Chapter Five
Five
She tried to tell herself it would be fine.
She would simply hire a massive car, and they would barely have to see each other.
Or she would sit in front, with a driver she had hired, while he sat behind dark glass, in the back.
Though really, she should have understood that this was never going to be a thing.
That he was never going to allow something like that, on multiple fronts.
It made no sense at all to be thrown when she got there and saw what he was doing.
Yet, somehow, she was anyway. He let her in through the gate, and there it was: her total shock and horror at seeing the vehicle he expected to cross the country in.
A pickup truck, she thought it was, that looked like it was on the verge of collapsing.
Blue paint almost faded to white, one side slightly sagging, the headlights murky looking and set in surrounds that made her think of something from the movie Grease.
And then there was the unsuitability.
The truck bed only had an old tarpaulin to secure and cover suitcases.
The whole thing was inexplicably tall, in a way that would mean she’d be constantly struggling to get in.
But at the same time, absolutely tiny in the place she’d have to get into.
She peered around him at the cab, and couldn’t believe how minute it looked.
Like a postbox.
She was practically going to be sat in his lap.
One sharp turn and they’d merge, like amoebas.
And she couldn’t even protest. He cut her off before she got ten paces into her spiel about a limo and a driver.
“If you think I’m about to let some stranger control a car that I am in, probably disobeying all the rules of the road, tailgating everybody in sight, tamping the brakes every ten seconds so I lose my lunch—you got another thing coming.
And that’s before I even get into the idea of being carted around like a goddamn king, when I’ve got my own two hands and eyes and feet to do the job,” he said, just as she’d known he would.
But she was desperate enough to keep trying.
“Okay, but you understand concepts like a huge distance, right?”
“My yearly vacation is a cross-country trip from here to California.”
“And that’s great but this isn’t going to have a bunch of fun stops on the way.”
“Neither does any trip I’ve ever taken.”
She fell silent, stuck briefly between of fucking course and incredulity. And in the end incredulity had to win. After all, she was trying to sell the idea that he was being ridiculous. “So you just … drive? For … fun?”
“Don’t say it like it’s weird.”
“Believe me, I do not have to try very hard. I mean, at least tell me that you stop off to see the world’s largest ball of string or something.
Maybe take a picture of a sunset somewhere striking.
Mediate on the nature of man and existence while planning the great American novel,” she said, sure that the last one would at least seem palatable to him.
But instead the last one just seemed to make him blanch even further.
It almost looked like a wince. And he stopped loading bizarre-looking bundles and packages to answer her more firmly.
One hand on the edge of the truck bed.
The other gesturing at her like his fist was a gavel and she’d just been judged guilty.
“I genuinely cannot imagine anything more horrifying. I should sue you for assaulting my ears with that nonsense. Balls of string. Sunsets. Talking to me like I’m someone who can remotely stand Kerouac.
If I could go back in time I would make sure he fell in a well before he ever wrote a word.
Worst thing to ever happen to literature.
And men. And humanity,” he said, as if that made any more sense than the last thing.
He was supposed to love writers like that.
But she remembered now that he had weirdly never seemed to. And she’d never been able to understand why. “Man, you’d think he’d written a happy ending the way you’re going on,” she tried.
But he just shrugged it off, like a coat that fit him poorly.
“There are other things I hate in books, all right. Plenty of other things.”
“Like someone having an emotion, you mean.”
“No, like someone being a little smart-ass.”
“What are you talking about, you love a little smartass. I saw you that time almost chuckling over the lass in Zombieland,” she said, and when she did she saw and heard it in her head. In that dark little makeshift theater, a sound from the back.
She’d thought it was a car backfiring.
“I told you, it was a cough,” he protested. “I had something in my throat.”
“How could you have? You don’t believe in movie theater snacks.”
“It was a mint I had in my pocket. It was very dry and I swallowed too fast.”
“There was no way you had a mint. Or swallowed something dry too fast. You think Life Savers are a gateway to treats, and once lectured me when I tried to take an aspirin with some Diet Coke,” she said, then just couldn’t resist. She put her hand on the truck’s side panel, like he had done.
Did that almost hip cock he sometimes did, made her face as stiff looking as possible.
And lastly: an affected sort of drawling New England accent.
“The bubbles force the pill down too quickly, and you choke and die. Is that what you want, Emmett, to choke and die?”
Terrible mimicry, really.
But it made his mouth almost drop open.
He had to clench his teeth to stop it happening. When he finally managed to fumble together some words they came out hissed and strained. “Stop knowing things about me, goddamn it.”
Even though she couldn’t take all the credit.
“I probably wouldn’t if all the stuff you forced onto me wasn’t so weird.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault for not being normal enough?
Well, I’m sorry I’m not one of those kind dudes you used to love reading about, with their soft eyes and soft voices and ability to give advice that doesn’t sound like they want to murder you for not listening to it.
But pretty soon I will be on the road and you will be in a death trap in the sky, and we’ll all be much happier. ”
He went back to loading the truck at that.
His back to her, lifting and heaving and stretching and securing things.
A boring series of actions, really, and yet she found herself following all of them.
The shift of those slab-like shoulder blades under his too-thin shirt.
The pull of the shirt over his biceps whenever they flexed.
His hands, working so fast and efficiently.
He finished a complicated knot as quick as she could blink.
Fingers thick, but somehow so deft at the same time that they seemed to dance.
It made her think of the pens he used to roll between them, up and down and around each one.
Then somehow that was all she could think about.
The always low light in the workshop, the back-and-forth of it, like a fluttering bird.
And even when she managed to force herself away from it, there were other weird things waiting. Like that stuff he’d said about soft dudes. That hint of bitterness in there—had she imagined that? She must have, and yet her mind kept reversing and going over and over it.
It took her an age to get to the real problem.
The one she had probably been trying to avoid, with all this obsessing over finger hypnosis and weird comments.
Because clearly, he had assumed that they were going separately.
But even though separately would have been wonderful for her, perfect for her, a respite from him and this relentless whatever it was, she couldn’t seize on it.
If she did, if she flew and he went by car, the chances of him making some kind of run for it right in the middle of the tour would be too high.
And even if they weren’t, her suitcases were just behind her, slightly beyond the gate.
It was obvious what the idea was, and all it took was him catching up.
Which he did, almost the moment she had the thought.
He caught her standing there silently, and did a double take, and then his eyes slid sideways and—
“You can’t really think we can drive to these places together,” he said, actual amusement in his tone.
Though in fairness, it was a desperate sort of thing.
And even that slid out of his voice and off his face the moment he saw her expression.
He looked haunted and sounded strained when he filled her silence with more words.
“Tell me we can’t possibly drive there together. ”
But what could she do? She was trapped. He was trapped.
God, you didn’t think this through, she thought.
“Yeah, I think you already know the answer to that. You can see my bags.”
“I was hoping I was hallucinating them. And all of this stuff, honestly.”
“And what exactly brought on this hallucination? Nonalcoholic beer?”
“Joke’s on you, I don’t drink that either. Guess you’re not that up on me.”
“Miller, I am barely up on you at all. We argued so much in college I should know the inner workings of your very soul, given how good I am at observing people and anticipating their every need. But all I have is trivia about candy and characters in movies you sort of like,” she said, intending only to argue with his point.
She heard how it sounded, however.
It had that same hint of bitterness he had possessed when he’d talked about her liking softer men.
Like he was denying her something, like she wished to know more than these meager scraps and guesses.
Even though he had to know that wasn’t the case.
Surely, she thought, as she searched his expression.
But somehow that just ended in eye contact again.
And this time it was even more intense. It felt like her eyes had been jammed into his. Like they were an inch apart, even though it was more like five feet. You could have fit an entire person between their bodies, easily, and yet even so.
She had to actually take a step back.
He had to shake himself. Snap that connection almost visibly, in a way that seemed resentful.
“Yeah, and you’ll be relieved to know it’s going to stay that way, no matter how many long, long, long hours this takes,” he said, so firmly and annoyingly that she went to be irritated with him in return.
To show that she, too, didn’t care to have him know her.
Then she realized.
He had effectively said yes.
And that was a good thing. It was, it was, it was.
She would make sure of it, whatever happened.
She wouldn’t let any of this get to her—not even the sight of him grabbing her bags, without her saying another thing.
Or the way he strapped them in, with an excruciating amount of care.
Or what happened when she went to get into his truck, and struggled with the giant step up as predicted, and wobbled.
And felt his hand take hers.
Almost instinctively, like someone sliding down a cliff and going for a handhold. In fact, that was how she returned the gesture, too. She felt herself sinking back to the ground, and clasped that sturdy thing so tight.
Too tight, really.
It meant a million details immediately pressed themselves upon her:
How strangely soft his palm was, how rough his fingertips. And then finally, finally, there was the warmth. That startling warmth—as if he’d been a stone effigy before now, looming large and forbidding in the back of her mind.
And suddenly she had to reckon with him being something more.
Something sweet, maybe. Something so sweet she snatched her hand away the second she was stable enough to get into the passenger seat herself.
Though of course he didn’t take it as a reaction to sudden softness.
He looked put out, startled, then rolled his eyes.
Okay, princess, that look said. Sorry my cheese-grater hands hurt your delicate sensibilities.
And she couldn’t even say, No, that’s not it.
No, I don’t just only like soft men.
Because him believing that was cover for what she had really felt:
The urge to hold on tighter, and try her best not to let go.