Twenty #3
The woman—Yvette—waved it off. “I get that a lot. When I married Bo, I took his last name. He said you had mail for me?”
In her surprise at meeting Yvette, Valerie’s brain had slightly scrambled. “Mail?” she echoed.
“The letter,” said Nico with an urgent look. “That we were dropping off.”
Right, their cover story. Valerie made a show of looking through her purse. “Oh no!” she said. “I’m such a mess. I must have forgot it at home. I hope it wasn’t important.”
“Yvie, we’re ready!” Bo’s voice called.
“Coming!” Yvette smiled at them. “Sorry, I have to go, but feel free to send the letter back to the post office. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I’m not worried it was important.” She was already turning as she shut the door. “It was nice of you to drop by.”
That was it.
The two of them walked to the car in silence, then got in. Nico frowned at the house as if it had pulled a bad prank and Valerie felt exhausted. The meeting had been so anticlimactic it was almost unbearable.
“Roger’s going to be crushed,” she said finally. “Should we tell him now or wait until we get back?”
Nico pulled his phone out. “Now. It would be cruel to make him wait.” A moment later, he held up the screen to show Roger’s thumbs-up reply and Valerie winced at the unnaturally brisk response and no follow-up call. He must be hurting.
There was nothing more for them to do so Nico started the car to drive out of town.
They were promptly caught in traffic, which was predictable, given how the rest of the day had gone.
Valerie craned her neck out the window to look for a reason—maybe a T.
rex had wandered on the road—but saw nothing but volume.
At this rate, it would be late by the time they arrived back in the Mariposas.
She shuddered with distaste at the thought of driving through the night when her butt was already numb from sitting.
While movies romanticized night drives as full of adventure, more often they were filled with petty sniping from exhausted people strung out on a poisonous mix of caffeine and fast food.
Plus, after that letdown, surely they deserved a break.
“What if we don’t go back?” she proposed.
Nico paused. “What, ever?” He looked out the window as if trying to picture a new life here on the outskirts of Goderich.
“No, tonight. We can find a hotel and get dinner. Relax.” Feeling that wouldn’t be enough to tempt him, she added, “Talk about next steps.”
That got his attention but she could tell he was struggling with this sudden change of plan. “Roger is expecting us back.”
“He’ll probably feel better if we don’t try to drive through the night.”
“I don’t have a toothbrush.”
A reasonable concern and one she shared but had a solution for. “Hotels usually have them.” Was Nico creating obstacles in order to avoid saying no to her face?
But the availability of dental hygiene tools was apparently enough to convince him. “All right,” he agreed. “Can you check to see if there’s a place close by?”
“I prefer to navigate by heart,” she said as loftily as possible. She could feel Nico die a bit beside her.
“Map apps exist,” he said.
“There’s no magic in that. No mystery detours where you find a cute little café that has a single bewitched table that changes your fate depending on which seat you take.”
“There’s no magic in getting lost with no gas,” he pointed out. “Or sleeping in the car.”
“That’s fair,” she conceded, pulling out her phone. “I shall navigate by heart through the internet.”
“Great.”
As they lurched along, another question rose up to roll around Valerie’s mind like an unsecured can in a car trunk.
One room or two?
If the hotel conveniently only had a single room left with preferably one bed, it would solve her problem of having to choose.
But what were the chances of that? Obviously she wouldn’t force him to share space with her, but she couldn’t think of how to tell him she was open to the idea without making him obliged to do it.
Then again…she went back and forth, worrying about the best way to handle this.
Wait, why was she taking on the responsibility of thinking about it? It was a joint problem.
“Nico, do you want to share a room?”
His hands tightened enough on the steering wheel for her to see, but she couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “Don’t you think we should find one first?”
“I like to live in the future. You can say yes or no, and I won’t take either choice badly.”
“What would you like to do?” He hesitated. “I’m not trying to throw it back on you, but I want you to be comfortable.”
“I’d like to share.” There it was, out in the open. She fought adding a wimpy If you don’t mind. Valerie Peng was in charge, taking names and kicking ass.
“Okay.”
That was it. She felt a little let down, like this should be some sort of a milestone in their relationship, instead of a sensible agreement between two adults with no drama or fuss. But she liked a bit of those things.
Then he said, “I want to share a room too.”
Suddenly, the car felt smaller, closer, and much hotter.