His heart pinched a degree at that. He and Sky once would have ridden together doing something like that. “Then it’s another first for us.”
She glanced up at him. There was no way she couldn’t know what he was referencing: Here atop a mountain evoking thoughts of that night after prom, when they’d shed their virginity like she’d shed that pretty dress. He wouldn’t complain if he ended up beneath Skylar’s dress tonight, and hell if he couldn’t get his mind off of all his dirty thoughts, but he didn’t have any expectations. Tonight was about connection. And reminding Skylar that he wanted her now just as he’d wanted her then. If he could override his hormones’ autopilot should things get heated between them.
He backed the truck up to the overlook. No one else was there, even though there was a row of gravel parking spaces. He unplugged his phone and pushed out of the truck, placing the phone, still playing, in the bed as he folded down the tailgate and opened Skylar’s door for her, withdrawing his fleece blanket, washed and returned to his emergency kit. She climbed out as he scooted the Grizzly toward the tailgate, opened the lid to offer her her choice of drinks, when her face lit up again.
“Listen.” She scrambled for his phone, turned up the volume a few clicks.
It was their song. Those Randy Travis vocals began singing about forever and amen. Her hand snagged his. “God, I haven’t danced these steps in ages…”
He froze. Skylar, in the midst of trying to remember the two-step foot pattern and hopping off-step more than once, laughed at herself, when she seemed to realize he wasn’t trying. His jaw tightened. Shit. He couldn’t even walk evenly, still had to hold a handrail going up and down stairs. Why in the world would she think he could dance?
“Do you remember, Trav?” She looked up at him, waiting.
He swallowed. Don’t ruin this moment, man. But he had no idea what to do or say that wouldn’t make him look weak or make her feel bad. Could feel those talons of self-doubt cripple him by the second. Old Travis would have whisked her right off her feet. Would have laughed doing it. Probably would have teased her about something, just to get her to smile at him. Old Travis wouldn’t have been ashamed of his foot.
He pushed his smile on his lips and took up her hand, placing his other at the small of her back. He was overthinking it. If he had to stumble like an idiot just to keep the smile on her face, that was what he’d do.
“It’s been forever.” He chuckled, a little too cheerfully. “I haven’t danced this since we were eighteen. Let’s see.”
He tried to remember the foot pattern. But he was only making it awkward. He remembered the steps, but making his foot comply with his brain’s commands seemed to have a disconnect. Her smile fell at his uneven shuffling, and despite his best effort, his jaw wouldn’t unclench. She slowed, then finally stepped back, pushed her hair over her ears as if nervous and thoughtful, her eyes fixed on his leg and foot.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking, Trav.”
Goddammit, he was ruining a beautiful, spontaneous moment.
“That’s precisely why I wanna do it. You were happy, and you weren’t thinking, just doin’.”
“I’m still happy.”
She smiled again, then wrapped her tresses up into a messy knot atop her head and snapped a hairband off her wrist to tie it in place. Containing their free spirit. Putting that carefree happiness that had reemerged tonight back into a box where he was starting to suspect it stayed locked within most days. She then dragged out an oversize plaid shirt, thread-worn, from the passenger seat, slipping it over her shoulders. Don’t cover up, babe. It was as if she was withdrawing an inch again. When had Skylar’s mannerisms become so hard to interpret?
“I haven’t danced since we were eighteen, either,” she confessed, as if trying to find common ground with him, and drifted to the cooler.
She rummaged for a drink as the song played out, swallowing herself in the old shirt.
A wistful smile pulled upon his lips, and yet she was being careful now, tiptoeing around his injury and around what had just happened. He hated it. His brothers tiptoed around it. His pops, always so damned forthright, putting pressure on him before his army stint, hadn’t tiptoed afterward—he’d given a wide berth and stopped pressuring him about anything, heaping all that pressure down on Toby’s shoulders instead. Another reason he sensed Toby resented him.
Tonight was supposed to be fun. He’d never wished so hard that he didn’t have a disabled leg like he did now. If it weren’t for his injury, he wouldn’t have failed Skylar’s expectations—
“Come sit beside me.”
She picked up his blanket and flung it open with one hand, her bottle of sparkling water in her other hand, then tried to tug the corners until it was fairly straight. Why? His pulse ratcheted up a notch as she hoisted herself onto the edge of the bumper and then the tailgate, the muscles of her thighs flexing right at eye level, and climbed across to sit on the blanket.
She leaned against the back window and patted the empty space next to her. He climbed up the tailgate, fished out a bottle of root beer, and dropped down beside her, his knee popping, to overlook the mountain dropping off feet from the tailgate to stretch over the desert expanse.
“How’s your family?” she asked, taking his hand in hers and holding it, taking a sip.
So platonic. Shit, he’d almost rather try to dance again than talk about that.
“You must go home to see them often. Is Toby still at home, or did he finally grow up?” she joked.
He grinned and shrugged noncommittally.
“What does that even mean?” she prodded, nudging him with her shoulder and flashing her eyes up at him. “I swear Brandon shrugs like that all the time so he doesn’t have to give a direct answer to anything, and it’s like I’m trying to communicate with a brick.”
“I haven’t been home in some years,” he replied, huffing a laugh, duly chastened.
“Really? Why?”