The way he dug at his skin reminded me of my brother. He had skin peeling around every visible finger. Austin used to get so antsy during car rides, especially those to visit our mom in her apartment right after she’d moved out. She bounced from place to place and my brother’s hands bore the evidence of his pain and her instability. The first place on Clear Creek Road was right outside of Fort Hood . . . we ate frozen pizza off paper plates while my dad stood over us. The second one, only a block away from the first, was a little smaller and a little messier, and she said she lived alone but the soldier’s boots by the door said otherwise. By the time she was in the third and final apartment, with a handful of roommates she didn’t even try to hide, Austin had such thick scabs around every finger. One of Mom’s roommates walked in smoking a cigarette and offered it to my brother, who was sixteen at the time. Our mom and dad screamed at each other for so long that night that I fell asleep on Austin’s shoulder, and I woke up to my dad yanking open the car door and shouting that we were never, under any circumstance, to be around her without his supervision.

As I sat in the driveway, I shook my head, trying to jumble up the memories enough to lose them and stay present in this moment with Kael.

“Do you want a ride or not? I really have to get going,” I repeated my offer, annoyed at myself for persisting.

“Aren’t you already late? Elodie seemed pretty worried about you being late.” He leaned down to look at me and I noticed his eyes on my cell phone screen. “More worried than you, at least.”

I smiled sarcastically and plugged my phone into the cord connected to my car. “Are you going to get in or not? Last chance.”

He made eye contact with me and held it just a second too long. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror while I thought of something witty yet sarcastic that I might say as I drove off, leaving him in the driveway.

He changed my plan by trying to open the passenger door behind me. I pressed the lock button to prove a point.

“This isn’t an Uber,” I told him, only half joking, and unlocked the doors.

He walked around the car, opened the passenger door, and sat down next to me. This was different. Usually my only passenger was pint-sized Elodie, but here was this big guy sitting next to me with his knees touching the dashboard, smelling like my coconut body wash.

“You can adjust the seat,” I told him.