Tourmaline

Chapter Nineteen

"Where are we going?"

He shushed me. "It's a secret."

"If you're planning to take me out with your friends again, I politely decline."

"I'm not."

He glanced over at me, his fingers tapping absentmindedly on the driving wheel.

"You know, you never told me about that Matt guy," he said, changing the subject.

"You mean Wyatt?"

"Sure."

I thought about it for a moment. I straightened my back, folded my legs beneath me in a criss-cross fashion, and opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out. I realized that I had almost forgotten about Wyatt.

"It's a pretty underwhelming story," I said slowly.

"Enlighten me."

"Well," I began, "we dated for two years. He cheated on me at a party."

"You've told me that."

I sucked my teeth. "If I'm going to tell you something personal, I want you to tell me something in return."

"Gladly. As well as being a part-time mini-mart cashier, I'm also a part-time stud."

I suddenly remembered when he had told me about his numerous list of past girlfriends, and what had happened when I opened his glove box while we were trekking to the treehouse.

"Right. Do you still have two hundred condoms in your glove box, or are those all gone by now?"

He shifted uneasily. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would," I teased. But I didn't. The last thing I wanted was physical evidence of Brent's vigorously active sex life.

"Well I'm afraid that's off the table," he said.

I didn't press on.

"What was it like with Tate?" His voice softened instantly, sounding more like a boy's than his own.

"You really want to hear about Tate?" I asked.

He shrugged, trying to play the topic off as casual.

"He was..." I struggled to find the right words. Misunderstood? Moody? Rough around the edges? "...alright. He had a fair share of bad traits with his good ones, if that's what you mean."

This time his voice shrunk even more. He brushed his fingers to his lips awkwardly. "Do you miss him?"

"Yeah, sometimes I do." I didn't miss all of him, but I did miss his good parts--his ambition, his unwavering confidence. 

Brent nodded and cleared his throat, and that was the end of it.

I leaned down to rifle through my bag, which lay in a crumpled heap on the floor of the truck. I fished out a CD and popped it gingerly into the disc slot. Music began to ring throughout the car and I rolled down the window to blend the song with the cool rush of wind caressing my ears, my face, slipping through my fingers.

"What is this?" He asked, furrowing his brow in distaste.

"Beirut."

"That's the capital of Lebanon."

"It's also an artist."

"I don't like it."

"I don't care." 

I looked at him, silently challenging him to complain again, but he didn't say anything after that. Silence settled over us, though it was a comfortable silence. Sometimes quiet felt better than noise with him.