Becoming Mila by Estelle Maskame
17
By now, I have made it a habit to always wait outside the Harding Estate whenever someone picks me up.
It’s just after nine and the sky is a deep, darkening blue, enough for the twinkle of the stars to be noticeable, and the air is balmy but tolerable for once. I sit beneath one of the spotlights mounted to the ranch walls, perched on a large rock, and running my fingertips along the dirt, creating lines in the earth. Goosebumps spread all over my arms, the way they always do whenever I wait out here at night; there’s an eeriness to the silence of the country roads and the empty fields beyond.
A car sounds in the distance and I look up, staring down the long, dark road. Headlights flicker around a bend, and a few seconds later Blake’s truck barrels toward me.
I jump to my feet and wipe my hands on my thighs. The LED headlights nearly blind me, so I cup my hand over my eyes as the truck draws nearer. I skip toward it and clamp my hand around the door handle before Blake has even come to a complete stop.
“Hey!” I say as I swing open the door and climb into the backseat.
The melodies of country music and the smell of musky cologne sweep over me. Savannah is already in the backseat, Myles rides shotgun, and Blake is, of course, driving. I think of the night only a few weeks ago when he picked me up for the tailgate party and of the way his brown eyes had met mine in the rearview mirror for the first time. A sharpness had flickered in his gaze then, but as I meet his eyes now they are irresistibly inviting.
“Hi, Mila,” he says. The corners of his eyes crinkle with a hint of a smile. “This is the part where you tell us you don’t know what a bonfire is, right?”
I roll my eyes and softly punch the headrest of his seat. “I’ve been to a bonfire before,” I say defensively. “Malibu beach. Last summer. My hair reeked of smoke for the next two days.”
“Well,” says Myles. “Get ready to stink again.”
We set off through the darkness, tracing the now-familiar route down the country roads toward civilization. I have no idea where the bonfire is being held, but as Savannah talks my ear off, I manage to steal peeks out of the window every now and again. Eventually, when we pass the church I’ve found myself attending each Sunday, I notice we’re in downtown Fairview. Moments later, Blake turns off the main street and we pass a sign for Bowie Nature Park.
“Is it really a good idea to have a bonfire in a park? With trees?” I wonder aloud as the truck rolls toward the looming park ahead, with tall, thick trees clustered together in the darkness. “And right next to the fire station?”
“We’re keeping it by the lake and nowhere near any trees,” Myles says, casting a glance over his shoulder at me. “Don’t worry. We wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
“Back in the fall, we tried it in my back yard,” Blake says with a reminiscent chuckle. “Neighbors reported us for clogging the street with smoke.”
“But not to the police!” Savannah says dramatically, then shudders. “To Aunt LeAnne, who came hurtling home from the city, guns blazing. Metaphorically, of course.”
“Yeah . . .” Blake says quietly. He isn’t laughing anymore. “That was a bad night.”
Now apprehensive about the technicalities of this bonfire extravaganza, I bite at my lower lip. “So now you’re throwing a bonfire in a public park instead? Don’t you need a permit or something?”
“Don’t question my actions, Mila,” Blake says with a flippant wave of his hand. His eyes flicker back to the rearview mirror to look at me and they sharpen teasingly. “You should have figured out by now that they aren’t always wise.”
We pass through some wooden gates and crunch our way down a narrow path beneath a canopy of trees until we emerge into a parking lot. It’s late and I don’t suppose many people are interested in trekking through dark trails at this hour, so there’s only a few other cars here. The headlights are all still on the brights and the cars are filled with occupants who are, seemingly, waiting for Blake to arrive.
“Grab everything you can carry from the back,” Blake orders, killing his engine after pulling into a parking spot. He whips off his seatbelt and points out of his windshield at a spot further ahead. I see the glisten of the moonlight against water, and I realize he’s gesturing to a lake. “Carry it down there.”
The four of us climb out of his truck and head around the back, where Blake lowers the tailgate. The truck bed is crammed full of what appears to be a random concoction of items, from folding chairs to a crate full of Dr Peppers to thick timber wood logs to old newspapers. I’m relieved to see that there’s even some fire extinguishers. Sensible.
Savannah and Myles start grabbing items as more cars pull into the lot. All around us, people are emerging from trucks with their own supplies of chairs, drinks, and snacks.
“Just carry everything down to the water!” Blake calls out over the parking lot, waving a hand at the edge of the lake. “I marked out a spot for us the other night. Huge rock. Y’all can’t miss it!”
There’s an excited buzz of voices in the air as everyone treks off down the sloping ground toward the water. Myles darts off with an armful of logs and newspapers, and Savannah drags a couple chairs along the concrete, leaving Blake and me behind at the truck.
“Are you the dedicated events organizer for the teenage population of Fairview?” I ask playfully, giving him a sidelong glance.
Blake looks back at me with a neutral expression and shrugs, stretching into the truck bed to grab the remaining items. “It’s either lead or be led,” he says, heaving the crate of soda into my arms. “And when your mom wins the mayoral campaign in your freshman year, you want to be one step ahead.” The corner of his mouth curves into a smile but he looks anything but happy.
Blake continues to fill my arms with an assortment of items from the truck, stacking everything on top of the crate of soda until the pile is so high that my chin rests on a bag of Doritos. My shoulders slump from the weight of it all and I sway dangerously next to him as he wedges another folding chair under his arm, then reaches for the final object at the very back of the truck bed.
“Is that a guitar?”
Blake hoists the strap of the guitar case over his shoulder and fires me a funny look. “What else could it possibly be?”
“Is it your guitar?”
Now Blake laughs. He turns to face me, his hand around the strap over his shoulder. “C’mon, Mila. Country is the only music I ever listen to. I love honky tonks. Isn’t it obvious?”
Uh-huh, yeah. It’s pretty obvious. Hell, there was even a guitar on a stand in the cabin in his back yard. “Of course you play guitar.”
Blake grins modestly, his dimples deepening, and a pink hue spreads over his cheeks in a cute flash. “I play guitar and I” – he pauses shyly – “sing.”
“You can sing?” I echo. “Like, actually sing?”
He stares deadpan back at me. “What other kind of singing is there other than actual singing?”
“But I’ve never heard you sing!” I exclaim, nearly dismantling the tower of haphazardly stacked objects in my arms.
“Well,” says Blake, “the quicker I get this bonfire started, the quicker you’ll get to hear me sing.”
Guitar case balanced on his shoulder and a chair under his other arm, he reaches out to close the tailgate of his truck, but the sound of someone calling his name stops him. He cranes his neck at the same time as I peer over the bag of Doritos for a better look, and my heart skips with a beat of panic as a familiar face approaches.
“Howdy, Barney!” Blake says.
Barney beams back at him as he rests his arm over the back of the truck. “Lacey got back from vacation yesterday, so she’s here, and I may or may not have just overheard her say that if you’re actually nice to her for once you might just get lucky tonight.” With a salacious howl, he digs a teasing elbow into Blake’s ribs, then meets my reproachful stare. “Oh, Everett Harding’s kid! You’re still around.”
“Her name,” Blake says in a hard voice, slamming the tailgate shut, “is Mila.”
Blake strides off and his truck beeps as he locks it behind him, leaving Barney and me staring at each other in surprise. I am hyperaware that my phone is sticking out of the back pocket of my jean shorts and that my hands are tied up carrying all this stuff in my arms, so I quickly shrug and then dash off after Blake before Barney can even think about stealing my property again.
I catch up with Blake and fall into step alongside him, power-walking to match his long strides. We’re advancing past the parked trucks, down onto the rocky beach that surrounds the lake, and a crowd has already gathered at an open clearing up ahead, laying out their chairs and the same coolers they all brought along to the tailgate party last month. Only tonight, I notice, the group of partygoers is slightly larger.
We pass under some trees and emerge along the water’s edge; it looks murky and uninviting in the dark.
“I thought my name was Miss Mila,” I tease Blake while we still have a few moments alone.
“It is,” Blake says, then lowers his voice and purposely brushes his arm against mine. “But only to me.”
Despite nearly buckling under the weight of all this campfire stuff, I skip ahead a few steps so he can’t see how painfully shy I get whenever he whispers one of his easy flirtatious remarks. I don’t quite know why he gets under my skin so much, because it’s not like I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I’m not a complete novice when it comes to boys.
There was Jack Cruz back in the fall who has been my lab partner for the entirety of sophomore year – we went out a couple times, shared our first kiss together on the beach, and even got a little handsy in his car one night. However, Dad wouldn’t let me bring him home, not because he didn’t approve – Jack Cruz’s mom is a very affluent fashion designer – but because Dad, as I have learned growing up, is immensely paranoid with a whole mountain range of trust issues. He especially doesn’t like strangers entering our home. I suspect Dad fears they’ll see Everett Harding for who he really is when he isn’t the handsome, Oscar-winning actor with the swagger to match. Jack Cruz thought my family was crazy – “Who do you guys think you are?” – and, thanks to Dad’s all-around weirdness, Jack and I returned to being nothing more than lab partners.
But those two months I spent dating Jack feel awfully bland now in hindsight. I blushed around him too, and I found myself often lost for words whenever he whispered something sweet and flirty, but I never felt. . . I never felt electricity. I never felt that surge of energy in my veins or the flip-flopping of my stomach or heart palpitations so intense they hurt.
I never felt any of the things I have felt recently with Blake.
We reach the others by the lake and the ground is made uneven by rocks and dirt. The wide clearing Blake has chosen to host tonight’s bonfire is, thankfully, a safe distance away from the nearest trees. Above, the sky is filled with twinkling, mesmerizing stars.
I dump the crate of soda cans and everything else piled on top of it down on the pebbles next to where Savannah and Tori are unfolding the chairs. Myles has already scampered off to get touchy-feely with Cindy. Everyone else has formed a wide circle with all the chairs, cracking open sodas, and protectively stashing their snacks between their feet as though a bear will emerge from the trees and loot the lot.
“I’ll get the fire started,” Blake says, setting down the last of his chairs. Carefully, he slides his guitar case off his shoulder and holds it out to me with a hint of trepidation flickering across his eyes. “Mila, I trust you to keep my guitar safe.”
Savannah steps forward indignantly, flapping her arms around in protest. “You trust Mila and not me, your cousin? Your own bloodline?”
“Savannah, I stopped trusting you when you lost my favorite Hot Wheels car ten years ago,” Blake deadpans, then thrusts the case into my hands. He smirks as he walks away, playfully shoving his shoulder into Savannah’s and dodging the whack she tries to give him in return.
“If you break that guitar,” Savannah says in between tutting, “you’ll break his heart.”
The fire takes a while to get going – Blake, Barney and a handful of other guys spend a long time systematically arranging all of the logs, newspapers and tinder into a circular pit marked out with pebbles. It takes even longer for them to light it, frustratedly passing the lighter around the group until, finally, a spark emits, and an orange glow can be seen catching and gently growing from deep inside. Satisfied, Barney and the others saunter back to their chairs, but Blake remains crouched by the fire. He pokes at the burning wood with a stick and occasionally tosses in more tinder as the fire begins to rage brighter and brighter.
“She’s staring at him, isn’t she?” Savannah says.
“Mmhmm,” agrees Tori.
Their voices drift straight over me at first, but then I repeat their words in my head and realize they’re talking about me. I blink through the dryness of my contact lenses and tear my gaze from the blazing fire, glancing between the two of them with a perplexed look.
“What?”
Savannah and Tori roll their eyes in perfect unison.
“I’m not staring at Blake,” I say without a single ounce of conviction.
“Right,” says Savannah. She crosses one leg over the other and stretches back in her chair, and for the first time tonight I squint for a better look at her choice of earrings for the evening – two dangling flames. “Tori, you should have seen the two of them together in my pool! Blake couldn’t keep his hands off her.”
I narrow my eyes. “You were supposed to be napping!”
“You like each other!” she shoots back with triumph ringing in her voice. She jolts upright again and points a finger out at me, her face beaming. “Admit it!”
“Blake couldn’t keep his hands off you?” Tori repeats, tapping her index finger against her lips as she stares down at Blake by the fire. “Damn. Lucky. I dared him to kiss me in eighth grade once and he chose the forfeit instead.” With the drama of a Hollywood actress – I would know – Tori feigns heartbreak, clasping a hand over her chest and throwing her head back with a whimpering sigh.
Savannah casts her a glance of disapproval. “Tori, please let go of your childhood crush on him already. This is about Mila.”
“No, this is not about Mila,” I say. My face grows hot, but I convince myself it’s from the spreading warmth of the fire that slowly radiates around the clearing. “Barney said something about – um – Lacey? Who is that?”
“Lacey?” Tori says curiously, taking a sip of her soda. “That’s her over there; the one with the red streaks in her hair. And, for the record,” she grumbles, “I started the colored hair trend around here.”
As Tori shakes out her exuberant pink hair around her shoulders, I stare off in the direction she indicated. On the opposite side of the bonfire, there’s a trio of girls standing around sipping from bottles of beer, giggling and chatting loudly. One of the girls, I remember, was at the tailgate party and had been thoroughly excited that Everett Harding is my dad, but I focus on the brunette with the red streaks in her hair that shine in the firelight.
Through the growing flames, she catches my stare. With a flash of recognition in her face, she turns to one of her friends and murmurs something in her ear.
“What did Barney say about her?” Savannah asks.
I scuff my chair against the uneven rock and angle more toward Savannah so that I’m not directly facing the fire or Lacey and her friends anymore. I cross my legs together on my chair and fiddle with the bracelet around my wrist. “That if Blake is nice to her, he might get lucky.”
“Mila, you’re not. . . jealous?” Savannah gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. “Did you know jealousy often means you like someone?”
I fix her with a heavy look. How can I be jealous when Blake and I aren’t anything serious? But then why do I feel . . . weird? Why do I feel hostility toward a girl whose name I only just learned?
“Ignore Savannah being her usual annoying self,” Tori says, glowering at Savannah in an attempt to silence her incessant teasing. Tori sits forward, clears her throat, then locks eyes with me. “Lacey Dixon is about to be a senior, which means she has had the joy of sharing classes with Blake for her entire life. She also has eyeballs, which means, like the rest of us – except for Savannah, because that would be incestuous – she thinks Blake is fiiiiine.Also, her parents are close friends with Blake’s mom.”
Savannah laughs and grabs herself a soda, listening.
“However,” Tori continues, “unlike the rest of us, Lacey believes Blake possesses the ability to care about anything other than his music. They spent all of last year going in circles with each other, mostly because Blake clearly isn’t that interested in her, but dear Lacey still thinks he’ll write her a love song one day. Bless her heart. God loves a trier!”
Tori suddenly goes mute and retreats into her chair again, and when I check over my shoulder I realize why story time is over – Blake is on his way over here.
“How’s that fire looking?” he asks, giving the bonfire a clipped nod to show off his hard work. “Mom forcing me to go to Boy Scouts when I was a kid has paid off at last. These fires of mine get better each time.”
“Okay,ego-head,” Tori says with a scoff.
Blake flicks her shoulder with his finger. “Okay, DJ. Shouldn’t you be on music duty? I don’t hear any music. Do y’all?” He looks at Savannah, then at me. He doesn’t look away again.
With a sigh of acceptance, Tori stands, but before she leaves she pulls out her phone. “Wait. Cute picture time! With Blake’s crappy Boy Scout fire in the background.”
“Oh, c’mon, Tori!” he groans, then laughs as he reaches for my elbow and pulls me to my feet.
“Wait,” I say, panicking as Savannah rises too and the three of them crowd in around me, our heads pressed together, and Tori’s phone held out before us, the fire behind. “You aren’t going to post this anywhere, right?”
“It’s just for memories! It’ll end up in my scrapbook,” Tori reassures me, then with cheery enthusiasm she urges us to “SMIIIIILE!”
I’m not quite sure if I manage to pull my face into a smile in time, but Tori doesn’t bother to check. She puts her phone away and traverses the cluster of chairs before disappearing completely beyond the bonfire to get some music up and running.
Blake falls back into the vacant chair she’s left behind, reaches for a soda, then admires his burning fire from afar. “A nice height, huh?”
There’s a strangled cough from Savannah. “I’ll – um – be over there if you need me,” she says, waving a hand at nothing in particular, then dashes off in the same direction as Tori.
“I bet ten bucks she’s off to hit on Nathan Hunt,” says Blake.
Or she’s giving the two of us some privacy . . .
“Yeah,” I say, but nerves slowly seep through me, spreading all over my body as I lower myself back down into the chair next to Blake.
We haven’t spoken just the two of us since that afternoon at the pool, and being alone with Blake, I’ve realized, is exhilarating. That rush of wondering what exactly will happen next . . .
“So, about this guitar . . .” I say, nodding to the guitar case positioned between our chairs. “You’re a musician?”
Blake shifts his gaze from the fire to me, but embers of orange still flicker in his eyes. “No,” he says, “but I’m trying to be.”
He wedges his half-finished drink into the ground between the rocks, then swings his guitar case onto his lap. I watch in silence as he releases the latches, and with a glance out of the corner of his eye he lifts the lid to reveal an acoustic guitar.
With great care, Blake strokes his fingers over the mahogany wood of the neck. There’s a few tiny scuffs in the body of the guitar, a sign it has been well-loved, but the honey-colored wood still shines under the firelight. He runs his hand along the fretboard and all the way up to the headstock that reads GIBSON.
“The original Gibson Hummingbird,” Blake says with a shyness in his voice that I have never once heard before, his twang more pronounced than usual. He lightly brushes his thumb over the taut strings. “It was my dad’s. He loved music too, but he lost his ambition, so he threw in the towel and passed his guitar over to me instead.”
My lips part to form an “O”, because this is the first time Blake has ever mentioned his father. It’s not like I haven’t noticed he doesn’t seem to be around, but it’s not the kind of thing you ask, especially if they’re . . .
“Oh, he’s not dead or anything,” Blake says with a laugh when he notices my expression. “Just an alcoholic who took off for Memphis to shack up with his side chick.”
“Oh.” That’s not what I expected. “But you kept his guitar?”
“Well, yeah. It’s a Gibson freaking Hummingbird, Mila.” He tilts his head to the side and studies me, fascinated by my lack of knowledge. “I’ll play this guitar until the day it has no life left in it.”
“And is this what you want to do with your life?” I ask, edging in a little closer. I gaze curiously at the guitar again, then smile up at Blake. “Music?”
“Hey, it’s in my blood,” he says with a sheepish shrug and a grin to match. “I’m hoping to study at Vanderbilt next fall, and I’ve been begging Marty to let me play sometime.”
“Marty?”
“He owns Honky Tonk Central. Says I’m too young to be playing in his bar. Won’t even give me an afternoon slot when it’s family-friendly!” Blake explains with an indignant scowl. “He thinks Mom will find some reason to shut him down if she were to find out that he ever let me perform there.”
At the mention of his mom, I’m reminded of the way she abruptly walked out on dinner last Sunday when Blake dared to even mention the word “music”.
“So, your mom isn’t a huge fan of your guitar playing, is she?” I ask carefully.
Blake’s lips falter into a smaller, saddened smile. “No. She doesn’t think music is a viable career choice. She wants me to study business or something equally as draining. Like, you know, politics.” A frustrated sigh escapes him, and he stares longingly at his guitar again, as if dreaming of a future that includes it. “Every time I try to discuss it with her, she shuts me down. Doesn’t even like hearing me play. It reminds her too much of my dad.”
I grimace in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Blake.”
In the moments I spend absorbing the hurt in Blake’s eyes over his mom’s disregard for his passion, I realize that I have never really given much thought to what kind of a life I can have beyond being Everett Harding’s daughter. Of course, I have fantasized about turning eighteen, taking off for college and being free of the confinements of Dad’s world, but yet I have never really thought about what that means. Never worked out the finer details, never figured out what path I want to pursue, never took the time to discover who I am and who I want to be.
Blake may not have his mother’s support, but he at least has ambition, and passion. He has a dream of his own. Blake has every intention of carving out his own path in life.
He’s still gazing at his guitar, one hand over the fretboard, the other resting on the body. The bonfire continues to blaze, and its warmth grows stronger, casting heat and an orange glow over our faces. With a deep breath, I reach over and place my hand atop Blake’s.
“So,” I whisper. “Can I hear you play?”
Blake stares at my hand on his, our skin warm, but my heart sinks as he pulls his hand out from beneath mine. Then, a second later, he places his over mine instead, interlocks our fingers together, and squeezes. Our eyes meet and we share a tentative smile. He nods.
Letting go of my hand, he gets up. There’s something incredibly charming about the way he throws the guitar strap over his head, nestles it on his shoulder, then ruffles his hair as if getting ready for his audience.
He leaves the empty case on the chair next to me, then trudges down to the bonfire. He stands as close to the fire as he can without getting burned, and spends a minute tuning his guitar, his lower lip between his teeth. During this time, the crowd has realized they’re about to get a performance, and chat begins to dwindle. The music playing in the background from a speaker lowers.
Blake looks up at the sea of expectant faces and clears his throat. “Hey, everyone. I hope you like the new location, but remember that fire station we all drove by? Yeah, don’t do anything stupid. Stay clear of the trees. Take all your trash home with you at the end of the night. Drinkers, don’t drive. And please no one drown in the lake.”
“Okay, Mayor Avery!” someone yells, but although their tone is playful and void of any malice, I know it must drive Blake insane.
Blake, his eyes searching for the culprit, forces a laugh. “Okay, well, in our usual bonfire fashion, the floor is open to anyone who wants to entertain us. And because none of you ever have the balls to go first, I guess it’s up to me again.”
“An original?” another voice emerges.
“Not yet,” says Blake. “This is a cover of a song from one of my favorite artists right now. This is ‘Chance Worth Taking’by Mitchell Tenpenny.”
He clears his throat again, nervously this time, and fishes out a pick beneath the strings at the neck of his guitar. He bows his head over his guitar, positions his fingers on the fretboard, and begins to sing in a rich, melodious tone, with an opening strum that sends goosebumps rocketing over every inch of my skin.
With each word he sings, the soft southern lilt in Blake’s voice reverberates around the silent clearing. His voice deepens, thick with passion for the lyrics. He sings with his head held high, but his eyes closed, his fingers gliding effortlessly along the fretboard, the strum of each string perfectly aligned. The song he’s chosen to cover is slow, and the lyrics are nothing short of captivating.
No one breathes a word. We all watch in awe as Blake loses himself in his performance, like there’s no one else here but him, singing to the darkness with the heat of the fire on the back of his neck. It’s so truly mesmerizing that when his voice trails off on the final word I don’t even realize it’s all over until his peers hoot with applause.
Right now, he is so far from being the mayor’s son. He’s Blake Avery, the guy who loves music, who has a talent that makes a crowd of his friends fall silent in genuine admiration.
I wish I knew what truly being Mila Harding might be – someone with dreams and passions of her own.
Barney rushes over, pounding Blake hard on the back with a celebratory thump, and a couple others come over to join with fist bumps and handshakes. One of those people, I notice with a sickening lurch of jealousy, has red-streaked hair.
Lacey nudges Barney out of her way and throws her arms around Blake, drawing him in for a hug while she bounces enthusiastically on the balls of her feet. My jaw clenches.
But whatever that murky feeling is, it lasts a mere two seconds until I notice Blake hastily unwrap himself from her. He excuses himself from the group and turns . . . straight toward me.
My heartbeat picks up all over again as he approaches, guitar swung behind him, and his hand clasping the strap over his chest. Over his shoulder, I notice a younger girl stepping in front of the fire with her own guitar balancing in her anxious hands, ready to follow in Blake’s footsteps.
“So,” he says breathlessly, wiping a film of sweat from his temple, “what’s the verdict, Miss Mila?”
I part my lips, searching for the right words that will do his performance justice, but I’m still so stunned by how amazing he really is that I’m close to speechless. “It was . . .” I try, but I shake my head, gaping at him as I struggle to sum up exactly how his voice made me feel. Finally, I swallow and say, “You’re born to be a musician.”
Blake’s expression lights up. The apprehension in his eyes transforms into relief, and the tentative smile on his face widens into a grin so joyful that his dimples are the deepest – and cutest – I’ve ever seen them.
“Seriously,” I say, jumping up, proper speech now thankfully returning. “That was – amazing. Your playing, your singing. Everything. You are amazing.”
Blake’s cheeks burn red at my compliments, and he grabs his guitar case and gently slots his guitar back inside, nestling it into the soft velvet contours. As he clicks the latches shut, a new voice begins to sing behind him.
“That’s Kelsey,” Blake says, sinking down into a chair and placing his guitar case on the ground beneath him. “Loves Keith Urban. Always performs in local open-mic nights.”
I sit back down next to him, and although his gaze is locked on Kelsey as her husky tone fills the air around the fire, mine is fixated solely on him. “No open-mic nights for you, I guess?”
“Please,” Blake retorts. “The mayor’s kid busking at some Fairview coffee shop? That’s way too humble.” He rolls his eyes. “Mom would rather I ran for student body president and spent my time protesting for better democracy within Fairview High, but that’s Lacey Dixon’s job.”
The girl with the red streaks in her hair . . .
“Well, small-town bonfires are probably a bit too normal for a Harding,” I joke. I slump back in my chair and glance around the circle of people around the growing fire. The glow of firelight flickers across faces, there’s nods of appreciation as Kelsey builds into chorus, and friends huddle in close to one another with smiles and friendly laughter. “But I really like it.”
“So, you like honky tonks and bonfires,” Blake says, settling his gaze on me, “but maybe not tailgate parties.”
I laugh, but I’m instantly silenced when Blake reaches over to take my hand in his. He interlocks his fingers with mine and, our palms pressed close together, he rests our hands on the armrest of my chair. I stare silently at our hands in surprise, but the warmth of his skin sets off those pesky butterflies in my stomach again.
“Am I not allowed to hold your hand?” Blake asks in response to my stunned expression.
“No. I mean, yes. You can. I’m just—”
“Nervous,” he finishes with a teasing wink.
We sit together, hands entwined, and listen in appreciation to a few more people perform. Savannah and Tori never return, and no one bothers us, but I do wonder if anyone has glanced over and noticed that Blake and I are a little too cozy. After a while, Blake swings his case over his shoulder and stands. He settles his gaze on me.
“Come back to the truck with me,” he says in a low voice. He begins to walk, pulling me with him.
My mind races with thoughts of Blake and me alone together, and the butterflies somersault in my stomach as we walk away from the bonfire and the party, heading back to his truck . . .
He leads me across the rocky, uneven ground back up toward the parking lot. There are more cars here now, but their occupants are all by the lake enjoying the bonfire and the girl guitarist’s sweet voice. I look over my shoulder and can still see the fire and the bodies huddled around it, spread out over the mass of chairs. Although slightly distant, we can also still hear the crackle of the fire and the musing of voices and the folksy sound of a Taylor Swift cover. But here, in the parking lot, we are entirely alone.
When we reach Blake’s truck, he lets go of my hand. He lowers the tailgate and slides his guitar case onto the truck bed.
“Sit with me,” he says.
He perches himself on the edge of the tailgate with ease, but I have to heave myself up to join him. My legs dangle over the edge and we sit side-by-side in silence for a minute, watching the flames flicker down by the lake. Two girls are singing a duet now, their entwined voices dancing through the trees.
The silence between us is comfortable, yet we both must be aware of the heightened tension. Blake and me . . . alone . . . sitting close in the back of his truck . . .
“I’m jealous of you,” I say, breaking the silence. I keep my eyes trained on the dark water of the lake, my hands gripping the edge of the tailgate. “You know what you want to do. You are so much more than the mayor’s son. You have goals, whereas for me . . . Well, I guess I kinda fear that I’ll never be anything more than Everett Harding’s daughter.” My chest tightens when I say the words out loud, and I lower my head, blinking fast at the concrete beneath our dangling feet.
“You’re not just Everett Harding’s daughter,” Blake says, angling to look at me. My gaze remains locked on the ground beneath us. “You’re Mila Harding. Your own name. Your own person.”
“But I don’t have . . . a thing,” I mumble, my voice laced with frustration. “Your thing is music. Savannah’s thing is horses. I don’t have anything I’m passionate about. I don’t really have any hobbies except hanging out with my friends at the beach and taking the occasional dance class. I have nothing that defines who I am except for who my father is.”
Blake lifts his hand, cupping my chin between his thumb and forefinger. He tilts my head up so I’m forced to look him in the eye. “You still have time to figure out what your thing is,” he says. “You don’t need a hobby to define who you are. The things you do and the things you say are what really matter. And you know what I think?”
I stare back at the caramel flecks in his eyes. “What?”
“I think you’re the girl who cares so much about disappointing her father that you cried in the back of my truck,” he says with a comforting smile. “You’re the girl at church who helps her grandfather. You’re the girl who laughed when she spilled her quesadilla down herself.”
“But I’m always going to be living in my dad’s shadow.”
“Mila,” Blake murmurs, bringing his face close to mine, “you absolutely should not be hidden in any shadows.”
Brushing the pad of his thumb softly over my skin, he delicately lifts my chin a little higher. His gaze drifts to my mouth and my breath hitches in my throat, my entire body frozen in place. We meet each other’s eyes again and his are burning with the same intensity as they did that day by the pool. They crinkle at their corners as he smiles, right before his lips meet mine.
The kiss is tender and caring, just Blake’s mouth against mine while his hand rests beneath my chin. I don’t want him to pull away. I want more than this, I want to really, really kiss him. My eyes are closed, and I can sense the pounding of both our heartbeats.
Parting my lips, I press harder into Blake, letting him know that this is okay. My body eases out of its paralysis and my hands find their way to him, placing one on the edge of his jaw while I weave my fingers into his hair with the other. He takes the hint, kissing me more, and soon his free hand is on the small of my back, pulling me even closer.
And on the edge of this tailgate, with my hands on him and his hands on me, I am thinking: Holy crap, I am kissing Blake Avery.
And it is undeniably perfect.
That is, until Blake pulls away.
My eyes fire open in alarm, wondering if I’ve done something wrong, but Blake’s looking over his shoulder now, eyes wide. His hand remains resting along my jawline.
“Sorry – I thought – I thought I heard a car,” he whispers.
A car door slams shut somewhere nearby.
Blake instantly lets go of me and slides off the tailgate. He heads around the truck to investigate, leaving me alone and breathless. A second later, I hear the distinct groan of Blake muttering, “Fuck!”
He appears back in front of me wearing an expression of complete dread, and before I realize it his hands are on my waist and he’s lifting me off the tailgate and setting me back on my feet without so much as straining a muscle.
“Is it the police?” I ask quietly. Panic begins to seep through me at the thought of the cops showing up here, because I really doubt it’s legal to start your own bonfire in a public park during the summer season, and what if . . . What if Dad or Ruben got wind that I was involved in an altercation with the police?
Oh, I’m dead. I’m so dead.
Blake slams the tailgate shut, then runs his hand through his hair. “No. Worse,” he says.
Right then, a voice hisses, “Blake!”
I recognize the voice instantly – it belongs to the real LeAnne Avery, the voice she uses behind closed doors when she isn’t keeping up appearances.
The clicking of heels on concrete draws nearer and LeAnne steps into view around Blake’s truck, her face like thunder and her arms furiously crossed over her chest. For once, she doesn’t look as though she’s just wrapped up a press conference. She’s wearing jeans and a buttoned-up cardigan, and her hair is gathered in a high, pin-straight ponytail that swishes around her shoulders with each step she takes. She may not look like the mayor right now, but she still has the authoritative stance of one.
“I thought you were staying in the city tonight,” Blake says, taking a protective step in front of me as though to shield me from the wrath of his mom.
“I changed my mind,” LeAnne says coolly, but her fury is evident. She squeezes the car keys in her hand as though they’re a stress ball. “You weren’t at the house when I got back. I got worried.”
“How did you know –”
LeAnne pulls her phone from her purse and holds it up. “Maybe if you don’t want your mother checking your location, you should block me in the future,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She puts her phone away and turns her back on us, studying the scene by the lake. Music is still playing, and everyone is happily mulling around, oblivious to the fact that Mayor Avery has shown up. “A bonfire?” she hisses through tight lips, twisting back around. “In a park? This was your idea, no doubt? You idiot, Blake!”
“We aren’t harming anyone!” Blake argues, raising his voice in self-defense. “There’s no trees near the fire. We aren’t being too loud. We’re just—”
“Singing around the fire?” LeAnne sharply cuts in, nodding to the guitar case on the truck bed behind us. She raises an eyebrow as though challenging Blake to deny it. “All this trouble just so you get the chance to play in front of an audience, huh?”
Blake remains silent, but, standing next to him, I sense the tremor of fury that ripples through him. In a seething voice, he growls, “You aren’t the goddamn Mayor of Fairview. You don’t control us here.”
LeAnne, terrifyingly calm, closes the few steps that separate Blake and her. She draws her face to his, then puts her hand flat on his chest so that he’s forced to look straight back at her. “Shut it down,” she orders venomously. “Right now.”
“Okay!” Blake barks in defeat, moving free of her. He brushes down his shirt and, nostrils flaring, cuts his eyes to me. “Mila, get in the truck.”
“No,” LeAnne retorts.
Blake’s expression twists as he looks back to his mother. “No?”
“You are staying here, Blake,” she declares. “You are sending all of those kids home. You are cleaning up every single item that was brought here tonight. You are putting that fire out and you aren’t leaving here until you ensure the remaining ash has completely cooled down. I don’t care if that means you’re out here all night.”
“I can do all that,” Blake mutters. “But I gave Mila a ride,” he insists, his voice stronger. “And Myles and Savannah. How are they going to get home?”
LeAnne doesn’t say anything at first, but she sets her fierce eyes on me and I know I don’t want to hear her answer. I shrink further into myself, drawing my shoulders in tight, wishing I could hide out of sight.
“I’ll take them home,” says LeAnne at last. She continues to glower at me with nothing short of contempt, as though I personally organized this little campfire singalong myself. “Mila, go to my car. Blake, go and get your cousins.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Blake reluctantly sets off, stopping after a few yards to turn back with a weary, torn expression. “I’m sorry,” he mouths. Then he continues toward the bonfire to shut down the night.
“Mila,” LeAnne says.
“What?” I bite back more aggressively than I mean to. How can she talk to her son like that? How can she always look at me as though I’m filth she’s just discovered trodden into on her shoe?
“This way,” she says, and begins to walk.
At first, I don’t want to follow her. Just moments ago, Blake’s lips were against mine and I was sinking happily into the scent of firewood and cologne and the sensation of his fingers brushing my skin. It all ended so quickly that I can’t help but question if it ever really happened. There’s still the soft taste of him on my lips, but it’s vanishing like campfire smoke in the night air.
How can I go from kissing Blake in the back of his truck to now being ordered around by his mom?
But it looks like Mayor Avery isn’t someone whose orders you ignore.
So, I follow her.