Chapter 19
Addison
Driving along, we get back into North Dakota. Only two and a half hours to home. It’s been dark for a while now. I’m not a fan of driving at night, but I’m exhausted so I lay my head back in the seat and close my eyes.
“Tired?” Wesley asks.
“Mm-hmm,” I hum.
“Yeah, I was just checking. I can’t really see you, so I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset,” he explains.
“No, I’m not upset. I think the Dramamine is giving me some type of drowsy side effect though.” I yawn.
“Thought you said it was a non-drowsy one?”
“That’s what it says, but maybe it doesn’t apply to me.”
“Oh.”
I fall asleep for a little bit but wake up when I hear Wesley curse under his breath, followed by the sound of the windshield wipers. Looking out the window, my stomach drops. It’s snowing…hard. A lot harder than it was earlier.
Sitting up in my seat, I grab my phone to look at the radar.
“Can you tell me what this is? How long it’s gonna last?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” I tell him, squinting at the bright phone light.
“I didn’t even think to check for snow,” he mutters, annoyed with himself.
“Um, yeah, expect twelve to eighteen inches over the next four hours.”
“Damn it.”
I look back out the windshield. I can’t see more than five feet in front of his truck with how fast the snow’s falling and the darkness of the night. Wesley sits a little straighter in his seat and messes with his lights, but nothing makes it better.
He drives another twenty minutes, but at the speed he has to go now with the icy roads and the trailer, it’s going to be midnight before we get home.
An uneasy pit settles in my stomach. “Wesley, I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” he says. “See if there’s anything coming up here, we’ll stop.”
Searching the map on my phone, I hold my breath and pray there’s something. Anything.
“What about a path?” I say.
“A path?”
“Like a driveway, but not to a house, to a field.”
“Sure. Let me see where. How soon?”
“Right up here.” I show him my phone. His eyes move back and forth from the screen to the road.
I don’t even understand how he’s driving in this.
“This trailer is not helping.” He chuckles. I can tell he’s trying to stay calm for me, but I think he’s tense.
We finally get to the pull-off spot at the edge of a field and the nerves inside me start to untangle.
“Surprised no one else is sitting here,” I say.
“Me too.” He puts his window down to back around. The blizzard air smacks me in the face and blows down my sweatshirt.
“Alright.” He looks at me. “You’re gonna have to help me get backed in. There are trees I don’t want to hit.”
I slip my boots on and hop out. A gust of wind takes my breath away, the snow feeling like pins and needles on my cheeks. I walk back behind the trailer so he can see me from his mirror.
He cracks his door open before he even moves, and the overhead lights in the truck turn on. “I can’t see you, you’re just gonna have to yell.”
“Okay, well, you have about ten feet!” I shout and he slowly starts to back up. “Stop!”
His brake lights shine and he jumps out of his truck to see how I did.
He pats my back. “Perfect.”
We get back in the truck, and I crank the heat up as we both sit there and shiver.
“Hopefully a plow comes by soon,” he says.
“Yeah, well, we shouldn’t be driving home in this.” I prop my feet up on the dash.
“It’ll be fine.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“I’d rather sleep in the truck,” I scoff.
His brown eyes widen, like he thinks I’m going to say I’m joking, but I’m not.
“You don’t trust me?” he asks.
“I trust you. I don’t trust the conditions.”
“Addison, it’s—”
“No!” I object. I want absolutely no part of driving in snow, especially with towing a twenty-foot trailer behind us.
Wesley stays quiet, doesn’t argue. We watch the traffic slowly creep down the road in silence. The snow is still coming down sideways; it’s a whiteout. The cab of the truck has a weird energy now. I shouldn’t have yelled at him, but I’m sorta uptight, I guess. We should’ve been home by now.
He dabbles on his phone. “Guess I’ll call my dad, tell him we’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
I do the same. Opening our family group chat, I text everyone. “Stuck in snow, we’re about 2 hours away and stopping.”
After I hit send, I go back to the list of conversations. My eyes fix on Brantley’s name. I open the thread and read the last few texts we shared back and forth about this trip. Right before he decided to dump me over the phone.
The urge to tell Wesley more about the breakup surfaces. That it wasn’t just my anxiety. That Brantley was sorta growing jealous of Wesley.
I battle the idea of telling Wes. It’s not like I have anything to lose. He can say and think whatever he wants now.
When he gets off the phone, we sit in silence for a beat longer. Something between us shifted during this trip; our friendship feels different than before.
Wesley turns on the overhead light. “Addison.” His is voice full of something I can’t place. I turn to him and his eyes are soft and studying mine. “What’s going on with us right now?”
I shrug my heavy shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Are you mad at me?
“No?” I scowl, confused. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, you’d probably still be in a relationship if you hadn’t come on this trip, no?”
“Not necessarily,” I mutter, playing with my hands.
“How?”
I take in a deep breath. “I kinda lied earlier,” I admit and look at him. He just blinks back at me. “Brantley was jealous of you, our relationship. Not in the beginning, but recently. It wasn’t just my anxiety that was bothering him.”
He adjusts himself in his seat, leaning back against his door. “He told you this?”
I nod. “Yeah. I told him we’re just good friends and that’s it. I didn’t know how else to explain it,” I say. “All he would ever say was how friends don’t do this and friends don’t do that,” I mock.
Wesley’s expression changes, biting the inside of his cheek, like he’s struggling to respond.
“What?” I suck in a breath and hold it.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.” His gaze falls away from mine and he sits up, reaching for the door handle. “I’m gonna check and make sure everything’s still strapped down good.”
Something in his eyes and voice makes my stomach knot, my heart beat faster. He has something to say.
“Wes, wait,” I counter, reaching to stop him, but he moves too quickly.
“No. It’s nothing.” He shakes his head and pushes the truck door open.
“Just say it,” I insist.
He steps out of the truck, the snow swirling around him. I get a chill down my spine as he looks back at me, his jaw clenched. “You are so damn clueless.”
And he shuts the door.
My stomach drops and I’m left listening to the sound of my heart pounding. My anxiety starts to bubble up, my hands getting sweaty again.
To keep myself from tipping over the edge, I open up a game on my phone, attempting to distract myself from having another full-blown anxiety attack.
Just as I start to focus on it, I jump at the abrupt yanking open of my door.
Wesley pulls my phone out of my hands, tosses it on the seat, and grabs my face, his lips crashing against mine.
My thoughts scatter. I don’t even try to comprehend what’s happening, I just melt into him. Completely and utterly lost in the moment.
The intensity is desperate but so tender and passionate at the same time.
My heart races as he deepens the kiss, locking our mouths together like he doesn’t want to stop. His cold fingers sweep back and tangle softly in my hair, cradling the back of my head. So gentle, yet so sure at the same time.
When he pulls away, our eyes stare into one another’s. His are so soft, but in that look, everything clicks.
“So clueless,” he mutters, his voice shaky, and he shuts the door in my face.