I glance up at him. “What now? We can’t drive in this. And Darla said the freeway was flooded too.”

Reece scans the parking lot before pointing to our right.

It takes me a second to realize what I’m looking at. Dim neon lights read Motel, except with the t burned out. Even through the fierce rainstorm I can tell that the motel hasn’t seen a single upgrade since the Reagan administration.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Reece grins at me, looking deliciously boyish, and yet the way the shirt’s plastered to his torso all over again is solidly man. “Yup. We’re staying at Moel.”

With that, he grabs my hand, pulling me toward the car so we can get our stuff, and I squeal in horror as I follow him through water coming all the way over my ankles. Apparently wherever we are has seriously crappy drainage.

“We can’t stay at that gross place,” I call after him, trudging toward the car.

He glances back, happy smile still in place, as though he’s enjoying this. “Scared?”

“Um, yes. Of herpes. Mold. Bedbugs.”

Reece laughs low and loud as he pulls the keys out of his soaking jeans and pops the trunk. As I stare at his happy profile, it hits me that the thing I should really be scared of is standing right in front of me: the boy who once broke my heart, and who I’m terrified will soon have the power to do it all over again.

Chapter 25

Reece

To the surprise of no one, the motel has plenty of rooms available. No need for us to share a room.

I tell myself I’m relieved. Relieved that there will be a wall and two doors separating me from the soaking wet, laughing Lucy.

How long since I’ve seen her like this, I wonder, as we dash from the check-in desk to our rooms.

How long since I’ve been like this? Light, and carefree and…happy?

Not since my dad got sick, certainly.

Maybe not even since I’d locked eyes with a heartbroken Lucy over the blond head of Abby Mancuso and known that my life would never be the same, that I would never again feel as happy as I had that summer when Lucy had looked at me like I was the light of her life—like I was worthy.

But I’m feeling something close now. Got a glimpse of what my life could have been like when I stupidly kissed her on the side of the freeway yesterday like a guy who couldn’t help himself.

Because I couldn’t. Nothing could have stopped me from kissing Lucy at that moment, her looking all proud and victorious and sweaty, and mine.

Yesterday, she’d been dangerous to me, and the situation’s only getting worse. More intense.

I know it feels like hippie horseshit, but I have the weirdest sense that this apocalyptic rain is somehow cleansing. Like, it’s washing away the crap of the past few years, clearing away the memories that haunt us both.

The motel’s parking lot isn’t nearly as flooded as the diner’s, but it doesn’t really matter. We’re soaked through, my leather jacket probably ruined, but I don’t care.

I don’t care about anything but the fact that we’re both smiling, and maybe a little about the fact that Lucy’s green tank top is plastered against her body, revealing the outline of her bra, and if I stare hard enough, the outline of her nipples.

We’re trudging across the parking lot, nearly to the rooms, when Lucy’s foot hits a slick patch of mud. She’s headed toward falling on her ass, but I catch her just in time, pulling her full against me.

With wet bags sandwiched uncomfortably between us, both of us cold and shivering, the moment shouldn’t be sexy.

But when she lifts her eyes to mine, framed by the wet spikes of her long lashes, her eyes dark and smoky, partially from her smeared makeup, partially from the heat between us…

Damn but I want her. Always her.

Maybe only her.

I drop my eyes to her mouth, lowering my head slightly, slowly. I’m giving her time to move away, bracing myself for rejection.

And it’s a good thing too, because she pulls away, just a little, but it’s enough. Enough to tell me to back off.

Apparently the healing power of this plague rain can wash away some of the bad blood between us, but not all of it.

I reach for her bag, slinging it over my free shoulder, hoping she’ll think that was my plan all along. That I’m not obsessed with tasting her again, finding out if her mouth is as perfect against mine now as it was yesterday.

The wind has picked up, and I remember the tornado warning. I nod for her to continue toward the rooms, not that this ramshackle building provides any kind of protection if the weather decides to go all Wizard of Oz on us.

Despite the fact that the motel is a million years old, they’ve surprised me by having upgraded to plastic key cards instead of old-school keys, and Lucy laughs as her slick fingers fumble hers to the ground.

As has become our habit, I wait to see her into her room before going into mine, and with her turned away from me, I let myself take in the slim line of her back, the curve of her ass beneath the jean shorts…

“I can’t wait to see what sort of paradise awaits,” she says as she slips the key into her door.

The light flicks green, and Lucy twists the door handle to push it open….

The door doesn’t open, and we both stare down at the cheap doorknob that now sits uselessly in Lucy’s hand, no longer attached to the door.

“Well then,” she says. “Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.”

She laughs again, turning and looking back toward me, her smile still happy in spite of the weather. “You can just drop my bag here. I’ll run back to the front desk, see if they have another room open.”