Chapter 26
twenty-six
. . .
CONNOR
I’m sweating through my t-shirt.
Not because of the weather, but because the heat in the car is cranked high enough to bake bread, and Whitney is still curled into herself like she’s freezing.
And because for the last three hours, she’s been rotating through what I can only assume is a carefully curated playlist designed to ruin my life.
A group of children aggressively covering pop songs, followed by what I’m pretty sure was a man whispering affirmations over whale sounds. And now, it’s screaming. Just unfiltered screaming over drums.
I grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
This is intentional. There’s no way this isn’t intentional.
I glance over at her.
She’s tucked into the corner of the seat, knees pulled in slightly, arms folded like she’s protecting her core temperature—or maybe just herself. Her sunglasses are on, but I can tell she’s not actually looking at anything outside. Just avoiding. Me.
The car hums around us, thick with heat and tension and whatever the hell this song is supposed to be.
I drag a hand down my face.
This is not helping.
None of this is helping.
If anything, it’s worse.
Because every time I try to focus on literally anything else—road, traffic, not losing my sanity—I end up looking at her anyway.
At the way her hair’s half falling out of whatever she did to it this morning. At the faint patchiness still lingering along her arm where she tried to scrub that self-tanner disaster into submission. At the way her mouth presses into a line like she’s determined not to give me anything.
And still she’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Which is a problem.
A massive, five-hour-drive kind of problem.
I shift in my seat, adjusting the air again even though I know it won’t make a difference. She’ll still be cold. I’ll still be overheating. Nothing about this is balanced.
The screaming cuts out.
For half a second, there’s silence. Relief.
Then a child starts singing again.
I close my eyes briefly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She doesn’t even look at me. Just taps something on her phone like she’s queuing up the next form of psychological warfare.
I huff out a quiet breath, somewhere between a laugh and a slow descent into madness.
Two more hours of this?
Not a chance.
Up ahead, a banner stretches across the road, bright and impossible to miss.
Beside me, Whitney shifts. It’s slight, but I catch it.
Her head tilts and her attention sharpens, so I follow her line of sight.
PEACH COBBLER FESTIVAL
I don’t think twice and hit the blinker.
“Connor—” she starts.
“We’re stopping,” I say.
“For cobbler?”
“For my sanity,” I correct, already turning the wheel. “The cobbler is just a bonus.”
She huffs, but there’s no real heat behind it because she’s already watching the booths come into view.
“We don’t have time,” she says.
“We’ll make time.”
“Fine.”
Nothing is fine, and we both know it.
I pull into a spot two blocks from the festival and cut the engine.
The silence that follows is immediate.
I sit there for a second, just appreciating the absence of whatever the hell that last song was.
Then, I glance over at her, but she’s already reaching for the door.
We end up under a white tent strung with lights that don’t need to be on in the middle of a bright Sunday afternoon.
The whole street feels alive—bluegrass music playing somewhere down the block, people weaving between booths, kids running past with sticky hands and no supervision.
Whitney has a tray in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other like she’s been preparing for this moment her entire life.
“Okay,” she says, already scanning the lineup. “We need a system.”
“A system,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says. “You can’t just go in blind. That’s how you get distracted by a good topping and miss a weak base.”
I watch her for a second, then realize she’s completely serious. And it does something to me I don’t have time to examine.
“Right,” I say. “Wouldn’t want to get outplayed by a topping.”
She points her spoon at me. “Exactly.”
I lift my hands. “I’m on board.”
And just like that, she takes over.
First sample—she pauses.
Second bite—her eyes close.
And that’s when I see it.
The shift.
The version of her that forgets to hold back. The one that forgets she’s mad at me.
“Okay,” she breathes. “That’s really good.”
I take a bite to confirm, but I’m not really focused on the cobbler. I’m focused on her.
The way she leans into things she enjoys without hesitation. The way her shoulders loosen, like she’s not carrying everything all at once.
She turns toward me, already mid-thought. “That one’s top three. You need to remember that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We move down the line like that—sharing trays, trading bites, her commentary getting sharper, funnier, more animated with each one.
“This crust is lazy.”
“That one’s overcompensating.”
“Too much cinnamon. That’s a cry for help.”
“You’re profiling these cobblers,” I say.
“They made choices,” she shoots back. “I’m reacting accordingly.”
I laugh, shaking my head.
She takes another bite, then freezes before slowly turning toward me.
“Connor.”
Something in her voice shifts.
I step closer without thinking. “What?”
She holds out the spoon. “Try that.”
I lean in, take the bite she’s offering.
And yeah.
That one’s ridiculous.
“Okay,” I admit. “That’s—”
“I know,” she says, already nodding. “The winner.”
She bumps into me lightly, like it’s automatic.
“See?” she says. “Worth stopping.”
I glance down at her.
Sunlight catches in her hair. There’s a faint gloss on her lips from the cobbler filling. Her expression is open in a way I haven’t seen since before I fucked everything up.
And she’s smiling at me.
“Yeah,” I say, quieter. “It was.”
The moment stretches, so easy it feels dangerous. Like if I leaned in right now, she wouldn’t stiff arm me and scream RULES!
Then, thunder cracks overhead.
While I’ve been staring at Whitney, the sky has grown dark and heavy.
Whitney flinches slightly, looking up.
“What was—”
A flash of light, then another crack of thunder.
Then, like someone flipped a switch, a hard rain immediately starts falling.
The crowd reacts all at once. People scrambling, vendors shouting, hands grabbing for plastic covers and tablecloths.
Whitney laughs, startled. “Oh my—”
We can take cover.
Or we can make a run for it and get back on the road.
I don’t think about it.
I grab her hand.
“Come on.”
We take off.
Rain hits hard and immediate, soaking through everything in seconds. The ground slicks under our feet, and Whitney’s sandals betray her almost instantly.
“Bad footwear choice,” I call over the noise.
“Shut up,” she fires back, breathless, laughing anyway.
She slips.
I tighten my grip, catching her before she goes down, hauling her back into stride as we cut through the chaos of people diving for tents and awnings.
By the time we reach the car, we’re drenched.
Completely.
I yank open the passenger door and she climbs in, still laughing, pushing wet hair back from her face. I circle around and drop into the driver’s seat, dragging a hand through my soaked hair as water drips everywhere.
For a second, we sit there catching our breath.
Rain pounds against the roof so hard it feels like we’re inside it instead of under it.
Whitney twists in her seat, wringing out her ponytail, water dripping down her self-tanner-streaked arm.
She’s still smiling.
Actually smiling.
And then I make the mistake of looking.
Her tank top is soaked through, clinging to her sports bra, outlining every line and curve like the universe decided I haven’t been tested enough today.
Jesus Christ.
I snap my attention forward and grip the steering wheel.
Focus. On literally anything else.
“You okay?” she asks. “You look like you’re stressing out.”
“I’m just trying to survive,” I reply, maybe too honestly.
Her mouth twitches. “The storm?”
“Among other things.”
I shift the car into drive and ease us back onto the road, but the wipers are already struggling to keep up.
This isn’t just rain anymore.
It’s aggressive. Relentless. The kind that swallows the road in sheets and makes everything feel smaller than it should.
I lean forward slightly, scanning through the blur, hands steady even as visibility drops.
“Okay,” Whitney says, quieter now. “That escalated quickly.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Little more than a drizzle.”
We drive like that for a couple miles, the road stretching ahead in gray sheets of water, until flashing lights cut through the storm up ahead.
I slow as a cruiser comes into view, angled across the road.
An officer in a poncho steps forward, waving us down.
I roll the window down just enough to hear him over the rain.
“Road’s flooded,” he shouts. “You’ll want to stay put in town.”
Of course it is.
“Any idea how long?” I yell to be heard over the rain.
“Overnight for sure. Maybe tomorrow.” He gestures vaguely back the way we came. “Try Sweet Bay House on Walnut. Tell her Buddy sent you.”
He taps the roof and jogs off before I can ask anything else.
I roll the window back up slowly, staring out at the barricade for a second.
“Okay,” I say, turning to glance at Whitney. “Slight adjustment to the plan.”
Whitney exhales, already leaning her head back against the seat. “We’re not getting out of here tonight.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” I say, shifting into reverse.
She drags a hand over head, smoothing back the frizzy hairs there. “Of course.”
“On the bright side,” I add, shifting into reverse, turning us back toward town, “we didn’t hydroplane into a ditch.”
“That is the lowest possible bar.”
“And yet,” I say, glancing over at her, “we cleared it.”
That almost earns me a smile.
Almost.
Rain continues to hammer the car as we head back toward town, the road disappearing behind us.
There’s no music or distractions. Only the sound of the storm, and the quiet realization settling in between us that we’re stuck here tonight.