Chapter Twenty-One Ren
Ren was grateful for their detour early in the day—as well as the activity book Fitz got her—because the day’s drive to Kansas City was the longest so far, nearly ten hours on the road. Normally she was fine being in her own head about things, but not today. Today she was all tangled up about Fitz.
Gloria once said that some people are dogs, and other people are cats. At the time, Ren didn’t have a clue what her mother meant; both dogs and cats are cuddly, cute, and furry. But then one Christmas she and Gloria took a plate of cookies down the road to Widow Dawson’s, and after five minutes of Gloria trying to make conversation and Widow Dawson answering in as few words as she pleased, they left. On the drive back, Gloria had said with begrudging respect, “Now that woman? She’s a cat.”
She meant that Widow Dawson never went out of her way to make friends, that she did things on her terms, that she never felt pressed to fall in line with social niceties. In other words, she was not a pleaser.
But Ren was. And she understood it now: Ren was a dog, and Fitz was absolutely a cat.
He’d ask her one tiny question, and confidences would come pouring out of her. Ren knew other kids growing up but never spent condensed time in their presence, had never truly gotten to know anyone her age before. The thought of having someone in her life, someone who chose to know her, who cared what she was thinking, who sought her out because he wanted to, not because they happened to occupy the same space all day, every day, made her feel dizzy with longing. And after the past three and a half days together, Fitz was the first person she could truly call friend.
The need to know more about him—to know him—was an ever-expanding presence inside her. But getting to know who Fitz really was felt like two steps forward, one step back. He would warm up to her and then close off again in a snap, making her analyze everything she’d done that could have shut him down. She saw the way he never directly answered her questions, never volunteered anything. Getting information out of him was like bravely sticking a hand into a thorny blackberry bramble and coming out with a single, shriveled berry.
But why was he still holding her at arm’s length? Even a brick wall would be able to surmise that they were getting closer, and Ren knew in her bones that what she felt for Fitz was becoming more than gratitude and fondness. There was a new presence inside her, something warm and with its own erratic, animalistic heartbeat. She loved when he teased her, loved his low rumbling laugh. She loved the way he took care of her and pretended it was no big deal; she craved their brief moments of physical contact.
It meant that she studied him the way she’d studied her animals, trying to read his moods and thoughts through his actions. Ren collected evidence like a forensic psychologist, piecing together who this person really was.
For example, she found it odd that Fitz was so friendly the dean asked him personally to show Ren around campus that first day, yet with her Fitz did everything he could to shut down questions about himself, his family, his background. Miriam had acted like everyone knew Fitz, but to her he’d never said anything about his parents or lifestyle. In fact, if anything, he was frugal with his spending, even though his father was such a successful real estate developer that she’d read an old Time article about him a handful of years ago down at Jesse and Tammy’s store.
Books made Ren believe that men like Fitz loved to brag about their conquests, but despite Miriam warning her about his reputation, Fitz had only ever been a gentleman with her. And he’d never once mentioned having someone back in Spokane.
Also? For the entire trip Fitz had their route up on the GPS, but he never really seemed to look at it. Had he done this drive before? What was in Nashville? Why was he going there?
As the sun was setting and they entered the city limits of Kansas City, Fitz signaled for the exit and navigated Max to the hotel without even once glancing down at his phone.
They stepped out, gathering their bags from the trunk, and Ren couldn’t help but try to tease him open, just a little. “How many times have you done this trip?”
“A few.”
“A few, like three? Or a few like fifteen?”
He smiled like he knew exactly what she was doing and handed over her bag. “I try to come home for most school breaks.”
“I thought home was Spokane?”
His step faltered, but it was quick enough that Ren thought she might’ve imagined it. “It is. I have extended family in Nashville.”
This felt like a jewel he’d set in her palm. Extended family! In another state! “Like cousins, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
Questions lined up single file when he said this, but Ren was immediately distracted the moment they stepped foot into the hotel. It was like walking into a small town. The main building was open from the lobby clear to the top, with a glass elevator visible as it stopped on each floor. The floor of the lobby was cobblestone, with little tables encircling a massive four-tiered fountain in the center. There were flower beds filled with ferns, and lampposts. Above the sound of splashing water, the hotel was noisy. People in suits sat around in groups talking, while families moved through the lobby in smiling clusters. The bar was packed; the restaurant, too, looked full, with a handful of people waiting to be seated.
Ren had to spin in a circle to take it all in. “This would be like living in a shopping mall.”
“You ever been to a shopping mall, Sunshine?”
“I’ve seen them in movies. There was one in Clueless, remember? And they all have fountains and big open atriums.”
Laughing at this, Fitz stepped up to the reception desk, handing over his ID and credit card.
The woman—her name tag read Rita—typed for a few seconds. “I have you in a classic king, on the twelfth floor. Free continental breakfast is down here from six to ni—”
“Sorry,” Fitz cut in gently, using what Ren had begun to recognize as his flirty voice. “I emailed yesterday to request two beds. Is that possible?”
Rita scrolled through her screen. “Ah, yes. I do see that in your reservation notes. So you’d like to add a room?”
Fitz shook his head. “One room is fine, but two beds?”
“The only options we have available are junior suites.” She glanced at him, and then to Ren, where her eyes lingered. Ren reached up, covering a coffee stain on her T-shirt, before moving her hand to her hair, aware of the way her braid had loosened in the car with the windows down. She must be a mess given the way this woman was looking at her. “Would you like me to book you in one of those?”
Fitz looked over at Ren, and then at the woman, straightening. “How much do those run?” Ren noticed how he took a step to the side, closer to her.
Rita typed a few keystrokes. “With tax, five hundred and eighty-six dollars.”
He deflated a little, sighing. “This again.”
“I can get my own room,” she said quietly. She could understand Fitz wanting some distance, even a night alone. He’d been patient with all her questions and enthusiasm, but since they’d left Wall Drug, his mysterious wall had been up again, and guilt throbbed in the back of her skull, a headache forming. “Let’s do it,” she said.
She bent to unzip her backpack, but Fitz stilled her with a hand on her arm. “It’s too much. You still have to get to Atlanta, and then home. Save your money.” Looking back at Rita, he said, “We’ll keep the room with the king.”
Fitz stared at the wall, mute, while they waited for the elevator to reach the lobby.
“I’m sorry,” Ren said into the tense silence. “I owe you so much, and I realize I’m cramping your style.”
“You’re not cramping my style,” he mumbled, unconvincingly.
“If it makes you feel better,” Ren said, “we’ll have plenty of space. I hear king-size beds are very big.”
“That’s not the problem. I know how big they are.”
Oh. Right. “Duh. I bet you have one.”
He didn’t answer, and it meant that the pounding echo—king bed king bed king bed—returned full force inside her cranium. Actually, she decided, she would sleep on the floor. And if he didn’t let her, then too bad. She would insist.
“Maybe I’ll go sleep in Max,” he blurted once they were sealed up in the elevator car.
“What? No! If anyone sleeps in Max, it’s me.”
Fitz shook his head. “You’re not doing that.”
She hated returning to this conversation. It signified all the ways they were going backward; no matter what she suggested, he would say no to anything but her being in the bed, and she would say no to anything but him being in the bed, and they’d be at an impasse.
Which meant this: Ren was possibly, probably, maybe going to be sleeping in the same bed as Fitz. She might be sharing a bed with him, and his basketball shorts and those strong thighs she tried her very hardest not to look at when he walked to and from the bathroom.
“Okay, then it’s settled,” Ren said. “If there’s a couch, it’s an easy solution. If there’s space on the floor, it’s my turn for a floor bed. If not, I bet we’ll be farther apart than we were last night in the twin beds. It’s fine.” It was so not fine. “This is our fourth night sharing a room. We’re practically pros by this point. It’s just a sleepover. We can—”
“Ren,” he cut in, gently. “Breathe.”
She took a deep, steadying breath as the elevator dinged on the twelfth floor. Why did this suddenly feel so different? They’d shared a room for three nights now, and approaching each of those had never felt like they were heading toward a room that might catch fire the second they walked in.
Fitz swiped his key at the door, gesturing her inside, and Ren swore they deflated in unison: no couch, just a chair and a desk, and a bed that seemed to eat up more of the floor every second she continued to stare at it. Truly, it swallowed the entire floorplan. They set their things down and looked at each other across the expanse of the mattress.
Ren tried to smile. “It’s very nice.”
Fitz shrugged stiffly. “It’s just a bed.”
“I know it’s just a bed,” she said. “I’m just saying it’s a nice one.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s nice, it’s just for sleeping.”
“Of course it is.”
Silence yawned between them.
He reached up, scratching the back of his neck. “Should we get some dinn—”
“Yes, absolutely, let’s get dinner.”
They made the short walk through downtown, stopping at a white brick Art Deco building with a large sign proclaiming it to be Winstead’s Steakburger. Fitz had barely spoken the entire walk over, and the silence was starting to feel like a third person on the sidewalk between them.
“Is it a steak or is it a burger?” Ren joked, expecting Fitz to give her the standard smile-fighting, eye-rolling routine.
But instead, he didn’t say anything at all, walking toward the door and holding it open for her. So distant, so formal.
Ren came to a full stop just inside, forgetting about Fitz’s mood as she gaped at the room around them. With pink neon on the ceiling, pink tables, turquoise booths, and a jukebox in the corner, Winstead’s Steakburger looked like a diner right out of Grease.
The hostess led them to their table and Ren sat down, unable to stop staring at the decor. “Holy cow. I bet I could order almost the same thing Danny orders at the Frosty Palace.”
Fitz glanced up from his menu perusal. “Should I know what that is?”
“Hello, Just Fitz! It’s the malt shop in Grease! He orders a double polar burger with a cherry soda and chocolate ice cream.”
“Exactly how many times have you seen that movie?”
“At least a hundred.”
He looked at her, baffled. “It’s funny, because your parents don’t really sound like the park-your-kids-in-front-of-the-television types.”
“They weren’t, but I didn’t grow up watching all kinds of movies and TV shows. We only had a handful of video tapes and an old VCR. Over years, even once a week, it adds up.”
“It also doesn’t seem like the kind of movie they’d approve of, either.” He laughed. “It’s, like, horny teenagers, gangs, premarital sex, and drag races.”
Ren hoped her expression didn’t betray exactly how much she liked hearing him say the word sex. She cleared her throat. “Gloria probably felt safe because we had the edited-for-TV version.”
“Oh, God. With commercials and everything?”
She nodded. “I probably asked for Captain Crunch seven hundred times after I first watched it.”
Fitz made a sad womp-womp sound. “I’m guessing Steve and Gloria didn’t give in.”
Ren laughed. “You guess correctly. Anyway, imagine how confused I was when our old tape finally gave out, and I borrowed a copy from the library and heard Rizzo ask Danny if he was going to ‘flog’ his ‘log.’” Across from her, Fitz choked on a sip of water. “I didn’t even know what that meant, until one day it hit me.” She looked around and then leaned in, whispering, “It means masturbation.”
He appeared to lose the fight with the water, lifting his fist to his mouth as he coughed harder. Ren quickly grabbed a handful of napkins from a dispenser and shoved them at him. Her delight at having broken his stoic fa?ade was overshadowed by guilt over the brief coughing fit. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. “You just surprised me. Didn’t expect you to say that word aloud.”
The waitress came to take their order, and Fitz’s words rolled around in her head until a streak of irritated rebellion flashed through her. The moment the waitress left, Ren leaned in again. “For the record, I’m not that innocent, even if I haven’t done certain things.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. “You haven’t done that?”
Heat exploded across her cheeks and down her neck. His eyes tracked her flush. “What I mean is that I grew up on a farm. With animals,” she said meaningfully. “You know what animals do, I imagine.” Ren pressed a hand to the side of her mouth, stage whispering, “I know what sex is, Fitz.”
With a smile in his eyes, Fitz leaned in, pressing a hand to the side of his mouth, too. “Hopefully you aren’t basing your entire sexual education on the breeding of barn animals, Ren.”
“Of course not,” she said primly. “In fact, there is a lot of valuable sex education to be found in romantic literature.”
“I’m sure there is.”
She grinned at him. “But you probably know a lot more about romance than I do. You could give me some real-life examples from your past.”
His smile faded, and he straightened. “Nice try, Sunshine.”
Ren glared down at her menu.
Throughout dinner, Ren noticed him doing it time and time again: distracting her from asking questions by pointing to something interesting nearby, asking her about her past, making jokes.
After dinner, they bought ice cream and walked around the downtown area. It was beautiful, with trees and a mix of newer buildings and older architecture. They passed an art museum and block after block after block of shopping and restaurants. Fitz led her into a busy park and pointed to a fountain ahead with four life-size bronze horses and an empty bench nearby.
“Those horses represent what were thought of as the four mightiest rivers,” Ren told him as they sat.
A soft laugh came out on his exhale. “Of course you know all about this.”
“The Mississippi, the Volga, the Seine, and the Rhine.”
Fitz squinted at the fountain. “That’s actually pretty cool.”
“Here’s the really cool part,” she said. “It was originally commissioned for a private estate in France, but it was sold as salvage after a huge fire and moved all the way here. Imagine seeing something like that when you look out your window at breakfast.”
“Rich people are so weird,” he agreed.
She bumped his shoulder. “Okay, rich kid.”
“Right.” He frowned, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his thighs. “Well, be sure to check the fountain off your list when we get back to the hotel.”
She mentally logged this reaction. Back at Corona, Fitz seemed to proudly play the part of the son of the school’s most generous benefactor. Away from school, Fitz lived simply, lacked bravado, and hated being referred to as wealthy. “Thank you,” she said. “I might not have remembered. You’re sweet, Fitz.”
He huffed a soft laugh through his nose, looking down at the ground. “It’s not sweet, Ren, it’s just a reminder.”
“Why do you work so hard to insist you’re not a nice guy?”
“Because I’m not a nice guy. I’m just—” He exhaled a frustrated breath, looking over at her and then away. “You want me to be something I’m not.”
“I don’t want you to be anything,” she said, bewildered. “I like who you are.”
“You barely know me.”
“I like what I’ve seen so far.” Her shoulders hitched up in a tiny shrug. “I only want to know you better.”
“Well, don’t try too hard. We’re almost to Nashville.”
Ren stared at his profile and then looked out at the fountain, at a loss. “Okay. I won’t.”
Fitz stood. “Should we head back? We have a long day of driving tomorrow.”
“Sure.” An ache passed through her. It was whiplash with him. Ren didn’t know what she’d done to make him want to wedge all this distance between them, but she knew better than to ask him about it.
He finished off his ice cream and tossed the wrapper into a garbage can as they passed. It was dark out; in a city like this, Ren could barely see any stars. All of a sudden, she missed them desperately.
She dug around inside, searching for something else to think about. His words echoed back to her. “Would you like me to do some of the driving tomorrow?”
Beside her, Fitz laughed and maneuvered around a couple of kids with skateboards. “No, it’s fine.”
“I know it can be draining,” she said. “I really don’t mind.”
“Are you even legal behind the wheel?”
“Excuse me.” She went to playfully shove him before remembering that the mood wasn’t in that place anymore. “I grew up in Idaho. State of the best drivers in the nation.”
“Interesting.” He slid an amused smile her way. “I’ve never heard that statistic.”
“I got my driver’s license when I was sixteen, I’ll have you know, and am a very capable operator of motor vehicles of all kinds, including stick shifts.”
“No one drives Max but me.” Fitz reached over and tweaked her ear, and she had to fight the urge to lean into the contact.
“I would take very good care of him, I promise.”
Fitz took a long look at her. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.”
Their hands bumped as they walked through the hotel lobby, and Ren could feel the tension brewing between them, feel her own relief that whatever friction had risen seemed to have dissolved infinitesimally. Maybe it was her turn to initiate contact. Maybe he’d just been waiting for her to reciprocate. With her heart hammering in her windpipe, she stepped closer to him in the elevator, near enough to press her arm to his.
But Fitz moved away, a big side step, and began hacking into his fist, racked by a sudden coughing bout.
Surprised, Ren carefully patted his back. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, eyes watering as he croaked out, “Good.” He pointed to his throat, letting out a wheezing “Just a—dust or—something.” Fitz recovered with a clearing of his throat before shoving his hand into the pocket of his jeans and leaning against the far side of the elevator car.
Ren’s stomach flipped over. Oh God. Had he just faked a coughing fit? Had he been avoiding physical contact with her? Silence yawned between them, and in that mortifying moment of understanding, Ren wished the elevator would plummet to the basement and put her out of her misery. Every time he’d touched her before had been in public. Of course it had. He had simply been getting her attention with a nudge to her side or keeping track of her with his arm around her shoulders. Like one would with a pet or an errant child.
Mercifully, the elevator doors opened on their floor, and Fitz hesitated while Ren rushed out. The walk down the hall with him only a few steps behind her felt like a silent death march. At the door, Ren swiped her key and walked inside.
“Still only one bed,” she blurted, and it landed in a deep pool of silence. She immediately wanted to hit rewind or—even better—to vanish into thin air. “I’m gonna—” She pointed over her shoulder, grabbing her backpack and disappearing into the bathroom.