In Honor by Jessi Kirby

Author:Jessi Kirby
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2012-05-07T23:00:00+00:00

15

The last of the heavy sun dipped behind red-rock mountains, splashing brilliant pink light over the clouds that streaked the sky, and I wished I could capture that moment right there, remember how perfectly peaceful it felt. We’d chugged along slowly since we put the soda in the radiator, and I’d lost my senses enough to take off my clothes. The giggly nervousness (mine) and sneaky glances (both of us), I thought, had given way to a silence between Rusty and me that was comfortable as the day finally began to cool. The twilight spread out and deepened as we drove, enough for Rusty to flick on the headlights. The beams swung around a wide curve in the road, and on the other side of it he let out a long sigh. “That’s it, right down the hill. Almost there.”

In front of us, nestled down between the silhouettes of towering cliffs, were the first twinkling lights of Sedona. A wave of relief and happiness hit me so strong I nearly started crying. “Oh my god. We really made it.” I sat up and looked out the windshield, wondering where his mom’s house was. The prospect of a home with food and a shower was just about the best thing I could imagine at the moment.

“You think your mom’ll mind if the first thing I do when we get there is take a shower?” I was almost giddy with the thought.

Rusty laughed. “She might wanna say hi first.”

“I know that.” I smacked his bare thigh before I thought about it, and he raised an eyebrow, which I chose to ignore. Then the lightness drained from me almost in an instant when I thought about seeing her and having to face the inevitable conversation about Finn. I looked over at Rusty, afraid to ask. “Does she know? About him?”

His jaw tightened when he nodded. “Yeah—” He glanced over at me, then back at the road. “She’s the one who told me.” I opened my mouth to ask where she’d heard, or how, or why she’d been the one to tell him, but I didn’t get a chance to pick out the right question before Rusty slowed the Pala and turned us onto an unmarked dirt road. “House is out here a little ways,” he said. “Might wanna put your clothes on. Bru’ll probably be there.”

“Bru?”

Rusty leaned forward on the wheel. “Her boyfriend. It’s his house.”

“Boyfriend?” There were turning out to be all kinds of things I had no idea about. I looked over at Rusty through the dusky light, trying to add it all up, but he didn’t look like he was going to help me out. “How long have they been together?” I asked.

“I don’t know. A while.”

“Well . . . do you like him?”

“He’s all right.”

We bumped over the dirt, kicking up dust that glowed peachy in the headlights. I watched Rusty carefully, thinking he had to have been here more than a few times to find the road we were on.

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