“No.” Her eyes met his and he could see the torrent of questions.
“Is there…something you want to ask me?”
“Yeah…uh…are you planning on killing me and burying my body somewhere in the wilderness?”
His eyebrows creased a little. It was an odd question, because it seemed like she would take any answer at face value. “Just out of curiosity, what would you do if I said yes?”
“I would drive off and leave you here.”
“Hmm…then no. I have no intention of killing you.”
Her panic returned immediately. “I’m confused. Do you mean that? Or are you just saying it so that I’ll let you jump into my car?”
It wasn’t the question that was odd. It was her and he needed to allay her fears so that she wouldn’t leave him stranded. “Look, I’m a fairly decent guy. I wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially not someone who was kind enough to give me a ride all the way to Georgia. Okay? I was just messing with you.”
“Okay.”
And just like that, she was convinced. She opened the door and got out. He was grateful, but it was very unnerving. He was expecting her to grill him a bit more, but she just took his word. She did, in fact, accept his answer at face value. He could very well have been a rapist or a murderer and yet she trusted what he said so easily. Was it just his charm, or was she really that naïve?
“C’mon,” she said as she got out of the car. “Let’s get your stuff in the boot.”
He didn’t know what she was referring to until she reached the trunk. The wordbootmade her accent more prominent. It was strange. She was Indian and he could definitely hear that, but it was distorted somehow, mixed with something different. Australian maybe?
“Isn’t this weird?” she asked. “I mean, what are the odds of the two of us meeting like this?”
“It’s weird,” he agreed with a nod.
“Here we are, both of us traveling across America, going in the same direction at theexactsame time. It’s weird. Stuff like that only happens in the movies…or those corny romance novels, you know the ones where the author is just trying to force two people together and thinks of this completely ridiculous scenario to make them meet.”
“I don’t read romance novels.”
“But if you did, wouldn’t you be rolling your eyes right now? I know I would. I would just be like…stuff like thatneverhappens, but here we are, in real life. It’s so weird. I don’t believe in destiny, but it’s like…it was meant to be.”
That was a lot of words in a short space of time and Kevin felt the stirrings of doubt in the pit of his stomach. She was really,reallyodd. She opened up the trunk and he stuffed his duffle bags on top of the three bags that were already in there.
“You’re really good looking, by the way.”
The comment was unexpected and strange and took him completely by surprise. His head snapped up to look at her. “What?”
“You…you’re super cute, not in a normal cute kind of way. More like in a Larry the Lumberjack kinda way, like lure your victims into the woods so you can hack up their bodies into tiny pieces kinda way.”
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m struggling to see how that can be appealing.”
She smiled, not in the least bit perturbed. “Well, Larry has to lure his victims into the woods somehow. That’s the appeal you have.”
“Thanks,” he said even though he didn’t mean it, and with that he realized that this was a bad idea. Luck had turned out to be a relative term. There was absolutely no way he would be able to travel cross-country with this girl. She was crazy and now he was seeing the dangers in hitching a ride with strangers.Hewas the one who needed to be worried. She tried to close the trunk, but he caught it midway and pushed it back up.
“You know what? I think I’m just going to take the bus.”
Somehow this brief interaction made him rethink his reservations about taking the bus. Actually, the bus couldn’t possibly be that bad.
“What? Why the sudden change of mind?”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he thought she was a complete psycho. It was obvious she didn’t know and he didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her. “I don’t want toinconvenience you. It’s a really long trip and I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s not an inconvenience,” she said quickly. “Really. Like you said, it’s a very long trip and I could use the company. It’ll be so much fun, two friends road tripping through the US, living the American dream and—”
“We’re not friends,” he stated curtly.
