Lee X reader - Bones And All

16

We ended up parking beneath a highway bridge. Lee brought some blankets for the back of the truck. The more time I spend with Lee, the more he starts to grow on me. I often find myself staring at him and him looking back at me. But I need to stay focused on other things. He not my number one priority. Yet.

"It'll be cold tonight, but if we keep this truck, we'll get a sheet of plywood for back here." Oh I didn't know he wanted to make some renovations to the truck. But he's keeping it as far as I know so he might as well.
"What's in Kentucky anyways?" I realised I never got the chance to ask him that.
"My sister. I promised to give her driving lessons before she has to take her test. She's a good kid." It's nice to know he cares about his sister.

"Do you get home often?"
"A little bit. I left when I was sixteen. Dropped out of school." Oh Jesus. I wonder how that happened.
"How come?" He doesn't answer me and so I don't push him to. Instead he says,
"There are other ways to get an education. As it turns out."

After some time, Lee falls asleep about a foot away from me respecting my space. I pause my reading and look at him for a bit, taking on all his features: his wavy hair, his sharp jawline that I'll never get over, his long lashes and full brows. I'd hate to admit it but I'm jealous. He's quite literally perfect. I almost want to reach out and touch him just to check if he's real. Almost.

I put my book down and look up at the underneath of the highway bridge and am thankful that I could make a friend after going through all of this.

It's the morning and we take a car ferry over the Ohio river. We had the radio on and it was a man preaching. I was listening to what he was saying but then Lee was leaning on the windshield. I wasn't paying to much attention to him, I was mainly focused on the radio man.

"Can you jump stations?" Lee asks me.
"I like what he's saying." I tried to listen to what the radio man was saying but Lee interrupted him again.
"What, you got baby jesus in your heart?" I didn't like the way he worded the question.
"No... I mean, I don't. But that doesn't mean this isn't comforting." Which, to me, it was.
"It's not comfort, it's bait. The best bait in the box." What was he waffling about now? Can he not just tune it out or something if he didn't like it so much.

I heard him let out a chuckle that pulled my attention from the radio man once again.
"I got picked up in Little Rock... for selling cigarettes. They didn't have any spots in the country jail so they made me go to one of these fucking church meetings. A guy there raised his hand and talked about doing it with another guy and getting HIV from it. First time out. He was in bad shape." He gestures to his skin.
"Like a fucking leper, basically. He said he thought he was rotten... you know, rotting away. And you know how they comforted him? They booked him out of the room. They couldn't even forgive him for that. What the hell would they think of us, for the stuff that bleeds, huh?"

I stay quiet for a second thinking about what Lee just told me. Poor guy.
"There are hypocrites everywhere."
"No. Our great Heavenly Father wouldn't want us on our best days. Hell, our real fathers didn't..." I look at him. That comment stung considering I left because my dad abandoned me. He looks back at me.
"Or are you gonna run away from a loving home?" I haven't had a chance to talk about my situation. But I didn't want to so I found it difficult to answer him.
"I didn't run away." But for what it was, my home was fairly loving, until he left.
"Look, I'm not trying to start anything. I'm just saying what I think. You would have, eventually. I can't promise that, but I believe it. We can't stay. I haven't met a single one of us who stayed."

I take in his words and consider them but begin to focus on the Kentucky shore appearing closer and closer.