Read Online Love and Relativity by Rachael Wade - Free Book Online Page B

above us, and my whole body relaxed at the sight. It was beautiful. One advantage of being out in the middle of nowhere was the lack of light. You could make out nearly every star in the sky, and the breeze was fresh and sweet like springtime.
    I slid further up the hood toward the windshield and leaned back, resting my head on the glass with a deep breath. “It’s gorgeous,” I said.
    “Yeah, it is.”
    When I turned to face him, he wasn’t looking at the sky.
    “You have to try this,” he said. “It’s the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. This place is a local gem. My dad and I used to stop here when I was a kid, every time we drove up to Orlando.” Pulling something warm and gooey from the paper tray, he blew on it and held it to my lips. “Taste.”
    I opened my mouth and bit down, surprised to find I actually liked a food he’d picked out. “ Mmmmm .” I shut my eyes as the spicy, melted cheese ignited an explosion of pure pleasure on my tongue. “That is amazing.”
    “What’d I tell you?” He pulled his hand away and sucked his thumb before wiping his fingers on his jeans. I wrinkled my nose.
    “Crap!” I slid off the hood and darted around to the passenger door, opening it to fumble through my purse.
    “Let me guess. You don’t have your hand sanitizer.”
    “Yes, damn it.”
    “Guess I’ll have to feed you.” He turned and smiled through the windshield.
    “Right, because your fingers are so much cleaner than mine.”
    “Look at you,” he laughed. “You’re getting the shakes over there. Emma Pierce, crack is wack.”
    “Oh, shove it, Jackson.” I let out a laugh of my own, slamming the door and jutting my lip out into a pout. I walked back around to the front of the hood and proceeded to pick at the food, not eating the parts my fingers touched.
    Jackson tore open packets of three different kinds of sauces and dumped them on top, then sloppily shoved a huge portion into his mouth, the sauce trickling down the side of his chin. He pulled the collar of his t-shirt up to wipe it away.
    “What?” he asked, catching my smirk.
    “Your eating habits are truly a grotesque work of art, do you know that?”
    “So are your finicky eating habits.”
    “Finicky?”
    “Finicky. And persnickety.”
    “ Persnickety ? I hate that word.”
    “Well, it loves you.”
    “Persnickety and finicky are the same thing. And how are my eating habits persnickety?”
    “Would you look at the food on your lap?” He pointed to the chunks of cheesy goodness on my paper plate. It was heaped into a mangled mass of sludge, looking as if it’d been massacred. “You don’t eat the ends of things. Sometimes, you only eat the ends of things. I see you pick at your food at Pete’s. It’s never consistent. It’s mind boggling.”
    “And persnickety.”
    “With a capital P,” he said with a tone of finality.
    “Well enough picking on me.” I stuck out my tongue and took a sip of my drink. “Why were you so desperate to drive home tonight?”
    “You mean besides the fact that I’m a bloody mess, the guy I beat up is back at the hotel, and Kayla skipped out on me?” He shrugged. “It killed my mood for the weekend, what can I say? I didn’t want to stay there knowing Chase and his idiot friends were lurking.”
    “So it had nothing to do with what he said about your dad.”
    His gaze turned distant. “My dad’s in jail. Chase threw it in my face and it set me off.”
    I stopped eating. Finally, he was ready to talk. “He’s...in jail? How have I never heard this?”
    “Because people back home know not to talk about it. And I don’t talk about it. He’s locked up in Fort Myers. I visit him sometimes.” His voice was softer now. “I don’t have a lot of money. Never did, never will. When my mom got sick, my dad lost his job and he couldn’t keep up with the medical bills, let alone anything else.” His grip tightened around his plastic cup, the sound of crickets and frogs filling the