Chapter 35 Road Trip
When Reed pulls up to my aunt’s, I’m waiting at the curb in black sweats and a stretchy pistachio-green crop top. Whitney’s Grease costumes are safely tucked away in my carry-on. She made me try them all on when I arrived at the house last night, so I’m ready for anything.
Reed rolls down the window as he parks along the curb. He dips his chin, lips arranged in a subtle smirk. “Romona.” He’s got a brush of stubble today. It looks good.
I nod back, a smile itching at my lips. “Tyler.”
He hops out in black jeans and a black T-shirt and swiftly grabs my things.
“Thank you,” I chuckle as he loads them into the trunk and the back seat, respectively.
He walks back over, stands in front of me, and smiles. “Hi.” I’m slightly taller than him from my perch on the curb as opposed to his position on the street.
“Hi.”
“Wearing clothes today? That’s new.”
I retreat, lolling my head, but he steps up onto the grass, catches my hip, and tugs me to him, cradling my neck as he pulls me into a kiss that makes my heart bloom.
I feel like a flower in time lapse as he pulls back to catch my eyes. “They look good on you.”
I cast my eyes skyward. “You explore the world of streaking one time.”
“All right, who’s getting married? I should know their names!”
Reed chuckles. Ed Sheeran’s playing at a volume loud enough to warrant singing along as we pull onto the highway. He reaches out to turn it down. “My friend Matt and his fiancée, Marissa.”
“Matt and Marissa. Got it. How do you know him?”
He grins, glancing at me sidelong. “Work.”
“Ahhh, the ambiguous work. He plays a part in your secret Marvel movie?”
Reed snorts. “I guess you’ll have to see.”
“Waiting with bated breath.”
He smiles out at the road. “So. I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?” I repeat skeptically.
“That’s what I said.”
I laugh. “What are you proposing?”
Reed slides his palms down the sides of the steering wheel. “Hear me out.”
I cock my head. “Ookaayy . . .”
“What if . . . we did make this something real?”
I blink.
He glances over, his smile slipping into a smirk.
My brows pull together. “What? Is this a joke? Are you kidding?”
He laughs. “I’m not kidding.”
I purse my lips. “I don’t believe you.”
He gnaws at his lip as we whip past the Getty. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot these past forty-eight hours.”
I drop my head against the passenger window. It’s starting to drizzle. “You’ve been thinking about making this something real?”
“I have.”
“Are you just suggesting this so you can get some tonight?”
A laugh barks out of him. He flips on the windshield wipers. “No, I’m saying it because I like you. During therapy this week, which was, by the way, the morning before I sent you that chapter, before the streaking—”
“I’m never living that down—”
“My therapist was like, if you like her so much, why aren’t you ‘something real’?”
I blow out a sigh. “And how did that make you feel?”
He smiles again. “Like running straight into a screen door.”
“It made you want to run through a screen door?” I parrot dryly.
“Are you purposefully misunderstanding me?”
I cock a brow. “I mean the running straight into a screen door metaphor isn’t your best.”
He shakes his head. “I thought about you out dating other dudes a lot during our three weeks of not talking.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
He drops a flustered laugh. “Very upset that I don’t live on the East Coast.”
I snort. “I feel like you’re bullshitting me.”
His smile widens. “I’m not.”
I shift my body toward the center console. “To be clear, you’re asking me to be exclusive with you? After we’ve been on two dates.”
“Rikki, those were like super dates. I feel like they count as more than one each. Plus Streakergate.”
A pfft wheezes out of me.
“That’s three encounters,” he says coyly.
“Did you read that article?” I bleat accusingly.
“Yes, Rikki, it was before church and state.”
“Ugh!” I blink maniacally out at the highway. “Buh, I—you . . .” What the fuck am I mad about?
“All right there?”
I clear my throat, exhaling an irritated huff. “You?”
“Me?”
“You! The guy who’s on his first third date in fourteen years wants this to be a real thing, after two dates?”
“Three encounters.”
“Shut up.”
He quirks a brow. “Your words, not mine.”
The rain outside the car accelerates. “What about the pact?”
His broad shoulders shrug up and drop. “We built a something-real clause in. I’m just suggesting we enact it.”
“Reed, you don’t know me well enough to want to make this something real. We haven’t spent enough time together for you to know if I annoy you or drive you insane and vice versa.”
“Rikki, that’s why people date exclusively, to spend more time together and get to know each other better.”
“How am I supposed to believe that you’re not lying to me for sex? This is the most suspicious timing of all time.”
“Honest question,” Reed says. “When would the timing not be suspicious?”
“I don’t know . . .” I hesitate, glancing out at the road. “If we were like, going to your grandma’s funeral.”
“What if I wanted comfort sex after?”
“Fine, on a train.”
“I can’t want sex on a train?”
“Plane!”
Reed starts laughing.
“Stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean, starving to death!”
“End of the world sex.”
Laughter fizzles out of me. “Oh god! I don’t know. Are you right?” I bury my face in my hands.
“Would you really rather I ask you to go steady on a plane ride to be less suspicious?”
A cackle escapes my lips. “Buy us two plane tickets, and let’s fly to San Diego so this feels more legit.”
We roll through a bout of hysteria, sobering slowly as the rain dulls back to a drizzle against the windshield.
Reed’s still grinning confidently out the window. “I think you’ll just have to trust that I mean it when I say I like you more than I want to have sex with you.”
“You know I’m not good at that.”
He laughs, and I shake out my arms, smiling as bright bouts of joyous light dare to ricochet through my chest.
“Reed.”
“Rikki.”
“You think you like me more than you want to have sex with me, but you don’t know all my bad qualities and annoying tics. We’ve never even gone out to eat! Have you thought about that? You’ve never seen me eat!
“Our let’s be exclusive stakes are way higher than your average Joe Shmoe couple, because of the distance.
We’d need to push and prod the boundaries of what you can learn about someone in a short burst of time to ensure compatibility on a close-distance scale, rather than just a long-distance one, to even attempt to make up for that deficit.
“I’ve seen this with patients and listeners a million times.
It’s why only one in every eight long-distance relationships are ultimately successful.
The couple doesn’t see each other for more than like, three consecutive days at a time for an extended portion of the relationship, so they get really deep in without realizing they’re not close-distance compatible because they haven’t had the chance to pick up on the little things you learn about someone when you’re seeing them consistently in your day-to-day life.
“They’re convinced they’re about to start their happily ever after together, after doing long distance for ages, and they move in together, which is a huge, life-changing ordeal because one or both of them have to move to make things work.
And then, because they haven’t done close-distance compatibility testing, their relationship implodes after one measly month in the same house because they realize they annoy the shit out of each other when they’re living in close quarters, and they’re not actually compatible at all.
And it’s incredibly sad and completely devastating. And—”
I trail off, glancing at our surroundings, as Reed puts the car into park at a random shopping center. When the hell did he get off the freeway?
I blink at him. “Where are we? Why are you still smiling?”
“You hungry?”
He asked me if we could make this something real, and I gave him a lecture about the failure rate of long-distance relationships.
What is wrong with me?
Let’s not open that door.
We’ve stopped at an In-N-Out.
I straighten as Reed slides into the opposite side of the booth and places a tray of food on the table. He pushes a burger, fries, a vanilla milkshake, and a cup of ketchup over. I didn’t get to have lunch before we left, so I am actually hungry. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” His mouth rolls into the knot as he organizes his food. “All right, so I have another proposal.”
I snort, unwrapping my burger. “Oh-kay, I’m listening.”
“What if we use this two-hour-plus car ride for, how did you word it, close-distance compatibility testing?”
A laugh barks out of me. “And how do you suggest we do that?”
He catches me in his crystalline gaze, and my heart skitters. “You’re the relationship expert, Renee. I was thinking some sort of intense probing via Q and A?”
I cock my head, glancing out the window next to us as I realize I’ve already been working on an article for a situation exactly like this one.
“Ah, she already has an idea,” Reed says playfully.
I flick my eyes back to his. “I’ve actually been working on thirty questions to compatibility for Love Today, based on this famous guide that a husband-and-wife psychologist team, Arthur and Elaine Aron, put together in 1997, called ‘36 Questions That Lead to Love.’ Mine is like a spin-off for new relationships .
. . less intimidating to suggest doing on a date or something. ”
He arches a brow. “Interesting project, Romona. I wonder what inspired it.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
He smirks. “What if we take turns asking each other these questions? And if by the time we hit San Diego, neither of us has run into a deal-breaker, we make this something real.”
“Hmm . . .” I peer down at the table, mentally racing through what I remember from that list of questions. They’re a lot. I pick up a fry and nervously roll it between my fingers.
“Scared, Romona?”
“Are you?” I throw back.
“Of rejection? Of course.”
I roll my eyes.
“But I can take it,” he finishes confidently.
“What if you reject me?”
He laughs. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen, Renee.”
That sends a masochistic grin curling up the corner of my lips. “We’ll see.”
He tilts his head. “Indeed we will.”
“No deflecting questions.”
Reed nods. “Of course not.”
“Answers have to be a thousand percent honest.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I push my burger to the side and open my notes app. “Fine. Ready?”
Reed puts down his drink. “Hit me.”