Chapter 29
IS IT A DONUT, OR IS IT POISON DRESSED UP LIKE A DONUT?
Daphne
I sleep like absolute shit, but I clearly do sleep, because when I wake up, Oliver’s making coffee and there’s a fresh box of donuts on the counter.
He must’ve left and come back when I was unconscious.
As I sit up on the hard-ass floor, rubbing my eyes, my shoulder hitching right where it meets my neck, I become convinced I’ve been transported to another dimension.
Because he’s holding out my phone to me.
My real phone.
“What’s this?” I ask, my voice groggy with sleep and heavy with suspicion.
“Peace offering.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like being an ass.”
I stare at him.
He stares back.
It’s like a challenge. Will you accept this as an apology, or are you going to make me say more? And are you willing to take the risk that I tell you to fuck off when you demand more?
I take the phone, still squinting at him.
I power it up, and he only flinches the tiniest bit.
“Margot can’t track me on this,” I tell him.
He flinches harder.
Like he’s not comfortable with me knowing what he was thinking.
Or maybe like he’s not comfortable with the mention of my sister.
The woman he was engaged to a few years ago.
The woman he hurt when he broke up with her.
The woman I feel like I’m betraying every time I look at Oliver’s ass.
And that’s when it hits me.
I leap to my feet, almost tripping over the quilt, but saving myself as I ignore Oliver lunging for me. “Oh my god, you’re leaving me here.”
His eyes flare wide, his hands inches from my hips. “No.”
“Then what’s all of this? Donuts? Coffee? My phone? You are. You’re leaving me here.”
“I—no.”
I glare at him.
“I want—I’m sorry.” He says the words as if he’s never tasted anything worse in his life, which should be utterly hilarious.
Oliver wasn’t a complete pushover when he was dating Margot—only mostly a pushover—but I remember her telling him once at some family dinner that he’d have to apologize less whenever he took over for his father after he apologized for someone else bumping the table wrong.
At the time, we all assumed he’d have a couple decades to break the habit.
Clearly, four years was plenty of time.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Sorry for what?”
He scowls. “For being an asshole.”
“With making me drive for a full day? Or the radio thing? Maybe for continually issuing orders without saying please? Or is this about you refusing to stop for a bathroom?”
He purses his lips together and keeps glaring at me, though it’s the kind of frustrated glare that could mean he’s irritated with me or he’s irritated with himself and doesn’t know how to handle that.
“For leaving me alone last night?” I press, partially to see how far I can go, and partially because he was an ass over a lot of things. “For not offering me the bed like a gentleman? For making faces at me when I ate in the car yesterday, which is a human necessity, Oliver.”
“For taking your phone,” he spits out. “For the way I took your other phone. And for—yes. For all of that. Will you take a damn donut with sprinkles and get ready to go? Ten hours in the car today. Shouldn’t waste time.”
I tilt my head. “Sprinkles?”
The exasperation rolling off him is so thick it could suffocate a lesser woman. “Yes.”
“Chocolate frosting?”
“It’s blue and green. Like your hair.”
It’s my turn to blink.
He got me a donut that reminded him of my hair?
That’s—huh.
I think that qualifies as sweet.
Maybe?
Or is this more psychological warfare?
I step around him and lift the lid on the donut box.
Five round donuts with swirly blue-green frosting under glittery gold sprinkles stare up at me.
He didn’t merely find donuts.
He found fancy donuts that remind him of me and my hair.
“Do they taste good?” I ask.
“How should I know?”
“One’s missing.”
“I don’t expect you to have the same opinion or standards for donuts that I have.”
That’s the strangest answer I’ve ever heard. I’m intrigued.
I poke at the coffee on the counter. “Did you make this?”
“Yes.”
“Did you poison it?”
“Drink the goddamn coffee, Daphne.”
“I can’t help you drive if I’m dead. Or unconscious. And you should definitely not drive ten hours yourself. You’re getting better, but you’re still not very good.”
“Noted.”
“And I get to control the radio today.”
“I retain the right to three vetoes that will last the rest of the trip.”
Either he’s serious, he feels bad because yesterday was so shitty, or he’s plotting a way to dump my body before noon.
There’s no way anyone who’s known me for more than forty-five minutes would ever let me control the radio while only asking for three vetoes.
And speaking of three—our three days are up. He should be trying to get rid of me.
I ponder that while I bite into a donut.
And holy fuck.
This donut.
Oh my god.
A moan rolls out of my throat before I can stop it.
It’s the perfect combination of yeasty and doughy and rich and sweet and sprinkly. Almost as good as the homemade donuts Bea made when I couldn’t stop crying after I moved in with her. Those are the donuts that I judge every other donut against, ever.
I should talk her into having donuts as her secret menu item in her burger bus soon.
After I get back.
I take another bite and sigh in bone-deep satisfaction. “Okay, that’s a good donut,” I say with my mouth full.
My parents would have a conniption fit at my lack of manners.
Oliver doesn’t.
My eyes are still a little crossed, but I think he’s staring at me—in the uncomfortable way.
Like he doesn’t want to watch me have an orgasm over a donut.
Or maybe like he doesn’t want to admit he’s enjoying watching me have an orgasm over a donut.
Stop it, dumbass, I order myself.
He’s still Oliver and he doesn’t like me.
I’m still Daphne and I need to not like him.
We’re on this road trip until he dumps me at a bus station or something.
I need to figure out how to negotiate staying with him longer because I didn’t make any progress at all in talking him into going back to Miles2Go yesterday.
As the CEO, clearly.
Not as a customer who needed to pump gas at one of their stores.
Even knowing I’m fighting a losing battle, I owe it to myself to fight it.
I grab the coffee and sniff it, then take a hesitant sip.
Not bad.
Not great—nowhere near as amazing as this donut—but not bad.
I set it down, finish my donut, and grab another one while I open my phone.
An unsurprising number of text messages need to be answered, but I prioritize the one from my boss—yes, family emergency, I’ll be back next week, I tell her in response to her question about if I’m okay—and several from Bea that were clearly sent before I called her on Sunday afternoon.
Phone back, you should do donuts for your next secret menu item, I text her.
Oliver doesn’t attempt to look at my phone, but he does start to twitch in the face again.
I sniff my pits, decide I can go a day without a shower, and finish off the second donut. “Let me brush my teeth and I’ll be ready to go.”
And then—then we’ll see if his change in attitude is real or if it’s all a ploy.