Chapter Eleven Fitz
Even the click of her buckle was too exuberant.
“Calm down,” he muttered.
“I’m just getting in the car!”
“Just—” He exhaled a gusting breath. “Do it with more chill.”
She nodded firmly, and he could swear she tamped down the urge to salute.
He pulled away from the curb, and they were off. He watched as the lights of Corona College grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror…along with his enthusiasm for this trip.
This was not how he imagined making the drive from Spokane to Nashville. He’d imagined himself, Max, a giant mug of coffee in the cupholder, and some music blasting, windows down. He imagined having the freedom to let his thoughts run wild with the first What’s Next he’d ever relished. He was three months from graduating college, three months from getting everything he’d been promised, three months from beginning his revenge and starting fresh, alone.
Except he wasn’t alone. He had the world’s most annoying tagalong, who was furiously writing something in the notebook in her lap.
Maybe that’s what she’d do the entire time?
Maybe she’d write and draw, and Fitz could just pretend she wasn’t—
Ren raised her hand, and he tightened his grip around the steering wheel. “Yes?”
“Do you have a map?”
“You mean GPS? Yes, of course.”
“Not a paper map?” she asked.
“People don’t really use those anymore.”
“Well, as you probably know, I don’t have a ph—”
“Rule nine,” he reminded her.
“I’d be less inclined to speak,” she said pointedly, “if I could follow our progress on the road.”
“Then you should have brought a map yourself.”
“Oh!” She clapped, delighted. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I borrowed Miriam’s laptop to look up some road trip games!” She opened her notebook again, where, a quick glance told him, she’d been writing down his stated rules for the road trip. She flipped back a page. “There’s the license plate game, where we can—”
“No.”
“—try to find a license plate from every state, and—”
“No.”
“—the alphabet game, where we find signs that start with each letter of the—”
“No games. Just—here.” He growled, reaching for his phone and, with his eyes on the road, holding it up to his face to unlock it. “Open Google Maps, but don’t touch anything else.”
She squealed, holding it up at arm’s length.
“Don’t read my texts.”
“I won’t.”
“Or emails.”
“Why would I read your emails?”
“I don’t know, just don’t.”
After about five minutes of blissful silence, Fitz felt his shoulders loosen in relief. Maybe she was capable of being quiet. Ren was transfixed watching their little blue circle bob along on the interstate, which allowed Fitz to return to the absorbing relief of the What’s Next. He mentally listed the overarching path: finish school, secure a letter of recommendation from Judge Iman, complete his law internship, take the LSATs, enter law school. And then ruthlessly take down his father.
Finishing school wouldn’t be an issue; securing the letter from Judge Iman might be, but there was nothing he could do about that right now. Now he should focus only on nailing the interview for a yearlong paid internship at the law offices of Fellows, Wing, and Greenleaf. Not only was it the best corporate law firm in the country but it was in Nashville…where he could be near Mary again. Where he could finally keep an eye on her.
A shrieking giggle ripped through the car, and Fitz barely managed to keep from slamming down hard on the brakes. “Holy sh—what! What is going on?”
“There’s a place called Sex Peak about sixty miles down that way!”
He took a beat to gape at her before turning back to the road. “What in the hell is Sex Peak?”
“I don’t know! But it’s on the map!” She turned to him. “Fitz, may I use your browser to google it?”
He sighed, resigned. “Fine. But don’t look at the other tabs.”
She was quiet for a second and then hummed. “Oh,” she said, frowning down at the screen. “That name is misleading. It’s a lookout point and camping area. I don’t see anything about sex happening here.”
“A lookout? Yeah, for sure people have sex there.”
“They do?”
“I mean, I assume so. It’s called Sex Peak.”
“I guess you would know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She ignored this, whispering in awe, “The internet is magic.”
He quickly glanced to see what she was looking up. “What are you googling?”
“Whether people have sex at Sex Peak.”
“Okay there, Sweden, let’s just…” He reached for the phone and tucked it into the center console. “Maybe let’s take a break from Google. I don’t want you getting carsick.”
“Oh, good point.” She looked out at the slowly darkening view ahead of them for a few minutes and cleared her throat before turning to look at him. She didn’t speak, but he felt the pressure of her attention on the side of his face like a finger gently tapping there.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. “God. What.”
“I wanted to apologize if that was rude just now when I said ‘You would know.’ You might not be a lothario at all, I don’t want to assume.”
“A lothario? Seriously, Ren, where did you learn to speak?”
She ignored this. “When I first arrived, before I met you for the tour? Miriam—that’s my roommate—said you were always in everyone’s pants and warned me not to let you in mine.”
Fitz swore Max’s engine stuttered beneath him, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Rule eleven. No discussion about whose pants anyone’s been in.”
With a nod, she pulled the pencil from the spiral ring of her notebook, turned back the page, and added number eleven to the list of rules.
He sensed a change in Ren the second they reached the border to Idaho. As they passed the sign indicating that they’d crossed the state line, her shoulders hunched up to her ears and she pulled her knees up, hugging herself.
“You all right there, Sweden?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t so sure. For the entire forty-five minutes through the panhandle, she appeared to be going through an existential crisis. Mumbling quietly to herself, she argued with an invisible voice. He thought he caught an “If they found out, this would kill them!”
Ignoring her, he turned the music up.
Finally, she raised her hand to speak.
He lowered the music again. “Yes?”
And then she dropped a bombshell: “Fitz, can we—can we turn around?”
Beneath them, Max swerved on the road. “What?”
Ren quickly waved her hands. “Never mind. No,” she said with more force. “Ignore me. I do not want to turn around.”
He weighed the relative bummer of losing three hours round trip with the even greater bummer of continuing with her for the next few days. “We’re only a couple hours out. If you want to turn around, tell me now.”
“No. Keep going.” But then she groaned, leaning her head back against the seat. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?”
“Look…I know this is stressful for you, okay? No harm, no foul. Tell me now, and I can take you back.”
“No. No.” And then she released a tight “I’m just a terrible daughter, that’s all” and dropped her head into her hands.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, then attempted another sip of the now-cold sugar bomb she’d bought him. “Does anyone other than me know that you left?”
She reached down to fidget with the notebook on her lap. “Of course.”
An obvious lie.
“Does that seem like a safe choice?” he asked her, holding up a hand when she started to protest. “Come on, kid.”
“I’m almost twenty-three, Fitz, I’m not a kid.”
He huffed out a laugh. “I’m just saying, you barely know me.”
“You?” She turned those giant green eyes on him. “I think under that cocky shell, you’re a big softie.”
He laughed, incredulous. “I assure you, no female has ever called me that before.”
She smiled, sweetly. Too sweetly. “Fine,” she said. “You’re a little softie.”
“Oh my God. That’s not—”
“Anyway,” she said, putting on that tough face again. “I told you, it’s not your business where I’m going or who knows.”
“You shouldn’t trust me just because we go to school together.”
Beaming like she had him cornered, she said, “The fact that you’re worried about this tells me you’re a good guy.”
A good guy? She had no idea. “Just—You’ll get your own hotel room, okay? And keep the door locked.”
“A hotel?”
He did a double take over at her. “Yes…?”
“We’re not staying in hotels, are we?”
Fitz coughed in disbelief. “You want to sleep on the street?”
“Not in the street, but I thought we’d be sleeping in the car.”
A laugh burst free. “Hell no.”
“I don’t have money for a hotel, Fitz. I only have some money for food.”
“What do you mean?” Panic rose in his throat. “How did you expect to get across the country?”
“Well, you threw out my sandwiches, which is definitely unfortunate because—”
“Wait.” Alarm bells sounded. Somehow, he suspected their definition of some money for food didn’t align. “How much money do you have in your bank account?”
She laughed like this was a silly question. “I don’t have a bank account.”
For several long beats he stared blankly at the dark road vanishing beneath his car. Finally, he managed, “Okay, how much cash did you bring?”
“I have about sixty dollars.”
Exasperation exploded in his chest. These were all things he should have asked before they left: Does anyone know you’re leaving, do you have enough money to take this trip, how are you getting home? Fitz had put aside enough money from his paychecks to cover his own way and maybe a little extra, but certainly not enough for two hotel rooms in every city, two meals at every stop. This was insanity. “Ren, seriously? Even if we’re frugal, you only have enough for maybe six meals, and you’re planning to be gone for a week!”
“I’ll—we’ll figure it out. I’ll make it up to you!” She widened those green eyes at him, and he looked back to the road. “I promise.” She paused and then spoke with such deep sincerity, he found himself turning to her again: “I promise, Fitz.”
Sincere or not, this was absurd. “How are you going to make it up to me? Are you planning on setting up a table selling pickling spices in the quad when we get back?”
Excited for a beat, she opened her mouth to respond and then clamped her lips shut, narrowing her eyes. He ignored the way this cute frustration sent a tiny thrill down the back of his neck.
“I think you’re teasing me,” she said.
“Of course I’m teasing you. But what else are you going to do? Get a job at Starbucks? Maybe you’ll be a cashier at Target?” He studied her in tiny glances away from the road, genuinely curious now. “Everyone knows you don’t even leave campus except when you get picked up by your parents on Fridays.”
Ren turned her face forward, expression crashing at the sneer in his tone. “I didn’t think I stood out so much.”
“Are you kidding me?” He coughed out a sharp laugh. “Sweden, did you even read the profile about you? You came in halfway through the year. You have seventeen acres of blond hair, if your eyes were any larger you’d be a lemur, and you greet every mammal on campus as you walk past. You’ve never been to school before but know more than most of the professors, you can fix a rocket engine with duct tape and a shoelace, and you fooled everyone but me into thinking you’re a gift from God. Yeah, I’d say you stick out a bit.”
A worm of regret moved through him, but he shoved it aside, seeing the opening in her insecurity about being a fish out of water. “You’ve barely been off campus but think you can handle yourself on a cross-country trip with a stranger?” He laughed. “You really are so naive.”
He felt like a jerk, but at least it worked. She didn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive to Missoula.