Chapter 28
Love in the Backseat of a VW Beetle
I stare at my reflection and second-guess everything.
Black dress? Too pretty. Silk blouse? Too hopeful. Slouchy sweater from the night at Doe Bay? Too full of memory.
I settle on a camel-colored tee and black jeans. I throw on my favorite thrifted blazer and vintage lorgnettes, the ones Jared found in a dumpster dive behind MoMA, and I’ve since strung on a chain. The outfit says: I am composed. I am not unraveling. I am not thinking about a man I should not be thinking of.
This is not a date, I remind myself. Gavin agreed to the Leonard Cohen concert out of obligation, not desire. He’s just the understudy. A placeholder. And whatever this is between us should stay in its place.
But when I walk into the garage, overnight bag in hand, and find Gavin already standing there with his leather duffel, something in me catches.
He looks up. His expression is unreadable.
We both glance at the Defender. The back tire is completely flat.
“Should we put the spare on?” I ask.
“Long story, but there is no spare,” he says, looking irked.
“Okay. What about the other car?” I nod at the covered one next to his.
He hesitates. Shifts on his feet.
“I... can’t.”
I narrow my eyes. “Can’t, or won’t?”
Another pause. A sheepish glance.
“Oh, my God.” I gasp, dramatic. “You can’t drive stick?”
“I’m from New York City,” he says. “I can barely drive at all.”
I start laughing. “This explains so much. And here I thought you were some kind of off-grid alpha man.”
“Smoke and mirrors.” His mouth twitches, almost a smile, and it feels like a reward.
I laugh. “Lucky for us, I can.” I hold out my hand for the keys without thinking.
He drops them into my palm, and his fingers graze the inside of my wrist. Just skin catching skin for a half second too long. His gaze dips to the point of contact like it’s a problem he can’t solve. Then glances away.
He lifts the car’s cover, and my heart stills.
The Beetle. The car that Patricia and Liam fell in love in during their first road trip. The one from the old photos in their foyer. Her in a mini dress with a daisy tucked behind her ear, Liam grinning at her like he couldn’t believe his luck.
I’ve heard the stories. I’ve imagined them, both of them on their first of many adventures, windblown, young, and in love.
“Why is this here?” I ask softly.
“They had to sell it when Mom was sick,” he says. “I tracked it down a few years after that.”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I thought maybe someday I’d restore it and surprise them with it. Dad used to say only Mom could make sleeping in the backseat of that Beetle feel like the Ritz. First road trip they ever took, the engine died outside Reno. They didn’t have money for a motel, so they folded the seats down and made a night of it.”
A small huff of breath. “He always said it was the best night of his life.”
His mouth lifts, almost against his will. “He asked Mom to marry him the next morning.”
I smile despite myself. “He said once you’ve survived a breakdown in the desert together, you might as well make it official.”
He glances at me. “You always liked that line.”
“I did,” I admit.
We pull out of the driveway and head toward the ferry landing. After a wait, the deckhands wave us forward, and the boat’s ramp clanks beneath the tires like the car is being swallowed by a metal mouth.
On the mainland side, almost two hours later, we ghost through the tiny town of Bow—if we blinked, we’d miss it—and then Gavin has me take the turn that spits us onto the coastal highway, trees unfurling from rock like green silk caught in the breeze. The Beetle smells faintly of old leather and salt, like the ocean’s been living in it, and, beneath that, something unmistakably him.
“What kind of companies does Venture Haus invest in?” I ask, casual on purpose.
“Quinn’s reach is pretty broad,” he says. “Fintech, infrastructure, anything venture-scale. If it has a shot at a billion-dollar outcome, he’ll look at it.”
“And you?”
“I only scout and invest in public benefit corporations,” he says.
“That’s… specific.”
“It’s a filter,” he says. “The company’s mission has to be baked in. Not just promised.”
“And founders?” I ask. “Do you have a theme?”
“I tend to back women and LGBTQIA founders.”
“Because they’re more profitable?” I ask.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “The data is pretty consistent: they yield more revenue per dollar invested, and better returns. They also create more jobs and show more innovation.”
“And yet,” I say, “they’re not the ones usually getting the checks.”
“No,” he says, and there’s nothing soft about it. “And, when they do get backed by other companies, they get less.”
I let that sit between us for a beat. The road hums. The trees flash by like a film reel.
“So,” I say, “you’re not just being principled. You’re being strategic.”
A quiet exhale, almost a laugh. “I believe you can be both.”
Then, after a pause, his voice drops. “It’s also because the founders I back build like no one’s going to rescue them. Because most of the time, no one is.”
Something tightens in my chest.
His phone lights up in the console. He glances at the name, and whatever expression he’d been wearing shutters.
“Sorry,” he says, already reaching for a single earbud. He taps it in, and answers so softly I catch more rhythm than words. Low. Tense. Private.
He turns his face slightly toward the window, like he’s trying to keep the conversation from spilling into the space between us.
“Vancouver,” he says. A long pause. “I told you, no reporters yet ... If I hear from anyone, I’ll call. Olivia. Let me just … Fine. I’ll call you after the concert.”
He hangs up, jaw tight. His stare locked out the window.
“Everything okay?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Relationships are... complicated.”
“You’re talking to someone whose ex is now dating men. So, yeah, I get complicated.”
I glance at him again, at the tension in his shoulders, and think about the Beetle. The way he couldn’t let it go. Maybe he’s like me. Good at holding on. Terrible at knowing when to let go.
He’s quiet. Distant in a way that doesn’t feel cold, just unavailable. And maybe that’s what I want to understand. Not just what went wrong. But how it ever began. And before I can stop myself—
“So, how did you and Olivia get together?” It slips out more casually than I meant it to.
Gavin glances at me, weighing whether to answer. I brace for a vague deflection. Instead, he exhales.
“She was dating Quinn when I met her.”
“Wait—your Quinn?”
He nods. “They were good together. Still are, in some ways. Both extroverted. Both are obsessed with being seen. I was the quiet third wheel who got dragged along to rooftop parties and told to flirt with trust fund girls.”
“What changed?”
“One night, she showed up on my doorstep. She said she spotted Quinn at a party with an up-and-coming blond actress. When she confronted them, she learned that they had slept together. The blond was all too happy to reveal it. Olivia collapsed into my arms, and I sat her by my fireplace, and I let her talk. And cry. I didn’t touch her that night, but I wanted to. She was…” He stops and corrects himself. “… is beautiful. Whereas before I thought there was a stand-offishness to her, seeing her so vulnerable deepened my crush into something more.”
Something twists in my chest.
“I talked to Quinn the next day. He admitted he didn’t want commitment and gave me his blessing.”
“And then?”
“She came back the next night. We talked. For hours. At some point, she asked me to kiss her.”
Smart woman.
“I knew she wasn’t over Quinn, but I didn’t care.”
“And that was it?”
He shrugs. “She stayed the night. We’ve been together ever since.”
A long beat.
“Bet you left a trail of broken hearts before her,” I murmur.
“Just mine.”
I look at him. That wasn’t a throwaway line.
He adds quietly, “She never knew I was in love with her.”
My voice is gentle. “You mean… someone else?”
He nods, eyes back on the road. “Her heart was with someone else. Always was.”
He doesn’t elaborate. I don’t press.
But my mind is already turning.
Almost as if to change the subject, he plugs in his phone, and classical music floods the car. Shostakovich.
I groan.
He arches a brow. “Not a fan?”
“I like classical, but not every day. Definitely not on a road trip.”
“It’s the only common ground with Olivia. Otherwise, it’s me and twelve Katy Perry remixes on loop.”
He scrolls. Lands on something else.
Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm starts to play. I exhale. The tension in the car softens.
Then Magic in the Air comes on. Then a punk cover of Stand by Me. Then The Ellis Court’s Let Your Song.
I pull into a gas station.
I snatch his phone and scroll. “We do need fuel,” I say, trying to sound breezy. “But first I need to know who made this playlist.”
Dozens of songs. All of them from the mixed CDs Jared made for me. Every single one meaningful. These songs were the soundtrack to our relationship. Not just romantic background noise—these songs earned my love. My trust. My respect. We first fell for each other over five of them. Songs no one else even knew I loved.
All of it hits me at once.
Some women swoon over a man in a tuxedo. I swoon over a man who curates the perfect soundtrack.
I glance over at Gavin. He’s watching me.
Just this quiet, curious look, like he’s trying to solve an equation and realizing the answer might be more complicated than he thought.
“Did Jared make this playlist for you?”
He blinks. “What?”
“I mean... It’s full of my favorites. Jared and I once made a theoretical wedding playlist. This is oddly close.”
He gives me a slow, wicked smile. “Just how do you think baby brother got his taste in music?”
I sit there, stunned. What if the things I loved most about Jared weren’t even his, but Gavin’s all along?
And then I hear myself say it, too soft to be casual. “He used to make me mixes. Label them in his messy handwriting like it was a love language.”
I keep my eyes on his phone because looking at Gavin feels like staring into a solar eclipse. “I’d get them at my door, before we were really even dating. No note. Just… music. Like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”
I sit back in the seat, my fingers drifting to my mouth without thinking. I press them there. Gently.
His eyes flick from my mouth to my hand, then back again—and he doesn’t look away fast enough.
“He wasn’t afraid,” he says, quietly. “He was careful.”
The air between us turns thin. Like the car is holding its breath.
I swallow. “Where did he learn to do that?”
A beat. Gavin’s eyes stay forward, but his voice drops. “He’d sit in my room when he was fifteen. Steal my headphones. Ask me what mattered when it came to love and pretend he wasn’t taking notes.”
I finally look at him. “So, you—”
His hand reaches over, slow, like he’s giving me time to pull away.
“Let me,” he says.
His fingertips brush mine as he takes his phone back. It should be accidental. Except neither of us moves fast enough to make it purely an accident.
“Anyway,” he says, and the word lands like a door closing gently.
Before he can cue the next song, his phone lights up again in the console between us.
The name flashes into view: Olivia.
His jaw tightens. He doesn’t answer. Just watches it ring out.
Then a text alert slides across the screen, and I watch him read the message on his phone.
And whatever had softened in him seals back up.
His posture shifts beside me—not dramatic, just a retreat. He leans his head lightly against the window, his brow furrowed.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“It’s not,” he says quietly. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
There’s something final in the way he says it. Not angry. Not frantic. And suddenly the car feels much smaller.
So I do what I always do when things get emotionally claustrophobic.
I unplug his phone and plug in mine without ceremony.
“Okay,” I announce, as if presenting a thesis. “Nobody gets to existentially brood on a coastal highway. It’s against maritime law.”
He makes a soft sound that might be disbelief.
I scroll, decisive.
“There is exactly one guaranteed serotonin override.”
Then—
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) kicks in at a polite volume as I pull us back onto the road.
“You can’t just deploy The Proclaimers like emotional Novocain,” he says.
“Watch me.”
“That song is a blunt instrument.”
“It’s a precision tool.”
“It’s musical populism.”
“It’s joy,” I counter. “No one can stay in a bad mood during this song. It’s physically impossible.”
He turns his head slightly toward me, studying me like I’m a case study in reckless optimism.
“I could name ten bands that would do this with more nuance.”
“Name three.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it.
I crank the volume.
I sing. Loud. Off-key. Fully committed.
//And I would walk five thousand miles—//
He turns the volume down.
“That is not the lyric,” he says.
“Yes, it is.”
“It is not.”
//And I would walk five thousand more—//
He presses his lips together like he’s attempting containment.
“You are adding a zero,” he says. “It’s five hundred miles.”
“Who only walks five hundred miles for someone they love? That’s barely a gesture.”
He finally looks at me, and I can feel the armor lowering.
“Five hundred is already absurd,” he says. “That’s the point.”
“Have you ever walked five hundred miles for someone?” I ask.
His gaze lingers a second too long.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “Metaphorically.”
The air shifts.
I swallow.
“Well,” I say, aiming for light and landing somewhere near honest, “I’d walk five thousand. For the right person.”
The song barrels on. He doesn’t sing. But when the chorus hits again, I sneak a glance at him.
He’s trying—visibly trying—not to smile.
And for now, that feels like something.