He went to run his hand through his hair, feeling all the more exposed when palm met scalp. Over the truck’s radio came the voice of a cartoon bucket of popcorn, which was jitterbugging on the screen behind them. She tugged out a single flower, booped the crushed bud on his nose. Nubby fingernails pinched a petal, let it fall to the floor. Then another. Her voice was too flat to tell whether she was actually flattered or just blunting her digs when she started saying, “He love me, he love me not. He love me, he love me not …”

She paused at the last petal. Where she’d stopped in her fifty-fifty, to-and-fro taunt, only one petal remained between silence and verbalizing what Henry dreaded was the truth. He plucked the last petal himself, popped it into his mouth.

Chewing, he said, “Movie’s starting.”

It wasn’t. The trailers were.

The tailgate dropped with a deep clank. When he twined his fingers to offer her a boost, she ignored it. She hopped up, both feet at once, then stretched her arms as if she’d just stuck a landing off the vault. By the time Henry’d hunkered up into the truck bed, her arms were still spread, only now in an accusatory flap. “You always cruise around with a linen closet?”

As if the roses hadn’t been enough.

“So this your shagging wagon, huh?” she said, starting to pad the truck bed down with sleeping bags. “Big Henry’s fuck truck.”

He couldn’t read her. Did she want an explanation? An apology?

She fluffed a sofa cushion, then plopped on top of it. “A pickup for picking up. Ha.”

“Michelle, I’m—”

She brought an index finger to her lips. Winked. “Movie’s starting.”

This was a nightmare. He was plenty familiar with the agonizing rift between expectation and reality, but even his pessimistic bent hadn’t accounted for humiliation of this scope. As he crawled toward the cab, he noticed the field of cars behind them, all facing him. How many strangers in all those vehicles had been watching him and his meltdown spectacle, far more entertaining than the opening credits rolling on the screen behind him? He situated himself against the other sofa cushion an arm’s length away from her, since he was positive any attempt to approach her would only invite another crack.

Roses. Cologne. A symphony and a truck bed full of cozy-makings. Thank god she hadn’t seen the condoms in the glove compartment. At this rate, it was only a matter of time till that embarrassing discovery was made as well. On top of it all, he’d gotten drunk, sloppy, too slogged down to even try to laugh or shrug off all his dinky stabs at romance.

“Hey,” she said. “Ain’t you cold?”

He was. The Baby Gap T-shirt had been ill-advised on more than one front.

“Then scooch.”