Chapter 10
ten
. . .
Cage
Good Christ. These people were going to be the death of me. The clouds were getting darker, and we should have been on our way an hour ago. At this rate, we weren’t going to get back until well after eight p.m.
“Keys,” I grunted, holding out my hand.
“Why do you think you’re driving?”
I just stared at her and held my hand still until she relented and handed me the keys. I was about to be stuck in the car with her for several hours, and now she was coming to Sunday dinner.
I was doing all I could to have some clear boundaries, but it was becoming more challenging with every family member fawning all over her. And I was in a bad mood after my run-in with that little fucker, Preston.
After we’d gotten home from the barn the other night, Gracie showed me a chunk of her hair that was missing.
I’d seen red. What if he’d slipped and stabbed her in the neck or the eye?
And his mother didn’t seem to give two shits about how out of control her kid was.
The woman hit on me every time I saw her, and I’d shut her down every damn time.
Why would I be interested in a woman who didn’t give a fuck about her child hurting other kids?
My hands gripped the steering wheel as I made my way around the curve, and we climbed the mountain. We were going slower than I’d like because we were hauling this trailer behind us.
“Why do you look like you’re having murderous thoughts?” Presley broke the silence.
I didn’t answer at first.
I hadn’t slept well.
Hell, I hadn’t slept well since this woman had come back home.
I’d fucked my right hand thinking about her so many times over the last week I probably had carpal tunnel. It was more action than my dick had seen in years, so now he was on edge and reacting every single time we saw her.
“Why do you ask?” I glanced over at her before putting my eyes back on the road.
“I hate when people answer a question with a question.”
“Isn’t that what you do for a living?” I said, trying to hide the humor from my voice.
“You just did it again. Under the pretense of inquiring about my profession.”
I let out a long breath, leaning forward to look up at the sky, seeing it darkening the further we drove. I’d driven in snow hundreds of times, so I wasn’t overly concerned. I just didn’t want this to turn into a ten-hour trip.
“I’m thinking about Preston. He cut a piece of Gracie’s hair, and he could have really hurt her by having scissors by her neck.”
“He’s a little shit,” she hissed. “And the apple does not fall far from the tree. His mom had zero concerns about the scissors. She was just focused on Gracie’s father.”
“She’s looking for a husband, and she’s definitely looking in the wrong place if she thinks that’s going to happen here.”
“Yeah? You’ve never hooked up with her?”
I rolled my eyes. “Give me a little credit. I have a child.”
“Does that mean once you become a parent, you don’t hook up with people?” She chuckled. “That’s kind of ironic, really. I mean, you have to have sex to make a baby, right?”
“Last time I checked.”
“And then what? You just stop having sex once you have the kid? That doesn’t seem logical.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I groaned. “I didn’t say I didn’t have sex. I said I didn’t have sex with Rhonda.”
“Oh. So, you do make time for yourself, huh?”
“Presley.”
“Cage.”
“Can we not talk about this right now?”
“We’re both grown-ups. I don’t know why you have to make it so weird. There’s no shame in talking about it. All the kids are doing it.” She sang out the last line and then laughed hysterically.
I didn’t comment. I was too focused on the raging erection growing behind my zipper now that she’d brought up sex, and it was making things very uncomfortable for me.
“Fine. I’ll DJ.” She turned on the radio and found a country station. It was one thing we’d always agreed on.
Country music.
She sang along like she always did.
I focused on the road and tried not to think about my dick for the next hour or so, and the snow started to fall and turn into a full-on blizzard. I didn’t miss the way Presley kept looking out the window and then biting down on her bottom lip, which again led to me having an issue down south.
We’d just made it to the pass, and I couldn’t see two feet in front of me anymore. The roads were getting slicker by the minute.
The car in front of us was barely moving.
“See if you can find a weather station,” I said.
She flipped around, trying a few channels before she found what we were looking for.
The sky was growing dark already as the storm moved overhead.
I glanced in my rearview mirror, and there was no one coming from behind us, which was a little alarming.
No one was coming from the other side of the road, either.
“Should we turn around?” she asked.
“I don’t think we can at this point. There’s no place to turn around, not with this giant trailer on the back. And I’m guessing going back the other way isn’t much better anyway.”
“Shit,” she whispered.
I turned up the volume just as the weatherman said they’d closed the pass ten minutes ago. We must have been the last ones through. This was a bad fucking idea. I should have known better. But how many times had they claimed we were getting a storm, and it hadn’t been a big deal at all?
We were almost at a complete stop as the car in front of us caught up to the one in front of them as we edged further up the mountain.
I glanced over to see Presley staring out the window as she fidgeted with her hands in her lap.
“Hey, it’ll be fine,” I said, but the car in front of us skidded out, and Presley shrieked. The car straightened, and I weighed our options. Going forward was really the only choice we had. “Do you have reception on your phone?”
She looked down and shook her head. “No. There’s no service.”
Fuck.
We continued driving, and Presley’s voice shook as she spoke, and her hands started flailing around. “I’m so sorry I dragged you out here. Now you’re not with Gracie, and this was—this was a huge mistake.”
The snow was coming down so hard I could barely see out the front windshield as the wipers moved rapidly back and forth.
We’d been on the road for four hours now, and we weren’t even halfway to where we were supposed to be going.
Clearly, we weren’t getting there tonight.
But I wanted to reach my parents to let them know we were all right, and I’d need them to keep Gracie overnight.
“Presley,” I said, my voice even. “We’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen. We just aren’t going to make it there today. There’s a small motel up ahead where we can wait it out. At the rate we’re going, we wouldn’t be there till morning anyway, so we may as well pull over and get some sleep.”
“Oh my gosh,” she groaned. “I’m really sorry that I’m keeping you from Gracie and that I ruined your night. And it’s freaking Valentine’s Day.”
“This is how you’re spending Valentine’s Day, too, right?”
“I’m in the process of getting a divorce; it’s not like I have a hot date lined up.
And I usually spend Valentine’s Day alone anyway.
” She paused, as if she’d said too much, and my gaze locked with hers as the car was at a complete stop now.
“Wes traveled a lot, and I never minded being by myself, if I’m being honest.”
It was clear that her marriage had been over for a long time. But I hated hearing the loneliness in her voice.
And I heard it loud and clear, without her actually saying the words.
I knew her.
I still fucking knew her as well as I did all those years ago.
I didn’t want to dig any deeper. We’d just be asking for trouble. The timing had always been a struggle for us, and now we lived on different coasts.
We were different people than we were all those years ago.
I leaned forward as we started driving again. It was slow, but at least we were moving. The snow continued to fall harder the further we drove.
“I’m fucking starving. Tell me you brought snacks. You always liked road trip food,” I said, refusing to look over at her, even though I felt her eyes on me.
“It was only supposed to be an hour and a half each way,” she said.
“Fuck. You didn’t bring anything?”
“I didn’t say that. I just wanted to hear you beg.”
“I’ve never been above begging, have I?”
Fuck. Why did talking about snacks make me hard?
“Fine. But admit that when you mix M&M’s with popcorn, you get the best snack ever invented.” She unbuckled her seat belt and reached behind her seat for a shopping bag that she pulled up front.
“Get that damn buckle back on now,” I demanded, my voice coming out harsher than I meant it to. But who knew what could happen in this storm. I was trying to keep her calm, but we were in one of the worst storms I’d ever experienced, and I’d seen my fair share.
She snapped her seat belt back into place, pulled out a ziplock bag, and shook it around. “Relax. I’m buckled. Now say it, Reynolds.”
“Is it the only option you brought?” I asked, looking up ahead and seeing lights off to the side of the road. I knew that motel should be coming up soon, and we didn’t want to miss it, or we’d be at risk of running out of gas and sleeping in the car soon.
She huffed and reached into the bag. “I’m not an asshole. I brought another option. Popcorn and Hot Tamales. But come on, the chocolate mixed with the popcorn makes a sugary, salty snack that is absolute perfection. Yours is just… like having toothpaste with your popcorn.”
The years of debate over this was still fresh in my mind, but my chest squeezed that she’d remembered and brought my favorite snack.
“What can I say? I like a little spice with my snack.”
Motherfucker. I did it again.
My dick was raging with rebellion over fucking talk about Hot Tamales. Even the fear of being near death didn’t have him keeping a low profile. I shifted in my seat a bit, trying to get things under control.
“Is your back hurting?” she asked, and I could hear the concern in her voice.