With This Heart (16 page)

“
I’m pretty sure they just call it rope?” he answered with a hint of a private smile.

After hours of wandering around, we stood at the entrance of the flea market with our purchases in hand. We stayed together at first, picking out the most heinous items and containing our laughter until we were far, far away from the vendors. But then when I spotted a gift that I had to purchase for him, I decided we had to split up for a little while so I could surprise him.

“
Alright, time to see who won,” Beck said, sitting down on a bench just beside the front doors.

I followed him over and set my bag in my lap. “Who won?”

“
Yeah, who found the better stuff?”

“
Ah,” I nodded, and unpeeled the top of my bag to look inside. “I got one thing for you, but it’s not a gift or anything and it definitely doesn’t mean I’m like pining over you. I just knew you had to have them when I saw them.”

He smirked and opened his bag as well. “Well, that’s okay because I found something for you, too. But mine definitely means I’m pining for you, so you should take it as such.”

I rolled my eyes playfully and tugged out his gift. “Here,” I said, handing him the tissue-wrapped items.

“
You shouldn’t have,” he joked before he’d even unwrapped it. I hit my shoulder against his.

“
Open it, you fool.”

With a laugh, he tugged off the paper to reveal a pair of ceramic salt and pepper shakers. In the shape of zombies. Really awesomely-realistic zombies. His mouth dropped open as he turned them in his hands.

“
You win,” he declared with a look of awe. Ceramic zombies will do that to you.

“
Not fair,” I poked him. “I should get to see what you got me before the winner is declared.” Although I knew there was no way he was going to top my gift.

“
Okay, here,” he said, shifting the shakers into one hand and handing me a little cardboard jewelry box out of his bag.

I’d never been given a piece of jewelry before, so when I opened the lid and found an old tarnished locket, I was speechless. The heart locket was tiny, barely half an inch tall. It was made of gold, or fake gold, I couldn’t tell and I didn’t actually care. My eyebrows scrunched together as I felt tears burning the back of my eyelids. I couldn’t cry over something so silly, but there was something deeply personal about the gift.

Beck was watching me with a steady focus, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. Not yet. I fumbled with the clasp on the side until it gave and then peeled the locket open. Inside, there were two tiny black and white photos. On the left was a young girl with a bow and frilly dress. On the right was a soldier in uniform. They looked to be the same age and I knew they were a couple. This had been the girl’s locket.

“
Look on the back.” Beck motioned for me turn the locket over.

I closed it and flipped it gently in my palm so that the back of the heart was facing up. Inscribed on the tarnished gold in perfect cursive were the words:
with this heart
.

“
I thought we could replace the pictures,” he offered timidly. “Or you could be a creep and leave the old couple in if you want.” It was so like Beck to do something extremely thoughtful and then follow it up with a joke to try and lighten the mood. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. So, I turned toward him on the bench and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on his lips. His mouth was slightly open so it was awkward, but the moment our lips touched, he pressed back into me with equal amounts of fervor. His empty hand wrapped around my neck and brought me closer to him. I opened up for him, letting him slip his tongue past my lips. He tasted sweet, like the funnel cake we’d shared earlier. I needed more of him and the way he gripped my hair told me he needed more of me as well.

There we were, sitting at the front of a flea market in the-middle-of-nowhere, Texas, with hundreds of people shuffling around us. He was holding onto zombies and I was holding onto someone’s long-lost locket that now felt intimately mine.

Just as we were pulling away from each other with dopey grins, a grouchy old woman huffed past us. “I cannot believe the indecency displayed by youth these days,” she declared, clutching her oversized purse closer toward her chest as if we were street thugs about to mug her.

Her equally-as-old friend emphatically agreed with her as the two waddled around us with snooty glares.

Beck gave me a scolding glance. “Abby, we’re
indecent
,” he muttered, unable to keep a smile from spreading wide. His eyes were alive with lust and there was a glow under his tan skin. I knew I looked the same.

“
So
indecent,” I added.

“
They acted like we were having sex or something,” he added jokingly.

Without missing a beat, I declared, “I bought condoms before we left for the trip. Magnum condoms.” The announcement slipped out before I’d even thought about whether it was an appropriate response. The truth is, the condoms were burning a hole in my suitcase. I didn’t want Beck to stumble upon them and get the wrong impression. Like I was planning on having sex with so many guys that I had to purchase different sizes.

“
That’s cool. I bought deodorant and travel toothpaste,” he answered with a wicked grin. Just then, a window-shaking clap of thunder sounded from outside. The storm had finally reached us.

“
They were so you and I could have sex.”

Beck started cracking up. “They
were
?”

My face blushed twenty shades past red. I was pretty sure I looked like a cherry. A big loser cherry with too many condoms. I had no way to answer that without basically giving him the green light to have sex with me.

“
Can we stop talking about sex in a flea market? I feel like those grannies are still listening or something.” Another clap of thunder punctuated the end of my request.

He let out a chuckle and tugged me up off the bench. “We should get going anyway; we’ve been here way too long. I doubt we’ll make it to the car before the rain comes.”

Beck was right. The sky broke midway to the camper, which was still parked on the other side of the world. We started to run, shielding our purchases under our clothes, but by the time we reached the car, the rain had soaked into our every pore. He unlocked the doors as quickly as he could and then we crashed onto the leather seats, laughing hysterically and flinging drops of water off of our clothes.

Just as I started to close the passenger side door, the wind picked up and worked against me to keep the door open. Rain drops slapped against my face and I couldn’t blink fast enough to keep the water from dripping down into my eyes. Beck leaned across to help me tug it close. With both of our strength combined, the door slammed shut and we fell back onto our seats with contented sighs. My clothes stuck to me like plastic wrap and no amount of force could pry them off.

“
So you think it was the biggest in Texas?” Beck asked, buckling his seatbelt.

“
That’s what she said,” I answered, because the outdated joke was too good to pass up. Forgive me.

“
Nicely done. You can use that while you’re stuck on a desert island with Michael Scott,” he commended, sliding his gaze over to me. His dark eyelashes were stuck together from the rain and there was a slight dewiness to his skin, like he’d just slid out of the shower. I sat there giving his beautiful demeanor a moment of silence-it deserved it. His shirt was stuck to his skin, accentuating every masculine detail hidden beneath. He wasn’t bulky, he was a runner, but his arms were strong. Strong enough to pin me against the passenger door so that I wouldn’t be able to budge an inch. My eyes drifted across his skin like he was mine for the taking, as if I had the right to peruse his body.

But then he started the engine and cut off my indulgent daydreams. We weren’t going to have sex in the parking lot of the flea market. The angry grannies were probably parked directly next to us. I’d be seconds away from my first orgasm and the granny would tap onto the window with her wrinkly finger, damning Beck and I to hell for all of eternity.

“
What are you thinking about?” Beck asked as he pulled to the end of the long line trying to exit. There must have been a hundred cars in front of us and the rain wasn’t helping expedite the process.

“
Oh, nothing. Did I see a CD in that bag of yours?” I asked quickly, fumbling for a safe topic.

“
John Denver. Want to put it in?” he asked, motioning to the bag sitting in the cup holder.

“
I’ve never listened to him,” I answered, grabbing the bag and starting to peel off the plastic encasing.

“
What?” Beck exclaimed. “He’s
the
iconic road trip musician. I’m surprised we’ve made it this far without him guiding us.”

“
That sounds really serious.”

“
Everything about John Denver is serious.”

“
Oh, is it?” I said, spinning the CD around my finger and pretending to drop it.

Beck nodded with a smug grin. “That’s fine, Abby. Disrespect the road trip gods; watch what ends up happening to us.”

What ended up happening to us was the longest exit line that has ever existed. We sat there long enough for John Denver’s CD to repeat twice. I didn’t care about “country roads” or “jet planes”, I needed to pee. Stat.

“
Holy buhjesus,” I complained, smashing my face to the window for the fiftieth time. I suppose I thought that if I pressed my face into the glass hard enough, I’d finally be able to see what was going on up ahead.

Beck laughed and shook his head. “I don’t want to blame the traffic jam on you, but I think it’s fair to assume that it’s one hundred percent your fault,” he declared with a hint of amusement.

“
What?!” I snapped, peeling my gaze away from the rainy line of cars.

“
John Denver is demanding penance for your sins,” he explained with a silly grin.

I laughed indignantly, “Ah. I’m
sorry
. I didn’t realize he was God.”

Before Beck could respond to my sarcasm, a police officer dressed in a long, bright-yellow raincoat tapped on Beck’s window with the tip of his index finger. Rain fell in sheets around him so that his face was shadowed under his hood. Beck rolled down his window and the officer leaned in through the threshold.

“
Sorry for the hold-up. There was a wreck up ahead because of the slick roads. We’ll be redirecting traffic back through the town and I’d suggest not traveling much farther than that. The traffic is heavy and they’ve issued a flood warning for all of our surrounding counties.” His instructions were direct and authoritative.

“
Do you know how long the warning is supposed to last?” Beck asked respectfully.

The officer’s mouth formed a thin line. “Through the night. Rain should lighten up in the morning.”

It was a good thing we had no real destination in mind because Mother Nature was deciding our fate for us. We’d stay somewhere in this tiny-ass town for the night and start driving again tomorrow.

“
Alright, thanks officer.”

The officer tipped his head and then offered us a final “stay safe out there” warning.

“
John Denver is not a merciful God,” I declared once the window was rolled up.

Beck chuckled, “I guess you
really
pissed him off.”

The line of cars finally started moving and soon we were pulling out onto a road that was barely visible beneath the sheets of rain.

“
So,” I started, “I’m drenched and it’s almost nighttime. What if we just pulled in somewhere and called it a night?”

“
In a motel?” Beck asked, turning his windshield wipers up to their highest setting, which still wasn’t enough. The longer we drove, the more paranoid I became. Country roads weren’t safe and I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of our car.

“
Or we could just sleep in the camper,” I offered, dreading the idea of searching for a vacancy in that tiny town.

He nodded and kept driving. We passed through Main Street, where shops and businesses were all closing their doors for the night. People darted for their cars and one old man tried in vain to stay dry using an old newspaper. I wondered if the ink dripped from the articles onto his clothes.

I only spotted one motel on our path and it looked like it had seen better days. Half of the rooms had broken windows and doors falling off their hinges. There was no way it could still be open and operating.

“
There’s a rest stop a few miles up ahead, we can pull in there and stay the night,” Beck declared.

“
Is that safe?” Visions of rest stop serial killers danced in my head. We were in the middle of nowhere, but I’d seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I wasn’t going to be the next victim.

“
We’ll be fine.”

I grunted and stared out the window, wondering what the night had in store for us. The idea of sleeping together in the back of the car seemed oddly romantic, but I didn’t think Beck thought of it that way.

We only had to drive a few more minutes before exiting the two lane highway and driving into a recently renovated rest stop. It was, dare I say…
nice
. It was made of stone bricks and topped with a metal roof. Tall street lamps dotted the path toward the front entrance.