Worth the Fall by Mara Jacobs

the truck then looked over at her. “Are you cold?”
    She shivered as she shook her head. He chuckled and turned on the heater. It was early June, but summer was slow to come to the Copper Country this year. She ’d worn jeans and a tee-shirt but had brought a fleece pullover with her, which she’d put on a while ago. He wore jeans and a long-sleeve gray tee with some hockey equipment company’s logo across the front. “I’m sorry I don’t have a jacket to offer you. Wait,” he said and turned to rummage in the space behind the seat, allowing her a look at his long back and tight butt. Levi’s were made for a body like his.
    He turned back around and handed her a plaid flannel blanket. “Here you go,” he said turning the heat up even more.
    “ Really, I’m not that cold,” she said but took the blanket and placed it on her lap. It had been a cool evening, but that wasn’t why she’d shivered.
    They pulled out of the circular area and drove down the quarter-mile dirt road back to the main road, which would lead them back to Hancock.
    When they got to the road, Petey stopped, looked both ways, then put both hands on the steering wheel and looked over at her. “Right or left?”
    What was he talking about? He had to know this road as well as she did. Right was the direction back to Hancock. Left took them further out on the canal road, eventually to Lake Superior and then Calumet.
    “Right or left?” he asked again. “You decide.”
    Decide. Choose. So he wasn ’t asking her for directions, but rather asking her where she wanted to go. With him. Alone.
    “ Left,” she said firmly, and he quickly pulled the truck out onto the road and away from their hometowns.
    They rode in silence for a few miles, past the entrance to the state park. About a half-mile farther, he pulled the truck to a stop. Which was fine to do on this low-traffic road, in the wee hours of the evening. “Left or straight,” he asked.
    Straight would take them in a more direct route to Calumet. Left would take them eventually to Calumet, but via a road where at points you could pull over and view Lake Superior. Not that there ’d be any viewing this late at night.
    “ Left.”
    He turned.
    They both stayed silent, which was unusual. She usually always had something to say about everything, and Petey was typically the life of the party. But on he drove, not saying a word.
    She still didn ’t have a good bead on what was going on. Was he just bored and not ready to go home, looking to extend the evening with a game of “you decide where we’ll end up”? Or was it something more?
    And was he leaving that up to her to decide? That thought scared the bejeezus out of her. When they got to the Calumet Water Works public area, she was about ready to jump out of her skin wondering if he ’d…yep. He stopped the truck, again in the middle of the road, and said, “Left or straight.”
    “ Left,” she barely whispered. He pulled the truck into the deserted area, coming to park facing the lake. He put the truck in park, then placed his hand on the key.
    He looked over at her, made sure she was watching him, watching his hand, and softly said, “On or off.”
    She swallowed. Crap, why was he making her make all the choices? What if she was building something up in her mind that wasn ’t going to happen? What exactly would happen? And why now? Why after a whole year of hanging around together?
    Damn him, she didn ’t want to have put herself out there like this.
    “ Alison?” Her name had never sounded so soft and tempting as when he said it. “On or off?”
    “ Off.” He turned the ignition off and the truck went silent. Except she was sure he’d be able to hear her heartbeat, crazy fast as it was. He turned, leaning his back against the driver’s door, his arms open wide, one along the door, resting on the dash, the other along the top of bench seat.
    He took a deep breath and his exhale sounded a little shaky, which made her