Chapter 7
Gas Station Wine and Cozy Cabin Vibes
Duke
We’re climbing into the mountains when a gust of wind hits us, shaking the truck.
The steering wheel vibrates beneath my fingers. I tighten my grip, ducking my head to peer out the windshield.
“That doesn’t sound good.” Wheeler grips the handle on the frame above her door. “Do you think we should pull over, or…”
We’ve been on the road for over twelve hours now.
The afternoon light is fading. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registers just how bone tired I am.
My ass is sore, my back aches, and my eyes are sandpaper, thanks to leaving my damn contacts in for way too long.
I’d take them out, but I feel like I look like a dork in my glasses.
I perk right the fuck up, though, when the wind hits us again and I have to yank on the steering wheel to keep us in our lane.
“Duke!” Wheeler’s other hand lands on my forearm. “Jesus, the wind up here. Why didn’t they say it would be this bad?”
The highway is mostly deserted, save for the occasional plow and salt trucks. But there’s a sheer drop on our left and a wall of rock on our right, so even though we’re the only ones on the road, I still need to be careful.
I chuckle, partly as an attempt to keep Wheeler at ease. “They kinda did with that blizzard warning.”
“The blizzard’s not supposed to start until eight.” She glances at the clock that glows on the dash. “It’s only five.”
I shrug. “Told you the weather up here changes quickly.”
“You sure you’re okay to drive?”
“Yep. All good.”
Truth be told, the weather is deteriorating fast. The snow has started.
Just flurries at the moment, but the wind is whipping them around.
I know once the snow really starts to come down, we’ll be facing whiteout conditions.
Especially as it gets dark. The truck’s headlights will reflect off the snow, making it virtually impossible to see.
We gotta get to Aspen before that happens. Four more hours. A little less if we get lucky with the weather.
In the meantime, I have to keep Wheeler calm. My cute little city girl clearly ain’t used to traveling in adverse conditions.
Luckily for her, I am. Garrett Luck taught me how to drive in rain, shine, and snow while hauling a trailer full of ornery mustangs.
Wouldn’t say this is easy in comparison, but I’m only the normal amount of nervous as we climb our way through the mountains in the deepening darkness. An hour passes. Two. Three.
I keep the conversation flowing in an effort to distract Wheeler, the two of us chatting about a little bit of everything.
She asks what my favorite book is—toss up between anything Ernest Hemingway or Anthony Bourdain wrote—and I pick her brain about the World War II fiction she devours in marathon audiobook sessions while driving between Dallas and Hartsville.
We share a love of Excel, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and colored lights at Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday, but hers is Halloween because she loves to dress up and buy Reese’s pumpkins in bulk.
The truck doesn’t have Bluetooth—hell, it doesn’t have so much as a CD player or tape deck—so we find a country station on the radio, and together we sing along to Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks.
“So this trunk show.” I bite into a Twizzler. “What are your goals, other than selling all those boots we got in the back?”
Wheeler looks vacantly at the Twizzler she has in her hand.
“Network. Meet their buyers, their customers. Get feedback on what people are looking for. Then again, who knows if this trunk show is even gonna happen?” She glances out the window at the swirling snow.
“I mean, I know Dallas is totally ridiculous when the weather gets bad. Half an inch of snow, and the whole city shuts down. I imagine Aspen is much better prepared to handle it. Still, if this storm dumps a couple feet of snow on us…”
“They’ll clear it, no problem. And if we gotta stay an extra day or two to make up for lost time, then we stay an extra day or two.”
I feel her looking at me. “You’d be okay with that?”
“Wheeler, I am so damn happy to be somewhere other than Hartsville I can’t even tell you. Of course I’m okay with that. Ask me to stay a week. Two weeks. I’d love the excuse to be away.”
She lets out a soft chuckle. “You really don’t get out enough, do you?”
“Out of Hartsville? No, I don’t.”
The phone in her lap lights up, the ringtone chiming. I glance at it and see Dad—Work on the top of the screen.
I lean away, silently giving her space to take the call. Instead, she hits the button on the side of her phone and sends the call to voicemail.
I wait for her to say something. Explain why she didn’t pick up her dad’s call. Maybe she’s too nervous about the weather to chat right now.
Or maybe there’s another reason why she doesn’t want to talk to her dad. She keeps dropping these hints that her family life isn’t the happiest.
Whatever the case, Wheeler pretends like the call never happened. Instead, she drops the phone into her cupholder and puts the Twizzler in her mouth. She bites down, hard, giving the red candy rope a vicious tug.
“Guess we’ll cross the bridge when we get there,” she says. “If Aspen Leather Company is closed tomorrow or Saturday, then we figure out plan B. Thanks for being flexible.”
“Told you I’m gonna be the best damn assistant you ever had.”
“The mouthiest for sure.”
“But you like it.”
The green and red lights of the dashboard catch on her eyes when she looks at me. “Keeps things interesting, I’ll say that much.”
Conditions steadily worsen. The radio station we’re listening to slowly fades out, so Wheeler has to search for something else. She finds a pop station, and we listen to Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers—I think—in tense silence.
Wheeler doesn’t even to pretend to be relaxed, while I try my damnedest to keep the mood light by cracking jokes and bopping my head to the beat of each song.
The relief I feel when we finally cruise into Aspen city limits hits me like, well, a U-Haul truck.
“We should grab some supplies for the house real quick.” I drive slowly, looking out the windows. “If you see a grocery store, let me know.”
The only thing we find open is a gas station. Not ideal, but if we don’t get our asses up to this house, pronto, we’re either gonna get stuck on the side of the road or fall clear off a cliff.
Stepping out of the truck, the cold slaps me across the face. The wind is bitter, biting at any sliver of exposed skin.
Wheeler joins me outside and moans, flipping up the fur-lined hood on her jacket. “Ohmygod I hate this.”
“My tender little Texas flower.” Chuckling, I reach over and tug up her zipper so that her mouth and nose are covered. “We’ll make it quick. Booze, snacks, coffee. The rest we’ll figure out later.”
“I like this plan.”
We scurry inside, both of us exhaling audibly as we stand underneath a blast of heat.
I do a quick scan of the aisles. We’re not working with much, but it’s enough to get us through the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
Maybe this house we’re staying at will have some better food in the freezer?
“Talk to me. I know you drink coffee.” I grab a pound of Dunkin’ off the shelf and drop it in the basket I picked up by the cash register. “Do you always eat breakfast? That burrito seemed to hit the spot.”
Wheeler may or may not have made some porn-adjacent sounds as she polished off her breakfast this morning.
I may or may not have had to crack the window to let in some cold air.
Told Wheeler I needed a pick-me-up because I was tired.
But really, I’d started to sweat. My dick liked those sounds just a little too much.
“I mean.” She reaches up for a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. “We should probably have something on hand just in case.”
I grin. “You just want an excuse to eat that garbage, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah.” She’s grinning too, looking so adorable in her furry hood with her bright pink cheeks that my heart skips a beat. “My parents would buy fun cereal like this when we’d go on vacation. Did you not eat it growing up?”
I grab the box and drop it in the basket. “Lived on the stuff. Cinnamon Toast Crunch just so happens to be among my favorites. Drinking the milk at the end?”
“Best part!”
“Let’s not forget to grab milk, then.”
“I’m on it.”
“See?” I hold out my fist. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
Scoffing, she rolls her eyes and gives me a reluctant fist bump. “Not sure this counts, but okay.”
We grab a couple cans of Pringles, some bread, butter, eggs, OJ, and cheese. The solo jar of salsa looks lonely on the shelf, so I grab that too, along with sugar and milk.
We hit the beer and wine aisle last. Wheeler holds up a bottle of wine with a fish on the label. “Feels like a cab kinda night, no?”
“Is that going to be enough?”
“How much are you planning on drinking?”
“No telling how long we’ll be snowed in. And far as I can tell, you haven’t properly celebrated all those wins that keep adding up for you and Mollie.” I pick up a box of cabernet sauvignon. “This is more our speed.”
Wheeler stands beside me. “Are you suggesting we play slap the bag?”
Slap the bag is an exceptionally stupid drinking game we’d play back in the day.
First, you remove the bag of wine from inside the box.
Then one person holds up the bag while the other gets on his or her knees and drinks from the bag for as long as possible.
Once they’re done, they simply slap the bag and pass it on to the next person.
Mindless? Yes. Does it get you buzzed in a hurry? Also yes.
Not like I want to get Wheeler drunk. I just want her to be able to relax after a long, stressful day.
“I’m absolutely suggesting we play slap the bag.” I put the box in my basket, careful not to crush the loaf of Wonder Bread. “The fancy version, though, since we’re in a fancy place, and I’m springing for the fancy boxed wine.”