it got right down to it, though, what kept him stubbornly repeating “I’ll drive” had been the appalling image of trying to wedge himself into the damn car.
When Amy had surrendered at last, she said grudgingly, “I guess since my car doesn’t have air-conditioning, it might be better if we take yours.”
His mouth twitched now into a smile he didn’t want her to see. For God’s sake, it was supposed to top a hundred degrees in eastern Washington this weekend! Imagining how they’d be sweltering right this minute made him shake his head.
Jakob suddenly realized she was looking at him, eyes narrowed.
“What was that expression about?” she asked, sounding suspicious.
“Just feeling glad we have air-conditioning,” he admitted. “It’s hot as Hades out there.”
“Nobody likes someone who says ‘I told you so.’”
Jakob grinned. “Did you hear those words coming out of my mouth?”
“Close enough.” Amy was quiet for a minute. Then she shrugged. “The glove compartment pops open every time I go over a bump. Usually the stuff in it falls onto the floor.”
“You’re telling me I’d constantly have a lap full of...what? Maps, registration, flashlight?”
“Um...hand lotion, dark glasses, ice scraper, receipts.” She pushed her lower lip out in thought. “Probably a couple of books, too. I always keep something in there in case I get stuck in traffic, or finish the book that’s in my purse.”
He flicked her a glance of disbelief. “Finish the book when? While you’re driving?”
She frowned severely at him. “Of course I don’t read when I’m driving! Just when I’m at red lights, or we’re at a standstill on the freeway. You know.”
He groaned.
She sniffed in disdain.
After a minute he found himself smiling. “Wouldn’t have mattered if you’d won the argument anyway, you know.”
Her head turned sharply. “What do you mean?”
“When I arrived to pick you up, you’d have been bound to have a flat tire.” He paused, that smile still playing on his mouth. “Or two.”
The sound that burst out of her was somewhere between a snarl and scream. “Oh, my God! I’d almost forgotten. That was one of the meanest things you ever did.”
This time his glance was a little wary. At the time, he’d thought it was funny. Funny was not, apparently, how she remembered the occasion.
“I was so excited when you emailed and promised to take me with you to the lake with some of your friends. I told all my friends how I was spending spring break in Arizona, and that my so-cool fifteen-year-old brother wanted to do stuff with me.” Her glare could have eaten a hole in a steel plate. “I showed my friends pictures of you. I didn’t tell them how awful you’d always been. I thought—” her voice had become softer “—you actually wanted to spend time with me.”
Jakob winced. He’d had no idea his invitation, issued via email under his father’s glower, had meant anything to her. By then, he had convinced himself Amy hated him as much as he did her and would be glad if something happened that got her out of having to spend the day with him.
She’d arrived that Friday and his father had fussed over her, sliding a commanding stare Jakob’s way every few minutes, one that said, You will be nice. Predictably, that had made his teenage self even more hostile.
Dad had just started seeing Martina, though it was another year and a half before they got married. She’d loaned her bike for the projected outing. When Jakob and Amy went out to the garage come morning, one of the tires on Martina’s bike had been flat. Examination showed a split between treads. He’d immediately said, “Wow, the guys are waiting for me. Bummer you can’t come.” After which he took off.
His father had suspected him but never been able to prove he was responsible for the damaged tire. Dad had worked Jakob’s ass off that summer, though, and he hadn’t objected too much because, yeah, he’d slipped out to the garage at 3:00 a.m. and slit the tire with a pocketknife.
“I’m sorry,” he said now, and meant it. He didn’t like knowing he might have really hurt her. “Teenage boys aren’t the most sensitive creatures on earth. Dad was forcing my hand and I didn’t like it.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I figured that out eventually. I lied when I got home and told all my friends about this amazing day with you, and how this really hot friend of yours acted like he wanted to kiss me.” She grinned infectiously. “Which would have scared the crap out of me, you understand.”
He laughed in relief. “No surprise. Some of us hadn’t worked up the nerve to kiss a girl yet.”
Amy eyed him speculatively. “You? You’ve always been so good-looking, and I don’t remember you ever going through, I don’t know, one of those gawky phases. You didn’t even get acne, did you?”
He shook his head. “I actually think I was in one of those awkward phases that summer, though. I was sullen all the time. You were blinded because I was older.”
“Maybe.” She looked away, back out the side window. “Twelve was a hard age for me. Puberty, you know, and middle school.”
He nodded, although he wasn’t sure she saw him.
This whole conversation felt astonishingly comfortable and yet really strange, too. In their entire history, they had never had a real conversation of any kind. Unlike most siblings or even stepsister and stepbrother, they hadn’t banded together against their parents. He’d waged his campaign of torment and she’d fought back as effectively as a much younger, smaller and weaker opponent could. Jakob felt a little sick at knowing how unrelentingly cruel he’d been.
Which brought him back to brooding about why he had volunteered for this ridiculous expedition. Yeah, he’d been taking it a little easier these past couple weeks, after the successful launch of a store in Flagstaff. He’d given some thought to finding a friend to join him in a backpacking trip this week. Sometimes he needed to turn off his phone and disappear into the mountains. Instead...here he was.
Amy stayed silent for a while. He kept sneaking looks at her averted face.
She’d changed, and yet...she hadn’t. As a kid, he’d thought she looked like some kind of changeling, as if a little fairy blood had sneaked in. Pointy chin, high forehead and eyes subtly set at a slant. Her eyes weren’t an ordinary brown, either; they had glints of gold that intensified when she got mad. She’d always been small. Not so much short—he guessed she was five foot four or five inches tall, but slight, with delicate bones. None of that had changed, even though there was nothing childish about her now.
He’d always been fascinated by her hair, too. When she was a baby and toddler, he’d spent a lot of time staring at her curls. He had never seen anyone with hair quite that color, or quite so exuberant. Not that the word exuberant had been in his vocabulary then. One of his earliest memories was getting yelled at when all he was doing was touching her hair. He’d been experimenting to see if the curls bounced back when
