20
We’re fifteen minutes into the drive when I realize I’m gripping the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me anchored to reality.
Which is ridiculous, because it’s just a road trip. Just me and Liv driving down the coast to a wedding where I’ll see people I haven’t talked to in years and pretend everything in my life is exactly as perfect as it looks from the outside.
No pressure.
“You okay?” Liv asks, looking up from her phone where she’s been building what she calls “the perfect road trip playlist.”
“Yeah. Fine. Just concentrating on driving.”
“It’s a straight shot down I-5, West. You could drive this with your eyes closed.”
“Safety first.”
“Safety first,” she agrees, but there’s amusement in her voice.
She’s wearing jeans and a soft green sweater that brings out her eyes, and her hair is down in waves that keep catching the morning light streaming through the passenger window. She looks comfortable. Relaxed.
Meanwhile, I settled on a navy button-down with the sleeves rolled up, but now I’m second-guessing it. Does it look too formal? Too casual? Too much like I spent twenty minutes thinking about what would make me look good for her?
“Music?” she asks, holding up her phone.
“Sure. You’re the DJ.”
“Dangerous words. I have very strong opinions about road trip music.”
“Such as?”
“No sad songs. No songs that make you think too hard. Nothing that doesn’t make you want to sing along.”
“That’s a very specific criteria.”
“The best road trips have soundtracks. This is going to be a good road trip, therefore it needs a good soundtrack.”
She connects her phone to the car’s Bluetooth, and suddenly the space fills with something upbeat and familiar. It’s the kind of song that immediately makes you want to roll the windows down and drive faster.
“Better?” she asks, settling back in her seat.
“Better.”
And it is better. The music fills the silence that’s been building between us, gives us something to focus on besides the fact that we’re about to spend the next two days playing couple for people who don’t know it’s all pretend.
People who knew me in college, when I was a completely different person. When I was younger and stupider and had no idea what I wanted from life besides hockey and whatever girl was paying attention to me that week.
“You’re nervous,” Liv observes, and I realize I’m gripping the wheel again.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You are. Your shoulders are up around your ears.”
“My shoulders are normal.”
“Your shoulders are definitely not normal. What’s going on?”
I try to relax, force my shoulders down, loosen my grip on the steering wheel.
“I haven’t seen most of these people in years,” I admit.
“So?”
“So they knew me when I was... different.”
“Different?” she questions.
“Younger. Dumber. Less... evolved.”
She laughs, and the sound makes something in my chest relax.
“West, like you just said, you were young. Of course you were different. Everyone’s different than they were in college.”
“Yeah, but these are people who knew me when I thought doing keg stands was a personality trait.”
“Did you actually do keg stands?” she asks.
“I may have done a few keg stands.”
“Oh my god, you did. You totally did keg stands.”
“Don’t sound so delighted about it.”
“I’m just trying to picture you doing a keg stand. Were you good at them?”
“I was actually pretty good at them.”
“Of course you were. Hockey player lung capacity.”
“Something like that.”
She’s grinning now, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll pretend I’m impressed by your former keg stand prowess.”
“You don’t have to pretend anything. Just... be yourself. That’s all you need to do.”
“Just be myself.”
“Yeah.”
“And what if myself isn’t good enough for your college friends?”
“It will be, Liv.”
The thing is, I mean it. Liv could walk into any room and charm anyone. She did it with my teammates. She did it at Reed’s wedding. She has this way of listening to people that makes them feel like they’re the most interesting person in the world.
It’s one of the things I—
No. Not going there. Not thinking about the things I like about her, because that list is getting dangerously long, and I’m supposed to be focused on driving.
“Tell me about the groom,” she says, changing the subject. “How do you know him?”
“Jamie. We were roommates sophomore year. Good guy. Really good guy. We stayed close through college, but after graduation...”
“Life happened?”
“Life happened. He went to law school, I went pro. We kept in touch but not like we used to.”
“And now he’s getting married.”
I nod, adding, “To someone I’ve never met. Which means I’m going into this completely blind.”
“We’re going into this completely blind.”
“Right. We.”
That word does something to me every time she says it. We. Like we’re a team. Like we’re in this together.
Which we are, technically. But it feels like more than that.
“What’s her name?” Liv asks.
“Sarah. That’s literally all I know about her. Sarah, and that she makes Jamie happy enough to marry her.”
“That’s all you need to know.”
I don’t disagree with that.
“Yeah. If she makes him happy, then she’s good people. And if she’s good people, then we’ll like her.”
“We again.”
“We.” She smiles over at me.
She says it so casually, like we really are a couple making collective judgments about people.
A song comes on that she obviously loves, because she immediately turns it up and starts singing along. Not loudly, not performing, just singing because the song makes her happy.
I find myself watching her lips move with the words, the way she unconsciously sways with the music, the way her hands gesture when she gets to a part she particularly likes.
She’s beautiful. Not just objectively beautiful, though she is that. But beautiful in the way she moves through the world. In the way she finds joy in small things like the perfect road trip song.
In the way she makes everything feel lighter just by being there.
“Eyes on the road, West,” she says without looking at me.
“My eyes are on the road.”
“Your eyes are definitely not on the road.”
“How do you know where my eyes are if you’re not looking at me?”
“I can feel you staring.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You were totally staring.”
“I was... appreciating.”
“Appreciating what?”
“Your... enthusiasm for music.”
“My enthusiasm for music.” She blinks at me.
I look at her and then back at the road. Then her again and smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s what you were appreciating.”
“Among other things.”
She turns to look at me then, and there’s something in her expression that makes my chest tight.
“What other things?”
I should make a joke. Deflect. Change the subject to something safer.
Instead, I say, “Everything.”
We stare at each other for a moment. Well, I stare at her while trying to keep the car on the road, and something passes between us that feels significant.
“West,” she says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“We need gas.”
I look at the dashboard and realize she’s right. We’re running on fumes.
“Right. Gas.”
I pull off at the next exit, and while I’m filling the tank, Liv disappears into the mini-mart attached to the gas station.
I’m finishing up when she emerges with a bag of snacks and two drinks.
“For the road,” she says, handing me one of the drinks.
I look at the label and feel something in my chest do a weird flip.
It’s my favorite. Some obscure energy drink that most places don’t carry, the kind of thing you have to specifically look for.
“How did you—”
“You had them in your fridge. I figured if you stocked them at home, you probably liked them.”
She noticed. She noticed what I drink and remembered and thought to get me one.
It’s such a small thing. Insignificant, really.
So why does it feel like everything?
“Thanks,” I say, flattered. Shocked. Amused.
“Welcome.” She gets back into the passenger seat and buckles in.
I get back in the car, and as I’m pulling back onto the highway, I realize my hands are shaking slightly.
Not from nerves about the wedding anymore.
From the fact that I’m sitting next to someone who notices the small things about me. Who remembers what I like and takes care of me without being asked.
Someone who says “we” like it’s natural and sings along to songs that make her happy and looks at me like she used to when we were teenagers.
Someone who’s being paid to pretend to care about me but who keeps doing things that feel real.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, trying to focus on the road instead of the way she’s humming along to the music or the way the afternoon light is hitting her profile.
Trying not to think about how easy this feels. How right.
Trying not to think about what’s going to happen when this weekend is over, and we go back to our separate lives, and I have to pretend I haven’t fallen completely and utterly in love with her.
Should I just tell her how I feel?
The thought hits me out of nowhere, and I almost swerve into the next lane.
Should I tell her that this was never fake for me? That the more I think about my love life problems, the more I realize that she has been the answer all along? That even in high school I liked being around her? That at my sister’s wedding three years ago, I wanted to kiss her again?
Should I risk ruining everything on the chance that she might feel the same way?
“You okay?” Liv asks, and I realize I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel again.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing important.”
But that’s a lie.
Because this—her, us, whatever this is—feels like the most important thing in the world, but I don’t have the fucking balls to tell her how I really feel.