Chapter 17 Abbie
ABBIE
Sunlight hits my face like an accusation.
I wake with too much warmth pressed along my left side and a familiar weight across my waist.
Gray’s face rests against my shoulder, his breath soft and even. The blanket lies at his waist, leaving the ink across his shoulders bare.
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
I lie perfectly still. Less than one glass of bourbon. I was present for every second of last night, and I can’t pretend otherwise. I remember feeling home for the first time in over a year.
I am an idiot. I am the world's biggest, dumbest, most self-destructive idiot, and I need to get out of this bed immediately. I lift his arm from my waist and slip out of bed. I gather my clothes, shoving my legs into my jeans and yanking on my sweater. My bra can stay on the doorknob.
The old VTG hoodie is on the chair; I pull it on. I don’t look back at the bed. If I do, I’ll crawl back in beside him. So I don't look.
I take my keys from the counter and leave. The storm has passed. The canyon is bright and dripping. I hurry to my car before Gray wakes. I slide into my car, turn the key, and pull out of the driveway with my heart lodged somewhere in my throat.
The road has reopened. I steer around fallen branches and puddles. I make it maybe three miles before it happens. I pull onto a wide shoulder to breathe. My tires sink into the mud.
"No," I say out loud. "No, no, no—"
The wheels spin. Reverse only digs them deeper.
"Damn it."
I slam my hands against the steering wheel, then press my forehead to it and groan. So much for leaving with my dignity. I can get my car out of the mud. I take out the floor mat. The wheels are sunk to their rims, safely off the road.
I've just dropped to my knees beside the front left tire, jamming the floor mat under it for traction, when I hear the rumble of an engine coming up the road.
Please be a stranger. Please be a helpful stranger with a tow chain who will pull me out and never speak of this again.
Please be literally anyone except... Gray's black 4x4 rounds the bend and slows to a stop.
Of course. Of course. He rolls down his window, grinning, his hair still mussed from sleep.
"Need help running away, love?"
"No." I shove the floor mat harder under the tire, not looking at him. "Go away."
"You sure? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like your getaway could use some work."
"I said go."
He parks his truck on solid ground further up and gets out, stopping beside it. "All right. I’ll go. Unless you want company while you call someone."
I look at my buried tire. "Wait," I mutter. "Over there. No taking over."
"You know, if you're going to flee in the middle of the night, you should probably check the road conditions first."
"It's not the middle of the night. It's morning. The sun is up."
"Oh, I'm sorry. If you're going to flee at dawn, then. My mistake."
I sit back on my heels and glare up at him. There's mud on my jeans already, mud on my hands, probably mud on my face. He looks infuriatingly put-together, like he didn't just wake up alone in a bed I vacated like a coward.
"I wasn't fleeing. I was leaving."
"Right. At six AM. Without waking me. After—"
"Don't." I hold up a muddy hand. "Don't finish that sentence."
His grin softens, more dangerous now. Almost tender. "After a very nice evening, I was going to say."
"Gray."
"What? We had dinner. We talked. We watched the storm. Very civilized."
"It was a very nice evening, yes, and now it's a very muddy morning, and I would like to handle this myself without commentary from the peanut gallery."
"I'm not a peanut gallery. I'm a concerned husband observing his wife's vehicular crisis."
"Estranged husband."
"Still counts."
I shove the floor mat again, smearing more mud across my already-ruined jeans. "This is not a crisis. This is a minor inconvenience that I am fully capable of resolving without your help."
"By shoving a floor mat under a tire that's buried six inches deep?"
"The internet said it would work."
"The internet lies, love. Frequently and with great confidence."
I sit back on my heels and wipe my hands on my thighs, which accomplishes nothing except spreading the mud around.
"Why are you even here? I left specifically so we wouldn't have to do this.
The awkward morning-after conversation where we pretend last night didn't mean anything and then avoid eye contact for the next three weeks. "
"I woke up and you were gone. I was worried."
He crouches beside me. I catch the scent of his soap.
"I could pull you out," he offers.
"I don't need you to pull me out."
"I have a truck. I have tow straps. It would take five minutes."
"And then what? I owe you a favor? We're even? Last night gets folded into some tally of who did what for whom?"
"That's not—"
"One night doesn't change anything, Gray. One nice evening doesn't erase a year. It doesn't mean we're fixed or forgiven or whatever you're hoping for."
"I'm not hoping for anything."
"Liar."
His mouth twitches. "Okay. I'm hoping for several things. But I'm not expecting them."
"What’s the difference?"
"Expecting would be assuming you owe me something because of it."
"I’m calling a tow truck," I say.
"That's probably smart."
"And I’m handling the call myself."
"Also reasonable."
"No favors. No calls to your people."
"Understood." He settles on a rock a few feet away.
"I wasn’t fleeing."
"You were absolutely fleeing. You fled so hard your car got stuck in mud."
"That's not—" I stop, because he's grinning at me now, and I refuse to kiss him. "I'm calling the tow truck. You can stay or go, I don't care."
"You care a little."
"I care exactly zero."
"Your eye twitches when you lie. It always has. It's twitching right now."
"My eye twitches because I'm covered in mud and stranded on the side of a road and my estranged husband won't stop being smug about it."
"I'm not being smug. I'm being present. Those are different things."
"They feel very similar from where I'm standing."
I pull out my phone and dial the tow company, and he finally, mercifully, stops talking. The dispatcher says an hour, maybe ninety minutes, and I try not to visibly deflate.
"Hour wait," I say when I hang up.
"I heard."
"You really don’t mind waiting?"
"Not a bit."
"Gray—"
"I'm not going to call in favors or fix this for you or do any of the things you're worried I'm going to do. I'm just going to sit here, on this rock, and wait with you. "
"I'm a grown woman. I can stand on the side of a road by myself."
"I know you can. But you don't have to."
I lean against the car.
"For what it's worth," he says, "I wasn't going to mention last night."
"You mentioned it three times in the first five minutes."
"I mentioned that you left. That's different from mentioning what happened before you left."
"Is it?"
"Yes. I have excellent compartmentalization skills."
"You have terrible compartmentalization skills."
I laugh before I can stop myself, and his whole face lights up. I hate that my laugh still does that to him.
"This doesn't mean anything," I say.
"I know."
"I'm still mad at you."
"I know."
"Last night was... it was what it was. But it wasn't a reconciliation and it wasn't a promise and it wasn't—"
"Abbie." He holds up his hands. "I know. I'm not assuming anything. I'm not expecting anything. I'm just sitting on a rock, waiting for a tow truck, enjoying the rare privilege of your company while you're too stuck to run away again."
"I wasn't running away."
"You were running away in that hoodie. It looks better on you anyway."
"Everything looks better on me."
"True." He leans back on his rock, tilting his face toward the weak morning sun. "I'm not going to apologize for last night. Just so you know."
"I didn't ask you to."
"I know. But I wanted to be clear. Whatever we are, whatever we're figuring out, I'm not going to pretend I didn't want that. I'm not going to pretend I don't still want it."
"Gray—"
"I'm also not going to pressure you about it. I'm just stating facts. For the record."
"The record being this roadside mud pit?"
"The record being us. Whatever this is." He gestures between us. "I don't know what we're doing, Abbie. But I know I'm not going to lie about wanting you. That feels like the wrong place to start."
I bend down, scoop up a handful of mud, and throw it at him. It hits him square in the chest. He looks down at his muddy shirt, then up at me.
"Oh," he says softly. "So that's how we're doing this."
"Gray—"
He bends down.
"Gray, don't you dare—"
The mud hits my shoulder before I can finish the sentence.
"You bastard!" I grab another handful and hurl it at him. It catches the side of his face, dripping down into his collar, and he lets out a sound that's half laugh, half outraged splutter.
"That was cold!"
"Good!" I'm already reaching for more ammunition. "You deserve it! You followed me!"
"You left me!" He retaliates with a throw that splatters across my VTG hoodie, mine since he gave it to me, and I shriek in indignation.
"I was being mature! I was giving us both space to process!"
"You were running away because you're scared!" Another handful of mud, this one aimed at my legs. I dodge, barely, and it hits the side of my already-ruined car.
"I'm not scared, I'm sensible!" I launch a volley of my own, managing to hit his thigh and his hip in quick succession. "One of us has to be!"
"Sensible people don't throw mud!"
"You started it!"
"You started it when you kissed me by the sofa!"
"You encouraged me!"
"You leaned!"
"I did not lean!"
"You absolutely leaned, Abigail, I was there, there was leaning—"
I catch him in the stomach with a double handful. He staggers, laughing, and I laugh until my sides hurt.
"Okay, okay—" He holds up his hands in surrender, still laughing. "Truce. Truce. I can't... I'm going to need a shower before I can drive home."
"You could have been home by now if you'd just let me leave."
"And miss this? Never." He wipes a streak of mud from his cheek, still grinning. "You've got some in your hair, by the way."
"I know. You put it there."
"You threw the first handful."
"You provoked me."
"By existing?"
"By being smug." I push my muddy hair out of my face. We're both covered, him from collar to knee, me from shoulder to boot. My car is somehow even more stuck than before.
"The tow driver is going to have questions," Gray observes.
"The tow driver can mind his own business."
"Should I hide? I can crouch behind my truck like I'm not here."
"That would probably raise more questions."
"I could pretend to be a stranger. Just a helpful passerby who happened upon a damsel in distress."
"I'm not a damsel, and you're not helpful."
"I'm extremely helpful. I pointed out the floor mat situation."
"After I'd already put it on the wrong side of the tire."
"Timing is everything in comedy."
A tow truck rounds the bend. Gray looks down at himself, covered in mud from chin to knee, and then at me, similarly destroyed. His grin turns rueful.
"Well," he says. "This should be fun to explain."
"Just... stay over there. By your truck. Don't say anything."
"I can do that."
"I mean it. Not a word."
"Silent as the grave."
The driver surveys our muddy clothes, then the car.
"Huh," the driver says.
"Don't ask," I tell him.
"Wasn't going to." He climbs out and walks around my car, assessing. "Storm aftermath?"
"Something like that."
He glances at Gray, then back at me, and there's a flicker of amusement in his weathered face. "Ex-boyfriend?"
"Estranged husband," Gray calls out, because apparently silent as the grave meant absolutely nothing.
"Still technically husband," I mutter, but the driver either doesn't hear or has the good sense not to engage.
Fifteen minutes later, he winches out my car and hooks it up anyway, because the front bumper is dragging and he won't let me drive it down the canyon like that.
I climb into the tow truck without looking at Gray.
Gray waves, still covered in mud. I wave back, because what else am I going to do, and then I slump down in my seat as the truck pulls away.
"Rough night?" the driver asks, not unkindly.
"You could say that."
"Storm kept a lot of folks trapped up in the canyon. Nothing to be ashamed of."
"Mmm."
The driver doesn’t ask again. I look out at the canyon. What did we do?
The question echoes in my head all the way down the mountain.
What did we do?