Chapter 11
Eleven
CLARA
J esse had an ease behind the wheel of a car that I was incapable of not finding extremely attractive.
I had never been able to get over my fear of being behind the wheel of a car, so I abandoned learning to drive after three lessons. It was baffling to me how Jesse could just be sitting there with one arm resting against the open window and the other casually holding the wheel. Everything he did as he changed gears or lanes or just looked at the directions to the villa on his phone, clipped to the dashboard, was easy.
Casual.
Unnecessarily sexy.
It was making the silence we were sitting in as he drove unbearably thick.
“Do you normally drive in silence?” I asked when I couldn’t take it anymore and needed something to distract me from his fingers drumming on the steering wheel to whatever beat he had in his head. I regretted it the moment I asked because he briefly turned his head to look at me. The sun cast half his face in shadow, highlighting the clean cut of his cheekbones, making him even more attractive.
“Depends on the length of the drive,” he said as one of his hands grabbed the gear stick. I felt heat creep up the back of my neck as I watched his fingers curl around it. His forearm muscles flexed and relaxed as he shifted gears before he held it gently underneath his palm.
I cleared my throat.
“How long does it have to be before you soundtrack it?” Thankfully, my voice didn’t sound as flustered as I felt.
“Thirty minutes or longer,” he replied. I knew from Becky’s extensive itinerary that the drive from the airport to the villa clocked in at twenty-nine minutes.
“Go-to road trip song?” I asked, trying to distract myself from my reaction to him changing gears.
“Don’t have one,” he replied.
I snapped my head to look at him. “What do you mean you don’t have one?”
“Like most things, it’s mood dependent. Think about it. Sometimes, like when you’re writing, you don’t care what it is because it’s just background noise. But you listen to movie scores when you are trying to create drama on the page, and whatever playlist you can find that has the word ‘sexy’ in it when you need to get your characters to kiss or fuck. It’s all about the mood you’re in. Why would the same not apply to car journeys?”
I paused for a moment, stunned that Jesse seemed to be that attuned to my writing playlists.
“Okay. What would be your go-to today, then?”
He pinched his lower lip between his fingers as he thought about it. When he released it to change gears again, it was redder and plumper. I was looking out the window by the time he answered.
“Fleetwood Mac. ‘Go Your Own Way’ or maybe ‘The Chain’.”
“‘Songbird’ sits in between those songs. What, are you not feeling the urge to get in your feelings after you’re done screaming at the top of your lungs before you bask in the glory of one of the greatest guitar solos ever?”
He laughed. “No, I would be skipping that track.”
My mouth dropped open. “You don’t skip tracks on that album. That’s blasphemy!”
“Does that apply to skipping tracks in general, or is it just that album?”
“Some albums are just no-skip albums. Rumours is one of them.”
“And what are some of your other no-skip albums?” he asked.
“ Save Rock and Roll, Renaissance, My Love is Your Love and reputation ,” I reeled off quickly. “I could go on, but I’ll cap it at five.”
“That was quick,” he commented as he turned off the main road onto a country road that looked like it was going to lead to a dead end.
Just as I was about to question whether he had taken the right turn off, the winding road unveiled the villa that we would be calling home for the next week.