She sucks in an unsteady breath.
I throw the car into gear and make myself carefully look all around us before putting my foot to the accelerator and pulling out of the gas station with far more restraint than I think I have in me.
And then I take the turn onto the highway too fast, and the damn brass polar bear falls right into the bags of chips.
Daphne sighs, turns the volume up on the radio, and goes back to staring out the window.
I remind myself every ten seconds to not grip the steering wheel so hard.
I order myself to not be angry.
To not care what Daphne thinks of me.
To not wonder what Daphne would say my flaws and fears and hopes and dreams and purpose are.
To not daydream about smothering her in her sleep.
I don’t want to smother her in her sleep.
And that’s the biggest problem.
I want—I want what she has.
I want freedom and joy and thrills and purpose.
I want tolive.
She didn’t fit into my old life.
I don’t fit into my old life.
So there’s a slice of this life where we’re the same.
Where we fit together.
And that—that thought, more than the unexpectedness of her being here, more than the annoyance when she pushes my buttons, more than the inconvenience of realizing that shedoesknow things I need to know—that thought more than anything iswhat has my teeth on edge and my pulse racing erratically and my dick doing what dicks do.
This road trip? Being here with Daphne?
This is a disaster.
And an hour down the road, everything goes even more to hell.
Again.
18
NOTHING’S THE SAME AFTER THE RAIN
Daphne
I feellike the world’s biggest asshole.
All I have to do is say one little sentence—your initiatives at Miles2Go gave me my favorite job of my life and I’m scared I’ll lose it when your dad takes back over—but I can’t.
And I don’t know why.
Pride?
