I closed my door quietly and tried to rush past Gina, but she noticed me walk by and sat up.

“Where the hell you goin’?” she asked.

“Riding around. I’ll be back in a little while.”

She sat back against the couch cushions. “Bring me back some cigarettes.”

I nodded and hurried out the door. She would be passed out before I got back and wouldn’t remember that she asked me for anything. Unfortunately I’d only learned that after wasting over a hundred dollars of my own money buying her smokes to appease her.

I stopped in the yard, half expecting Weston’s truck to be gone, but there it was, in the exact spot I told him to wait. His eyes lit up, and he waved. As I made my way to his truck, he leaned over and pulled the lever, pushing the door open.

“Climb in!” he said with a sweet grin.

He wasn’t kidding. I had to use the door and climb up via the running boards to reach the passenger seat. I bounced into the black leather and shut the door.

“Wow,” I said.

He shrugged. “Don’t be too impressed. It was my dad’s.”

“Better than nothing,” I teased.

“Where do you wanna go?” he asked.

I smiled. “Anywhere.”

Weston sucked on the straw of his enormous cherry Icee, and we bounced over the potholes and patches of Blackwell’s roads, listening to the Chance Anderson Band on full blast. Within five minutes, we were outside the city limits. Weston parked at the peak of an overpass that arched over I-35, and we watched the headlights of cars and semis flow beneath us, traveling north and south.

I pushed open the passenger door and walked over to the edge. The rural overpasses didn’t have rails. It was just concrete up to your belly and common sense. A chilly breeze kissed my face, so I turned around, not exactly surprised to see lightning crackling across the clouds gathering to the north.

“I love how the storms always suck the wind into them,” I said.

Weston’s door slammed shut, and he was standing next to me. He drank the last of his Icee, and the straw against the Styrofoam made a loud slurping sound. “I just love storms.”

“So . . . are you going to tell me?” I asked.

Weston could barely pull his eyes away from the storm. “Tell you what?”

“Why you brought me out here?”

He shrugged. He was chewing on his straw, which I found oddly appealing. “Why not?”

“There are a hundred reasons why not. I was asking about the one reason why I’m here.”

“Because I asked?”

I laughed once and looked down. “Okay. If that’s the way you want to play this.”

“I don’t want to play this at all. I just want to sit up here and watch the storm roll in with you, without all the gossip of who’s doing who, and where so-and-so is going to college. Is that okay?”