Mr. McHale's hand landed on the roof of the minivan with a dull thud. "Alright, everybody in. We've got an hour drive to San Bernardino."
Paige's heart slammed against her ribs. She couldn't look at Johnny. Couldn't not look at him. Her body still hummed with the memory of his hands, his mouth, the way he'd held her afterward in the sticky dark of the back seat.
"Shotgun!" Jimmy yelled, scrambling past his mother and into the front passenger seat.
"You always get shotgun." Marla rolled her eyes, but she slid into the middle row without argument, pulling the door closed behind her.
Mrs. McHale climbed into the driver's seat, already digging in her purse for the keys. "Paige honey, you're in the back with Johnny."
Paige's throat tightened. The back. Where twenty minutes ago—
"Paige?" Mrs. McHale's voice, patient, waiting.
"Sorry." She heard her own voice like it belonged to someone else. "Yeah. Coming."
She pulled open the sliding door and climbed into the far back seat. The vinyl was still warm. She sat on the passenger side, leaving a foot of space between her and where Johnny would sit. The smell hit her—sweat and sex and the faint strawberry of the lip gloss she'd been wearing. She cracked the window an inch.
Johnny slid in beside her, careful, deliberate. He closed the door with a soft click that sounded louder than it was. The dome light went out and the car went dark, and Paige felt his presence like heat from a stove.
His knee brushed hers. He pulled it away fast.
"Seatbelts." Mrs. McHale's voice from the front.
The buckle clicked. The engine turned over. The radio came on low—a country song she didn't recognize, something about trucks and heartbreak.
Mr. McHale settled into the passenger seat and twisted around. "Everyone good back there?"
"Good," Johnny said.
"Fine," Paige managed.
Mr. McHale's eyes lingered on them a beat too long. Then he turned back around. "Alright. Let's roll."
The minivan pulled out of the bowling alley parking lot, and Paige watched San Bernardino Lanes shrink in the side mirror until it was just another neon sign in a strip of them.
Jimmy had the radio dial in his hand within thirty seconds. "Can we change it?"
"No." Mrs. McHale's voice was flat. Final.
"Mom—"
"You have a whole tournament tomorrow. Rest your ears."
Jimmy slumped in his seat but left the dial alone.
In the dark of the back seat, Paige's hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs and tried to breathe. The highway noise filled the silence—tires on asphalt, wind through the crack in her window, the low thrum of the engine.
She glanced at Johnny.
He was looking at her.
Their eyes met and held. The rest of the car dissolved. The radio, the highway, the hum of his parents' voices in the front—all of it fell away until there was nothing but his face, half-lit by passing streetlights, and the weight of what they'd done sitting between them like a third passenger.
He looked at her mouth.
She looked at his hands. They were resting on his knees, palms open. She remembered them on her skin. She remembered his fingers laced with hers while he pushed inside her, slow and careful, like she was something precious.
Johnny leaned closer, and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her, right there in the back seat with his parents five feet away. Her breath caught.
He stopped. His hand moved an inch toward hers on the seat, then stopped again. Their fingers didn't touch, but the space between them felt electric, alive, like touching without contact.
"You two okay back there?" Mrs. McHale glanced in the rearview mirror.
Paige tore her gaze away. "Fine."
"Thirsty," Johnny said at the same time.
His mother laughed. "There's water in the cooler. Jimmy, grab your brother a bottle."
Jimmy twisted around, grabbed a plastic bottle from the cooler at his feet, and tossed it over the seat. It landed in Johnny's lap. "Here."
"Thanks." Johnny's voice was steady, but when he twisted the cap off, his hands were shaking. Paige watched his fingers fumble. Watched water slosh over the rim. He drank anyway, and she watched his throat move as he swallowed, and her own throat went dry.
She wanted to touch him.
She wanted to press her palm against his chest and feel his heartbeat the way she had twenty minutes ago, when they were tangled together and she didn't know where she ended and he began.
Johnny set the bottle down and his hand stayed near hers on the seat. A centimeter closer than before. Maybe two.
"How's everyone feeling about tomorrow?" Mr. McHale's voice cut through. "Jimmy, you ready?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"You guess?"
"I'm ready." Jimmy said it like he was already tired of the question.
"And you, Johnny?"
"Ready."
"Good. Paige, Marla—you girls bowling?"
"No sir," Marla said. "Just watching."
"Well, we'll need some cheerleaders," Mrs. McHale said. "These boys don't have much dignity to lose, but we can pretend."
Jimmy groaned. "Mom."
Marla laughed, bright and easy, and the conversation drifted into tournament talk—scores and spares and which lanes had the best oil patterns. Paige let it wash over her, nodded when she was supposed to, but she wasn't there.
She was in the back seat of this same minivan, twenty minutes ago, with Johnny's breath in her ear and his body pressed against hers and the world narrowed to the space between their mouths.
She felt heat climb her neck. Her face was burning.
She risked another look at Johnny.
He was staring straight ahead, but his jaw was tight. His hand had moved closer, almost touching her pinky now—close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off his skin. She didn't move hers. Neither did he.
The highway unfurled. Streetlights swept through the car in pulses, illuminating and darkening, illuminating and darkening, and with each sweep Paige saw him—his profile, his hands, the way his chest rose and fell—before darkness swallowed him again.
"So how was bowling?" Mrs. McHale asked. "Before we got back."
Paige's stomach dropped.
"Fine," Jimmy said. "Just practice."
"We did some games," Marla added, her voice perfectly casual. "Jimmy beat me twice."
"Only twice," Jimmy said. "She got me once."
"I got lucky." Marla's tone was light, easy, the kind of tone that didn't raise suspicion. "Lost interest after a while. Just sat around talking."
Paige felt a rush of gratitude so sharp it almost hurt. Marla had covered for them, was still covering for them, and she'd done it without blinking.
"That's nice," Mrs. McHale said. "Good to socialize."
The car settled into rhythm. The radio found a song everyone could tolerate. Tires hummed. Wind rushed. And in the back seat, Paige and Johnny sat with an inch of space between their hands and the full weight of what they'd done pressing against the seal of their silence.
His pinky brushed hers.
She felt it like a shock.
She didn't pull away. Neither did he.
They stayed like that—not holding hands, not quite touching—for the rest of the ride, while his parents talked about lane conditions and Jimmy argued with Marla about who'd won Marco Polo at the pool that summer and the country station faded into static before finding a new signal.
And Johnny's pinky stayed against hers, warm and steady, through all of it.
Paige watched the highway lights blur past and thought about nothing except the point of contact between them, the tiny seam where their skin met, and how it felt like the most important thing in the world.
The minivan took the exit for San Bernardino.
Mr. McHale pointed at a neon sign ahead. "There it is. Budget Inn."
"Classy," Marla muttered, quiet enough that only the back seat could hear.
Jimmy snorted.
Mrs. McHale pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. The silence that followed was sudden, loud in its absence of sound.
"Alright." She turned around. "Room 112, Johnny. You and Jimmy are sharing. Paige and Marla, you're right next door in 114. We're in 110."
Paige nodded. Her hand slid away from Johnny's as she reached for the door handle.
They climbed out into the cool night air. The parking lot was mostly empty—a few cars, a pickup truck, a vending machine glowing blue near the office. The motel stretched out in a long U-shape, two stories, exterior corridors with metal railings.
Paige stood by the minivan with her duffel bag, watching Johnny help his dad with the luggage. He moved slowly, deliberately, like he was still inside the van, still beside her.
Someone touched her elbow. She turned.
Marla. Her face was unreadable in the dim light, but her eyes were sharp, knowing. "You okay?"
Paige swallowed. Nodded.
"Good." Marla's voice was soft. "Come on. Let's find our room."
Paige followed her, but she looked back over her shoulder.
Johnny was watching her.
He had a duffel in one hand and keys in the other, and he was just standing there, still, his eyes on her like she was the only thing in the parking lot worth seeing.
She felt it in her chest. That same pull. That same ache.
She looked away first.
The door to Room 114 opened with a scrape of the key card, and Paige stepped inside, leaving the night behind her.
But she knew—with a certainty that burned through her, warm and alive—that she would find him again. Tomorrow. Tonight. However long it took.
And this time, she wouldn't look away.