Reese spins in her seat to me, her hand on her chest in a mock swoon. “Aww. You care about me?”
I cringe at her response. “Actually, I do.”
“Oh... you’re serious?” Her devilish grin slips. “Uh, thank you? I didn’t realize I had two brothers?—”
“Brother?!” My whole body recoils at the insinuation, and I accidentally swerve over the line from shock. We flail about, our seat belts the only tether as my truck’s twenty-year-old shocks fight with the rumble strips on the shoulder of the road.
“Are you trying to kill us?” She grabs the handle over the door as she bounces in her seat.
“Sorry. Hold on.” I jerk us back onto the road.
“What the heck? You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she scolds, her hands still clinging to the handle like a lifeline.
“I think I gave one to myself too. Are you okay?”
“Jostled but alive. This Uber is getting a one star.”
“Does that mean you’re paying me?”
“Um . . .”
“That’s what I thought.” I roll the stress kinks from my shoulders. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Never better. You?”
“Yeah. I freaked out for a second.”
She rummages through her backpack. “You don’t say...”
The hint of strawberries fills the air, and I turn to catch her practiced movements as she applies her lip gloss in two precise swipes, then blots her lips together in a distracting manner.
“Eyes on the road, weirdo,” she says and pops the gloss’s top on with a satisfied tap, twisting it closed.
“You’re the weirdo,” I mutter under my breath.
She shoots me an exasperated look. “Are we just completely giving up on this truce?”
“No.” This is the most she’s talked to me in months. We can’t stop now. “Banter and joking don’t count.”
“Huh. Convenient how the rules change just when I was winning,” she says dryly.
“You gotta read the fine print, Reese’s Cup.”
“Also, you gotta stop calling me that. I’m not seven.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t. Also part of the fine print.”
She shakes her head but not before I catch a hint of a smile. Satisfaction rolls through me, and I can’t stop the grin stretching under my beard.
“So, we are good now?” I ask.
“I’m not about to buy us best friend pendants, but I’m willing to try to be better. But you have to give a little too.” She wags her finger at me like I’m the problem.
“Me?” But her raised eyebrows have me nodding instead.
“Good. Anything else you need to get off your chest?”
I chance a glance in her direction. “A bus, huh? Why that instead of flying?”
