Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Roadblock
“G ood thing we left when we did,” Tina says.
Ahead of us is a long stretch of road with seemingly endless bumper-to-bumper traffic. The highway has become a parking lot. We have two hours to go until we’re in the city, but at this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned into five hours.
“There must be an accident,” Oliver says, leaning into the front of the car between Tina and Ryan.
At this angle, he’s a lot closer to me than he would be if he were buckled into his seat.
He’s invading my space. I can feel his body heat, and I can even smell him.
He doesn’t smell bad. It’s actually kind of a good smell, not that I would ever admit it.
It’s a little bit intoxicating, though, and it must be messing with my brain chemistry, because my mind wanders back to when I saw him standing in his boxers at his house.
For the briefest moment, it felt like my brain was malfunctioning.
There’s no other explanation for why I thought about coming so close to him that he could have mistaken it for an attempted kiss.
Even as I think about it, my body feels warm.
I’m glad I didn’t do it. I narrowly avoided embarrassing myself.
I cross my arms and lean against the door to get away from him.
“Or construction,” Ryan offers.
“A construction accident,” I mumble. I don’t intend for anyone to hear me, but Oliver shoots a look at me over his shoulder.
“We’ll make it in time,” Ryan says. “We might cut it a little close, but we’ll make it.”
I wonder if this is my karma for messing with his proposal.
I probably deserve it. I can feel the ring silently screaming at me from its spot inside my bag.
I glance up at Ryan in the driver seat. He’s put together a big plan for today, and he has no idea that I’m about to screw it up.
I briefly think about sneaking the ring back into Oliver’s pocket.
He hasn’t even noticed it’s missing yet.
But then I look at Tina. She has a plan of her own—an amazing, once in a lifetime plan, and she trusts me to make sure her vision comes to life.
I can’t let her down. Still, I feel torn.
I watch as Oliver leans back into his seat, his hands clasped together in his lap.
I wonder at what point he’ll notice the ring is gone.
If I were in charge of safeguarding an expensive ring like this, I would be patting my pocket every five seconds just to make sure it’s still there.
I wonder if Ryan knows how nonchalant Oliver is about this sacred duty of his.
Tina kicks her feet up onto the dash and lets out a heavy sigh. “Can’t you just drive on the shoulder, babe?”
“The shoulder is for emergency vehicles and tow trucks,” Ryan says.
“At this point I could walk and get there faster.” She takes a sip of her empty iced coffee, the straw rattling as she slurps up a few drops of melted ice. The sound teases my already full bladder. I wish I had thought to use the bathroom before we left.
“It would certainly be safer than keeping your feet up there where your legs will get broken if the airbags pop out.” Ryan reaches over to gently nudge her legs down, then keeps his hand on her knee.
Tina tilts her head to look at him. “Yes, because we’re so in danger of getting into an accident at…” She sneaks a peek at the speedometer. “Five miles an hour.”
“Actually, traffic jams just like this are notorious for causing accidents.”
She narrows her eyes. “You just made that up.”
“Look it up if you don’t believe me,” he says.
I bounce my leg in an effort to ease the pressure on my bladder. I’m not sure if it helps, but it distracts me from the discomfort for a minute.
“Are you okay?” Oliver asks, pulling me away from Tina and Ryan’s conversation.
“What? Me? Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
He looks pointedly at my bouncing knee.
“Oh. Yeah. I have to pee.” I look out the window at all the cars ahead of us, which are now at a complete standstill. “Any idea on where the next rest stop is?”
“I saw a sign a while back that said two miles,” Ryan answers from the front of the car.
“Oh, good,” Tina says. “So we should make it there in about two hours.”
I know she’s joking, but I can’t help but feel like she might be right. I pull my feet up onto the seat, tucking my knees against my chest, but that only makes it worse, so I put my legs back down.
“Need a cup?” Ryan asks.
Tina holds up her coffee cup, which contains just slightly discolored half-melted ice cubes.
I stare at it, for a moment considering how good it would feel to relieve myself right now.
Then I remember that Oliver is in the back seat with me.
I think I would die of embarrassment if I peed in a cup in front of him.
“Yes? No?” Tina wiggles the cup, shaking up the ice cubes inside.
“As tempting as it is, I’m not peeing with all of you in the car.” My bladder protests my decision.
“Suit yourself.” She takes another rattling sip of melted ice.
“Come on,” Oliver says.
“Huh?” I look over at him just as he opens his door.
Tina and Ryan both turn their heads around to stare at us over their shoulders. Oliver gets out of the car and reaches his hand out to me.
I stare at his hand and then look up at him with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”
“We’re walking to the rest stop,” he says.
I look at the traffic around us. We haven’t moved since the last time I observed we were at a standstill. Even so, I hesitate. I’m not sure why Oliver wants to help me. This feels like a trap.
“Ryan can meet us there, but at this rate, we can get there faster on foot,” he says.
I have to pee so badly that I’m inclined to go with him even if this will be the most miserable walk I’ve ever been on.
I look at Tina, but I can’t read her expression through her sunglasses.
I slide across the seat and get out on the same side as Oliver.
The driver of the car behind us honks their horn.
I turn around to glare at them. “No one has moved an inch!” I shout, waving at all of the cars at a standstill ahead of us.
“Stop, Priscilla,” Oliver scolds. “You’re going to get us run over.”
He grabs my arm, dragging me with him. I shake out of his grip. “I’m coming,” I say. “You don’t need to touch me.”
He looks over his shoulder at me with a raised brow as we weave our way through the parked cars to the other side of the road. “Oh yeah? Just the sight of me is enough?”
I frown. “Huh?”
He shakes his head, smirking. “Nothing.”
I roll my eyes. We make it to the shoulder and walk quickly, easily passing every car on the road.
Neither of us says anything for a minute.
With each step that I take, I’m acutely aware of Oliver walking next to me.
The absence of words between us feels louder than any small talk.
I’m left with the rumbling of engines from the cars on the highway and the thoughts in my head that seem to get louder with every step I take.
Oliver fidgets. He crosses and uncrosses his arms. I tilt my head just a little so that I can get a better look at him. His eyes are locked straight ahead. His mouth parts a little and then closes again, like he’s debating on whether to say something.
“So, you really have to pee, huh?” he finally says.
I raise an eyebrow. I turn my head all the way to look at him. “What an awkward way to break the silence.”
He turns to look at me and smirks. “I’ve been told I’m really good at dishing out awkward comments.”
“You’ve got that right.” I can’t help but think about the comment that put a stop to our almost-friendship, and how he finds ways to remind me of it once in a while. “But yes, I really have to pee.”
“We could run,” he offers. “We probably have about a mile to go. Maybe less.”
I picture what running would do to my poor bladder, and have a vision of me wetting my pants. I don’t think I could ever live that down. “I’m not sure my bladder can withstand that level of movement,” I say. “But maybe we could walk a little faster.”
I pick up the pace. Oliver matches my steps.
“Do you think Ryan’s going to propose today?” I already know the answer but I have to play dumb.
He shrugs. “I’m not giving you a yes or a no until you decide to call a truce.”
Given that I stole the ring right out of his pocket and he doesn’t know it yet, I don’t think it would be fair for me to call a truce right now.
“I’ll just assume that’s a yes.” I walk a little faster. He has to jog a few paces to catch up with me.
“You can assume whatever you want.” He tries to act casual about it, probably so that I’ll drop my guard, but he’s a little too casual. Or maybe I just think that because I know what he’s trying to hide.
I can see the ramp for the rest stop up ahead.
The buildings begin to come into view. It’s like the light at the end of the tunnel for my poor bladder.
The cars next to us begin to move, but we’re still walking faster than most of them.
I look back over my shoulder. I can’t see Ryan’s car behind us anymore.
We’re still ahead of the traffic by the time we make it to the rest stop.
When I get out of the bathroom, Oliver is pacing the lobby, his hands shoved into his coat pockets.
There’s no way he hasn’t noticed the missing ring.
Surely the emptiness of his left pocket is a huge red flag.
He keeps pacing as I approach him, his chest rising and falling with an anxious breath.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “You’re sweating.”
He paces a few more steps before he stops and looks at me. “I think I dropped something,” he says. “We need to retrace our steps.”
I fight the urge to smile so that I don’t give myself away. “Oh. What did you drop?”
He tightens his lips, considering me for a moment. “I can’t tell you.”
I watch him, narrowing my eyes. “That makes it kind of hard for me to help you find it, don’t you think?”
“You don’t need to know what it is. I’ll know it when I see it.”
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen. “Tina says traffic is on the move again. They’re in the parking lot.”
“Shit,” he curses. “We need to go back. Think of an excuse.”
“I’m sure whatever it was isn’t that important,” I say with a shrug. I head for the door, smiling as I face away from him.
“Wait,” he says just as I touch the door handle. I straighten my face and turn around to look at him. “It’s the ring.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What ring?”
“Don’t play dumb, Priscilla. You know what ring I’m talking about.”
I want to let him sweat it out a little longer, but I also don’t feel like waiting for him to hike alongside a busy highway looking for something he’ll never find.
“Oh, you mean the ring that I took out of your pocket earlier?”
His expression changes from worry to confusion and then to anger all in the span of about two seconds.
He steps toward me. I back away until I’m up against the door.
He stands right in front of me. I have to look up to meet his eyes, which is a mistake because I can feel his anger, but he’s also so close that all I can think about is how every time I breathe in, all I can smell is the cedar in his cologne and I wonder how someone who smells so good can look so angry.
My senses battle each other. I’m not sure which one is winning.
I’m torn between cowering in submission and burying my face in his neck to smell him better. My face heats.
“Are you kidding me?” he growls.
I shrug, trying my best to keep my composure. “No.”
“Where is it?”
It’s inside my handbag in the back seat of the car, but I’m not going to tell him that. “I hid it. You’ll never find it.”
He stares at me for a moment, his brow furrowed. He shakes his head and huffs out an unamused laugh. “You are unbelievable.”
He pushes open the door I’m leaning on, making me stumble backward.
He grabs my shoulders, steadying me. We lock eyes.
I can see that he’s angry, but his touch is gentle, and I know that he didn’t mean to knock me off balance.
His hands remain on my shoulders a few seconds longer than necessary.
When he lets go, I can still feel him holding onto me.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“You are the most maddening woman I’ve ever met.”
With that, he steps past me and storms off to the car.