She climbs into the driver’s seat, takes one look at me, and reaches between my legs.
“What thehell—” I start, and then the seat is jerking backward.
“Lever’s under the seat. No automatic buttons on the passenger side.”
I pinch my nose and squeeze my eyes shut.
“There’s another lever near the back of the seat if you want to recline it.”
“Wasn’t planning on sitting in this seat, so I didn’t need to know how it worked,” I grumble.
“There’s a lot I wasn’t planning on today.”
I slide her a look.
She grins at me again.
Likeno big deal, just on an unexpected road trip to start my week, and now I’m having fun.
She scoots the driver’s seat forward, adjusts the mirrors and the steering wheel, straps in, and starts the engine.
Then she revs it. “Did Margot tell you that I’m racing cars for a living now?”
I spring straight up and slap my hand on the dash. “Out?—”
“Kidding. I don’t have my driver’s license on me, so we’d be screwed if I get us pulled over. Take a nap. I’ve got this.”
I glare at her.
Meanwhile, she’s smiling so big—a real smile, a smile that holds pure joy, not a spite smile, not a smile that says she’s enjoying torturing me—that something else takes hold in my gut.
Envy.
Envy that Daphne has found that magical, mysticalthingI’m chasing.
The thing that I’m terrified I won’t find no matter how far I get from my old life and no matter how hard I look for what I know is missing.
I ease back into the seat, feel around, and find the lever to recline it.
But only a little.
“You’re happy,” I say.
She glances at me before putting the car in gear. “My life doesn’t suck.”
It’s more than that.
Much more than that.
Maybe I’m too tired to pick up on everything I always noticed about her before, but while there’s still chaos to her, there’s something else.
It’s like…peace.
The frantic energy that went with her is gone.
She’s not a tornado operating at the whims of whatever pressure system steers her next.
It’s like sheisthe pressure system steering the tornado.
