I watch Jorgen walk to the back of the shed and swing open two big wooden doors. Dust goes flying every which way. I can see its particles hanging on the sun’s rays, though Jorgen doesn’t seem to notice it so much.

He walks over to the passenger’s door then and pulls on it. It comes open but not without a noisy squeak.

I peer into the cab. Inside, the seats are vinyl, and the same cherry red as what’s on the outside of the truck covers the inside too, including the dashboard. And there’s a big steering wheel on the driver’s side made wholly out of metal with what looks like a small doorknob fastened to it.

I climb onto the seat, and Jorgen gently closes the door but then gives it a good, forceful push until it latches. Inside the cab, I notice there’s a long shifter coming out of the floor and only two little metal knobs for the radio. Out of pure habit, I reach for my seatbelt, but I don’t feel anything. I look above my shoulder and notice the reason why I don’t feel one is because there isn’t one.

Jorgen hops in behind the wheel a minute later, and immediately, my eyes fall on him. I watch him reach up above his head and pull down the visor. A keychain with one key attached to it falls to his lap.

“Theft not so bad here, I guess?”

He looks at me with a wide grin.

“Not so bad,” he confirms.

He sticks the key into the ignition and purrs the engine to a start before backing out of the shed and onto the little dirt path that leads to the blacktop. From the big side mirror, I can see the dust trail that’s left in our wake.

So far, this trip has yielded a string of firsts for me — my first train hopping, my first ride in Ol’ Red, my first look into Jorgen Ryker’s life. It’s making me want to stop and stay awhile — even if it is just to see what this sexy creature beside me is all about.

I use the metal lever on the door to roll down my window. The glass seems to come down in two-inch increments and is all the way down in no time. I stare out the window then and let the warm wind pouring through it hit my skin and toss strands of my hair around my face. The dusty trail still hovers over the dirt path in the side mirror. And the train is still frozen on the tracks. We drive parallel to it for a little while longer, until we take a slight bend in the road and start heading away from it. The turn of the wheel makes an object dangling from the rearview mirror sway slightly to one side. It catches my eye and soon, curiosity claims me.

“What is that?”

Jorgen glances at me and then follows my stare to the mirror before he laughs gently and then sets his eyes back on the road again.

“It’s my dad’s tassel. This was his first car.”

The tassel is a faded red and yellowed white with the number 81 in tarnished silver at the top.

I watch the tassel sway back and forth for a moment before I return my attention to Jorgen. His eyes are still planted on the road. One arm is resting on the ledge of the open window; one hand is barely on the big steering wheel. He looks so comfortable — as if he fits perfectly inside a 1960-something truck with the words Ol’ Red painted across the bug shield. The thought makes me laugh inside, until I catch his finger lift up from the steering wheel, and I’m distracted again. There’s another much newer truck coming at us. I watch as the driver of the newer truck lifts a finger as he passes, and I can’t help but laugh out loud this time.

“Was that a wave?”

He sends a questioning look my way. “Yeah,” he says, before he plants his eyes back on the road.

“Who was it?”

He glances across the cab at me, still smiling, and then shrugs his shoulders.

“You don’t know him? But you just waved at him,” I say.

Suddenly, he beams. “It’s how you tell the insiders from the outsiders, baby. Welcome to the river bottoms.”

Baby? All of a sudden, he has this new air of confidence about him or maybe it’s more like comfort — the kind that makes baby sound so perfectly normal and also so perfectly sexy. There’s a happy, tingly feeling in my chest, but I also feel my eyebrows slightly furrowing.

“The insiders wave…,” I start.

“The outsiders don’t,” he finishes.

“Aah,” I say, allowing my head to fall gently against the back window. “I know all your secrets now, Jorgen Ryker.”

He just smiles. “Just about.”

It’s another mile on the blacktop before Ol’ Red climbs a levee and then wanders down a gravel road. It’s flat on the other side of the levee too, with more fields for miles and only a few houses in view. And one house, in the far-off distance, even looks as if it might be abandoned. Its outside is gray and through its windows, all I can see is a dark and sleepy inside.

We finally get to a long, white-graveled driveway, turn into it and eventually stop in front of a two-story farmhouse. It’s made of wood and painted white, and I think it still has a tin roof.

Jorgen gets out and then jerks open my door. It squeaks again but not nearly as bad as the first time.

“They’re all probably inside,” Jorgen says, helping me out of the truck.

“They?” I try to ask without sounding terrified.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just my mom and my grandma. I’ve just got to run in for a second. You wanna come?”

“Of…course,” I stutter. Of course home would mean meeting his family. I don’t know why that never crossed my mind. I silently put myself back together. I can do this. I meet new people every day in my job. I tell myself it’s just like that as I tug at the bottom of my tank top and try to brush out my wind-blown hair with my fingers.

I follow Jorgen up three concrete stairs to a little porch lined with hanging baskets full of bright red flowers.

“Mom, we’re here.” Jorgen pushes through a screen door.

There’s a room to the left; stairs in front of us; and a hallway to the right. We go right, and I follow Jorgen down the hallway, but an open door to a den-like room suddenly makes me stop. Hanging on the wall, there’s a framed newspaper clipping of the same photo I uncovered of him standing next to the cow. I stop and stare at it. Underneath the frame is another photo. It’s of his sister. She’s wearing a crown and a sash.

“What’d you find?”

Jorgen’s facing me again.

“I just…Is that you?” I feign ignorance, point to the frame and wait for him to walk back to me.

When he sees the photo, he lowers his head and chuckles, then walks into the room.

“That would be me.” He examines the photo more closely. “All one hundred pounds of me.”

I laugh and join him in the room.

“And that’s Lindsey?” I ask.

His eyes fall to the frame.

“Yeah. She was homecoming queen her senior year. You wouldn’t know it by this picture, but she hated every moment of it.”

I cock my head to the side.

“Lindsey’s not really the girly type,” he says. “And I think that’s why she won. Everyone knew that.”

I laugh again, but this time, my eyes catch another photo on the opposite wall.

“Wait, who is that?”

I walk closer to the other frame.

“Jorgen, is this you?”

There’s a little kid in the photo. He’s maybe four, and he’s holding a fish that’s almost his size.

“Yeah, my first catfish.”

“Is that your dad?” I point to a man in waders helping to hold up the fish.

“Yeah, I think he was more excited than I was. Don’t let him fool ya; he’s a sentimental old fart.”

I stare at the photo some more and then glance back at Jorgen. “You were cute.”

“Were?” he asks. He’s wearing a sideways smirk, and it’s as sexy as hell.

I playfully roll my eyes. If he only knew.

He walks closer to me and takes my hand.

“Jorgen, was that you?” A woman’s voice echoes through the hallway, but for a moment, it does little to faze Jorgen.

His stare lingers in mine, and all I can think about is kissing him. When I’m not lost in his eyes, I can make up all the excuses in the world for why I shouldn’t just devour those prefect lips of his. But in those eyes…it’s a whole different ball game.