Chapter Twenty-Three
My favorite road trip game is the Alphabet Game.
Roman
West Virginia is gorgeous in September. The trees outside our windows drop multicolored leaves, which settle into Elodie’s hair, winding through the golden spirals and making themselves at home.
“Put your head back in the car,” I order, taking my eyes off the road long enough to see her smile, carefree, as more leaves settle into her hair. “We’re almost there.”
“C’est la vie!” She extends her arm in an attempt to catch a falling leaf.
“You can’t excuse all your bad choices with a ‘c’est la vie,'” I grumble. I wish she’d stop testing the limits of her seatbelt—and my self-control. “Get back in the car.”
“That didn’t sound very character grown of you,” she tsks. “What happened to your enlightenment journey?”
My enlightenment journey, shockingly, shakes in the face of her hanging halfway out of a moving vehicle. I bite my tongue on another command to get her safely inside the car. “The thing about journeys,” I say instead, “is that they take a while.”
Something we know well. The journey to get here, in particular, was long . Elodie’s only ever driven it with Sol before, and Sol and she apparently do things like empty out gas station convenience stores of their snack options, blast music, and play what Elodie calls “road trip games."
I am not a road trip games kind of man. My favorite road trip game is watching the freaking road so we don’t crash . Which I told her all fifty times she tried to start Twenty Questions or some game where you find a license plate from every state.
“I’m driving,” I’d rumbled, firm. “If you’re bored, read a book or something. And turn the music back up.”
“I only read Amber D’Amore, and she hasn’t released a book in ages. Also, can we talk about how you totally love my music?”
Her music being something from a playlist titled Minecrwaft Mwusic.
“No,” I’d grunted, turning the volume up myself and effectively ending the conversation portion of the ride.
Elodie spent the next four hours until we hit Bandera nibbling on stuff from the cooler and playing solitaire on her phone while a man in the background sang about blocks, a big moon, and water buckets. I didn’t understand a single lyric, but the music… the music was good .
Once the “Welcome to Bandera!” sign loomed cheery and bright, Elodie promptly set her phone aside and stuck her head, curls and all, out the window to enjoy the autumn sights.
I promptly experienced higher levels of panic than have ever graced my nervous system.
“Fall is so pretty here.”
“Yes,” I answer. “And it’s just as pretty within the safe confines of the vehicle.”
“C’est la vie!” she says again as I make the final turn onto Lyra and Jove’s street. Elodie squeals as her cousin comes into view by the road, her giant of a husband standing watch and redirecting her when she gets too close to the asphalt. “Lyra-bug!”
Lyra’s head jerks up, and a smile coasts across her face. “Elo-bee!”
Elodie unbuckles as I turn into their driveway, then climbs out the freaking window , not bothering with something so pesky as a door. Lyra meets her, half-catching her as she tumbles out.
“Lyra! You’re here!” she screeches, throwing her arms around her favorite cousin as I deep breathe through exiting my car. Does she want me to have a heart attack?
Lyra laughs, music in the air that almost rivals the tinkling of Elodie’s joy, and hugs her back. “ You’re here!”
And then they both burst into tears.
“Need help with the bags?” Jove’s low, gruff tones ask to my right.
After assuring myself that, visually at least, Elodie hasn’t hurt herself playing NASCAR racer while getting out of the car, I shake Jove’s hand.
“If you don’t mind,” I answer. “Elodie’s packed her entire closet.” And none of her sense.
“C’est la vie,” she cries. “C’est la vie with options .”
I grunt, eyes rolling, and tug a lock of her hair as I pass to get to the trunk. Jove follows, grabbing Elodie’s gargantuan suitcases with ease. “Let’s cry in the house,” he says. “Where we’re less likely to get hit by someone’s car.”
Elodie and Lyra disconnect. Still teary-eyed, Elodie follows Jove, poking his massive bicep in hello. “Jove, hot as ever.”
My eyes narrow.
He hums, shifts both of her suitcases into one hand, and flicks her finger away from his person.
She pouts.
“That’s Lyra’s,” he says.
“Hello, Roman,” Lyra greets, coming up beside me. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”
I rearrange my face into something a little less scowly to return the sentiment. “Elodie has nothing but praise for you. I once forgot to put ‘perfect’ in the lineup of adjectives that describe you and she had quite the fit over it. She loves you a lot.”
Lyra’s cheeks warm under a smattering of golden star freckles, and her soft eyes find her cousin. “I love her a lot, too.”
The corners of my eyes crinkle.
“Lyra won’t mind if I have a small feel,” Elodie says. “A little poke. A mild appreciation of the finer things in life.”
Acid burns in my throat.
“Lyra-love, your cousin is harassing me again,” Jove tattles, swatting Elodie’s wandering hand away from his person.
The acid settles.
Lyra sighs. “El, you’ve got your own hunk of man to harass now. Leave mine alone.”
My shoulders straighten when Elodie spins on her heel, hair flying as she settles into a backward gait. Her nose wrinkles. “That’s not my hunk of man,” she protests. “That’s Roman .”
I flex my arms.
Elodie pretends to gag.
Jove ushers us into the house, showing us our room. “It used to be my brother’s,” he says, surveying the space. “It’s changed a lot, though.”
He sounds like I felt when I’d look at the space that used to be Ruby’s room after she moved out but before Elodie moved in. My heart pangs for him. There’s something about having a sibling move on that just plain hurts .
He clears his throat. “The trundle is made up, so you won’t be subjected to any unwanted tropes, and the bathroom in the hall is all yours. Lyra and I have one attached to our bedroom, which is at the other end of the hall.” He gestures behind him. “You can’t miss it. Our door is painted peach.”
“Peach is Ly’s favorite color,” Elodie tells me. “Also, I’m getting the bed-bed. You can have the trundle. And you can put it… there.” She points to a spot in the room that will allow us the most distance as we rest, and I grunt.
“I’m taller than you. I should get the bigger bed.”
“You’re a boy,” she counters. “Chivalry dictates I get to choose.”
“Politeness dictates you let me have the bed that isn’t going to leave my feet dangling off the end.”
“Manners dictate you take what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”
I glare.
She glares back.
We do not come to an agreement on the bed situation.
“Do you have plans for while you’re here?” Lyra asks, leaning against the doorjamb. Her eyes glide between Elodie and me, curiosity warring with amusement.
“A few,” Elodie answers. “Today I’m going to see Sol for lunch. Roman’s not invited. Do you think you guys could watch him for me?”
“I’m a grown man. I can watch myself.”
“We can watch him,” Lyra nods. “No problem.”
My eye twitches. “I’m a grown man,” I repeat. “I can watch myself.”
Jove, eyes set adoringly on his wife, hums. “We can watch him,” he echoes. “Don’t worry about it.”
“A. Grown. Man.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate it, guys.”
“Fully, even. A fully grown man.”
“We’re happy to help!”
“ A fully grown man! ”