Chapter 17
seventeen
“TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME” — SUPERTRAMP
Miller
She thinks she’s ready.
Hell, she might even be ready.
But there’s a delicacy about her that wasn’t there when I picked her up for the wedding yesterday. And she’s still hungover.
So, is she really ready for what I want?
No. Not just yet.
But that’s nothing a couple of hours of coffee and hydration can’t fix.
We load up the SUV. She’s doing her best impression of a normal person.
Well, a normal hungover person, that is.
She’s armed with oversized sunglasses and multiple forms of hydration.
I’m doing my best impression of a man who didn’t spend half the night in a chair beside her bed and the other half thinking about her in considerable detail.
Which I’m going to need to stop thinking about immediately if I’m going to drive this vehicle in a straight line.
I shove the thought aside.
Focus.
“So,” I ask, testing the waters as I back out. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a woman tormented by bad decisions, heavily poured theme drinks, and false memories.”
“False memories?” I ask.
I can feel her staring at me through the inky lenses of her sunglasses. She’s trying to gauge my reaction.
Just ask, I want to tell her.
But I know she won’t. Not yet. Not with a two-hour car ride ahead and nowhere to go if it goes sideways.
Truth is, I know she slept badly. No one—not even angelic rays of sunshine—sleeps well after drinking that much. God knows I’ve had enough nights of overindulgence to know how it goes. Hell, there’ve been nights when I drank twice that much just trying to forget her.
For all the good that did me.
Those days are past. I’m done running from this.
Before this weekend, I had doubts. Not about wanting her, but about whether she felt the same. But now?
Now that I know she bought that dress so I could take it off —
The doubts are gone.
The hard-on, unfortunately, is back.
I reach into the center console and pull out my aviators. Slide them on. Shift the SUV into gear.
“Maybe some music will help.” I nod toward my phone on the dash. “I made you a playlist last night.”
“Oh.” She sits up a little straighter.
I can’t quite tell if she’s relieved or disappointed that I dropped the subject of false memories.
Almost reluctantly, she reaches forward and takes the phone. I reach over and tilt her visor down to block the sun from her eyes before she thinks to ask.
“Eight. Five—” I start.
“Seven. Five,” she finishes, slanting me a grin. “I remember.”
That smile is a little knowing and a lot smug.
Does she mean it the way I hear it? That she’s remembering more of last night? Does she remember the promise I made?
More than one night.
I hope so.
It takes her a second to navigate to the music app, but when she finds the playlist—which I’ve named Tavey 2.0—she gives a huff of laughter.
She tilts the phone toward me. “Really? You just happen to be a big Icona Pop fan, do you?”
She hits play. Defiantly.
I flash her a grin. “After last night, yes.”
The playlist was the icebreaker I hoped it would be.
After that, things get easy. One song flows into another.
She bops along, finds an artist or two to add in.
At some point, she digs around for gum in a bag, offering me a piece of something violently pink.
With her sunglasses as armor and her bottles of water, she tolerates the hangover better than I would have expected.
But this is one of the things I love about her. It’s not that she ignores consequences—it’s that she doesn’t let them get her down.
We drive.
The Hill Country rolls past in shades of gold and green. The morning is clean and bright and entirely too cheerful for how complicated everything is.
But she’s humming along to the playlist.
And I made her that playlist.
And somehow that feels like enough. For now.
It’s not until we’re almost back to Austin and the traffic along Highway 71 gets heavy that the mood shifts. We’re about ten minutes from her place. She starts to get fidgety.
Traffic has slowed. We’re still moving but going nowhere fast.
I reach over and turn down the music. Not off. Just down.
“What’s going on in your head?”
A beat passes. “What makes you think I’m thinking about anything other than the miracle that is Ed Sheeran’s lyrical mastery?”
I laugh, just like she knew I would. But still I press. “I’m just wondering if it’ll be easier to talk about while we’re still in the car.”
She nods—not a yes, but an I-see-what-you-did-there nod. “So I won’t have to look you in the eye while we discuss it?”
“If that’s what you want.”
A beat passes while she considers. “I don’t suppose quietly never discussing the events of last night again is an option?”
My gut clenches. My hands tighten on the steering wheel. That was not the answer I was expecting. Not after how easy things have been. Not after how fearless and vulnerable and radiant she’s been all morning.
“Try again, Khaleesi.”
That gets another huff of laughter. “So that’s a no?”
We’re stopped at a light. I pull off my aviators and look at her in the bright afternoon sun. “Just so we’re clear—what does or doesn’t happen next is up to you. I won’t push forward. But I don’t think I can go back either.”
Her gaze shifts from mine.
I can tell that even through the sunglasses.
For the first time since she climbed into the SUV, she angles her body slightly away from mine. She gives a tight nod. “Can we maybe… just not do this in a moving car?”
There it is.
The line.
The boundary.
Not here. Not like this.
I study her for a second.
She’s not shutting me out completely.
She’s containing it. Keeping it somewhere controlled.
That’s something I can work with.
“Okay,” I say.
Her shoulders drop a fraction.
Relief.
Good.
We’re not done.
We’re just not doing it here.
I put my aviators back on and turn my attention back to the road. My mind is already ahead of us.
Her place. A quieter space.
Because if she doesn’t want to do this now, I can accept that. And if she doesn’t want this at all, in the light of day, I can accept that too.
But only if I have to.
We hit the first red light just outside her neighborhood.
The SUV idles.
I glance over.
She’s pushed her sunglasses up—forgotten, like she always forgets them when something has her full attention—and she’s looking at me.
Really looking.
And I see it.
All of it.
The same questions I have. The same fear sitting just underneath the surface. The same calculation running behind her eyes—what do we stand to lose, what do we stand to gain, is this worth the risk.
It is, I want to tell her. It’s worth every risk.
But I don’t.
Because for once, she’s the cautious one.
And maybe that’s the right call. Maybe that’s the smartest thing either of us has done all weekend.
We’re ten minutes from her apartment and I have been holding myself together with increasingly fraying rope since approximately the moment she opened her barndominium door in that dress last night, and the last thing I need is to have a conversation of this magnitude in a vehicle.
Partly because I don’t trust myself to say everything that needs saying without being able to look at her properly.
And partly because when she finally says yes—when, not if, I am done entertaining if—I am going to want to be considerably closer to a horizontal surface than I currently am.
Her eyes hold mine.
Neither of us looks away.
Something shifts in the space between us.
Not resolved.
But closer.
The light turns green.
I put my aviators back on.
Drive on.
When, I think again.
Not if.
When.