He winced. “Ouch.”

I crossed my arms. “Frankie has a long line out there, so let’s get to the point. You’re like a different person. You’ve turned against all of your friends and are hanging out with me, who you’ve barely spoken to since kindergarten. I think it’s fair for me to ask why.”

“I’ve talked to you as much as I could.”

“As you could?”

He coughed into the crook of his arm. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t need you to save me, Weston. I’ve handled things on my own for a long time. I’m not a charity case.”

He frowned. “I never said you were.”

“We’d both probably be better off if you just returned to life as normal, and left me alone.”

He winced, like my words had physically hurt him. “That’s bullshit. You don’t really feel that way, do you?”

“I don’t know how I feel!”

“Neither do I!” he said, wheezing. He pulled his inhaler from his pocket and took a puff. After a few moments, he began again, this time calmer. “I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. And I feel like . . . I feel like you’re the only person in the world that doesn’t expect me to. What I do know is that I wasn’t happy about the direction my life was going until you got into my truck that first night. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Erin. I’m just . . . I’m winging it. I was kinda hoping you would wing it with me.”

Despite every negative thought running through my head, my lips curved up.

He slowly pulled me against his chest and hugged me. His muscles were both soft and hard. My head fit perfectly beneath his chin. We stood like that for what seemed like a long while. He smelled like sweat, but the good kind of sweat. He could have smelled like the weird stuff that was fermenting in the floor drain, and I still would have liked it.

“I better get back up there,” I said, my cheek still against his chest. He was a whole head taller than my five foot three inches, and I was glaringly aware of his fingers on my back, wrapping around to the side of my ribs. We had never been this close, even though I’d imagined what it must have felt like many times before.

He pulled away. “I’ll see you later?”

“I have homework.”

“Bring it with you.”

I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I guess I can do that. If you leave me alone and let me finish.”

“You won’t even know I’m there.”

He pushed through the door, and when it slammed behind him, I ran to the front, nearly smacking Frankie in the face with the swinging door.

Weston jogged to his truck, climbed in, and sped off, pausing for only a moment before pulling out onto Main Street.

Frankie watched me expectantly.