Dallas and Trip were outside, hanging out by the front of Trip’s motorcycle. It was the first time I’d seen the shiny Harley. It might have been because he was always lugging around Dean and sports equipment that he didn’t drive it to practice, but I figured a man in a motorcycle club would probably ride it often.

“You wanna come with us?” That was Louie hollering.

Hollering and inviting people as always.

“You’re going to the movies?” Dallas asked, diagonally crossing the street.

Louie rattled off the name of the movie we were watching, and our neighbor, still in his work clothes, glanced at his cousin and tipped his chin up. “What do you say? You wanna go, Trip?”

Trip straightened, catching my eye and winking. “Hey, honey. Mind if we tag along?”

I glanced at Dallas and exchanged a smile with him. He was so scruffy looking. I’d swear there was paint all over his forearms. “If you guys want to, we can squeeze into my car.”

The “hmm” that went through both men had me frowning. “What movie theater were you planning on going to?” Trip asked, and I answered. “Dean’s mom’s place is on the way. J, we could pick him up if you want.”

Like Josh was ever going to say no to hanging out with Dean. “Okay.”

“We won’t fit in your car, but we can go in mine,” Dallas offered.

I didn’t miss Trip’s slight wince.

Dallas didn’t miss his expression either because he gave him a frown. “What? My truck’s clean.”

“I don’t care what we go in,” I told them. “But we should probably go because the movie starts in an hour.”

Dallas glanced down at his clothes for a moment, but I waved him on. “You look fine. Let’s go.”

Trip and Dallas agreed to swap vehicles in the driveway, and in the next few minutes, Louie, Josh, and I loaded into the back, with Trip jumping into the front passenger seat after parking his bike in the driveway. Dean’s mom’s house really was on the way to the movie theater. Trip called her on the way over and Dean was already waiting outside when we pulled up.

“Diana, come ride up here so he can ride in the back with the boys,” Dallas suggested as he put the truck into park.

With another quick swap around of human bodies, I found myself in the center of Dallas’s bench seat, admiring how clean he managed to keep his truck. He wasn’t lying. Unlike his house, there were no wrappers anywhere and no signs of layers of dust. It was a miracle. The only things he had up front was an air freshener in the shape of a pine tree hanging off his rearview mirror and a pack of yellow Post-it notes sitting on the dashboard.

“It’s old, but it works,” the man in the driver seat said to me.

I glanced at him. “I didn’t say anything. I was just admiring how clean it is.”

“You can afford a new one,” Trip muttered.

Something about the way Dallas shook his head at the comment told me this was an old argument between them. The hand he had on the steering wheel gave the worn leather a long, gentle rub. “I don’t need to get another truck the second a new model comes out.”

“You’ve had this one for… what is this? A 1996?”

“A 1998,” came Dallas’s response.

I fidgeted in my seat, keeping my legs closed so that they wouldn’t touch either of theirs. “When did you get her?” I asked.

He nodded, his hand back at the top of the steering wheel, his other palm flat on the thigh furthest away from me. “Bought her brand new. She was my first.”

“The only reason my car is new is because I couldn’t roll around with those two in a Mustang,” I offered him up some support. “That was my first brand new car, and I had loved it. I had my mom’s old Elantra before that.”

It was Trip who squinted over at me. “I can’t see you in a Mustang, honey.”

I snickered. “I was a different person back then. That Diana drove a red one and got speeding tickets all the time. Me now, drives the speed limit and has better things to do than spend my money on speeding tickets.”

Trip’s phone started ringing and he answered it. Next to me, Dallas whispered, “How’s your head?”

I cringed on the inside. “Fine,” I answered. “I have to do the shampoo again in a few days, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the boys and haven’t found any more eggs, so hopefully that’ll be the end of them. Are you okay? No itchy head?”

“No itchy head,” he confirmed. “But if it comes up, I’ll let you know.”

“Sure, sign me up for that combing,” I mumbled right before laughing and getting one back from him too.

Dallas glanced at me for a second before facing forward again, a smile on his mouth, the sound of Josh and Dean behind us talking, filling the air. “What are those huge boxes on your yard for?”

I snorted. “I figured Louie would have tried wrangling you in to build it for him. He saved up money to buy a quarterpipe. But it’s a kit, and it needs to be assembled. I’ll probably ask my dad to come over and help me do it when Louie isn’t around.”

“Why doesn’t he want you to build it?”

“A few years ago, I ordered him a bed online and built it for him. Tried building it for him. He jumped on it once and it collapsed. He hasn’t forgotten about it, and no matter how many times I tried to explain that the bed sucked, he still thinks I did something wrong and that’s why it broke,” I explained to him quietly, so only he could hear.