“I’m not running away.” He swerves the car as he looks at me again, and an oncoming semi honks at us.
He overcorrects, veering across our lane, and dirt and gravel spew beneath the car while his knuckles go white and his breathing gets shallower.
“I’m a good driver,” I mutter.
The car straightens out on the two-lane country highway, but I can still feel how tight he’s gripping the wheel in the way the car rides over the asphalt. “I can’t get good if I don’t practice.”
I shift in my seat—seat belt on today, seat belt very much on—and stare at his profile. “I leveled with you. I wanted to talk to you for five minutes about how it would be terrible for Margot for you to try to weasel—excuse me, for you to try to win her back. I wasn’t trying to crash your road trip.”
“You sure took your damn time letting me know you were in the back seat.”
“Dude, I was asleep.Hard. Been a rough—not the point. Point is, I’m here. You won’t give me my phone back. You won’t tell me where you’re going. You won’t tell me why. Which means this has gone from an honest misunderstanding to an intentional kidnapping.”
“You said you wanted to go wherever I was going.”
“Hindenburg principle.”
“Hindenburg—what the actual—Stockholm syndrome?”
“Airship disaster. Falling for your kidnapper. Same thing. It’s all bad.”
“There is noHindenburgprinciple.”
“Okay, Mr. Smarty-Pants Know-It-All.” Yes, yes, I could’ve been a better student of history. But why stay in the past when I can see where the future’s going if we don’t save the animals? The cascade effect will be real, and humanity won’t survive. “My point is still very valid. I’m at your mercy.”
“You could’ve hiked out while I was sleeping and lived on bugs and leaves and poisonous berries while looking for an interstate and strangers. You threatened to do exactly that if I didn’t let you in the car. Who’s holding who hostage here?”
Dammit.
Me and my big mouth.
And me and my arrest record too.
When it comes to the CEO of a billion-dollar convenience store conglomerate and the disinherited criminal-record-holding fuckup daughter of another bajillionaire, we both know who the cops will believe.
I switch tactics. “Why are you running away?”
“No talking in my car.” He hits blindly at the radio on the dashboard while swerving into the oncoming lane again.
“I love road trips, but I love road trips with safe drivers more.”
The tires squeal as he slams on the brakes.
I’m flung sideways, since I’m the dummy who’s turned in my seat to face him. I flail my arms, looking for something to brace against to keep myself from going into the windshield while the seat belt cuts into my neck.
“I’m done,” he says.
“Can you be done on the side of the road?” I gesture in front of us and behind us. The car’s stopped over the center line with a curve in the road right in front of us. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
He growls, hits the gas, and we stop-go-stop-go-stop-go all the way to the shoulder.
“Thanks,” I say. “Appreciate your thoughtfulness here.”
“Get out.”
I could.
I could get out, even without my phone, and I’d be fine. Call it my superpower. I wouldn’t get more than two miles before someone would pull over, pass my vibe check, and let me use their phone to call Bea, first to tell her I’m okay, second to ask if she’s worked things out with the guy she’s been seeing this summer, and third to promise her I’m coming home.
