” I said when he put his warm and calloused hand in mine.

“Blue, sweetheart.” He smiled kindly at me. “This here is Trace.”

I smiled back and shook Trace’s hand. “Nice Mohawk.” I pointed to the blue stripe down the middle of his head.

“Makes him feel taller,” Wes said coming up from behind me and rubbing his hand across the top of it. The height of the Mohawk did add a few inches to his otherwise short and round frame.

Trace batted Wes’ hand away. “Nice of you to show up late for your own event, Marilyn.”

“I’ve been here, shorty. I was showing Capri around.” He flicked Trace’s hair with his fingers.