Or bone-deep attraction to it.
Rather than dig deep on that, I do the only thing I can do.
I walk into the antique store.
Because I’m buying that polar bear for her.
16
LIFE’S GONNA DETOUR
Daphne
Even with theperpetual crimp in my neck and shoulder from how I’ve slept the past three nights, I can’t stop smiling as we hit the road again, this time with me in the driver’s seat and Angelina Juliana Priestly, the twenty-five-pound brass polar bear, perched behind us in the middle of the back seat, strapped in atop a box to give her a clear view of the road.
We’re almost to the edge of town—so maybe three or four blocks down—when I stop again.
“Ten hours today, Daphne,” Oliver says.
He doesn’t sound exasperated or irritated though.
It’s odd.
Not the part where he’d tell me we have a schedule, but the part where he’s very patient about it.
And while I appreciate the patience, the man has something to learn here. “The fourteenth rule of road trips is that you always stop for little kids doing a lemonade stand.”
“Fourteenth? How many road trip rules are there?”
“As many as you want there to be.”
“Fuck rules,” he mutters.
He’s the last person on earth I ever would’ve expected to say something so simple and yet so very, very right, and it has me smiling even bigger as I climb out of the car, reaching across myself to rub absently at my neck and shoulder.
I have about seven hundred dollars stuffed in my bra, so even if?—
Nope, Oliver’s getting out too.
There are two kids running the lemonade stand. The boy’s wearing the same grumpypants expression Oliver sported the first few days of our trip, and the girl is a lot younger, maybe six or seven, with a big gap where her front two teeth should be.
“Y’all want some lemonade and cookies?” she asks in a soft Southern accent.
“Heck, yeah,” I say. “How much?”
“Five dollars.”
“Each?”
She grins wider. “Yep!”
“No one’s gonna pay that much for lemonade and Oreos, Tilda,” her brother grumbles.
“Shut your big ol’ mouth, Sammy,” she replies. “Mama says you have to be nice.”
“Not nice to sayshut your big ol’ mouth,” the preteen says.
“Two lemonades and four Oreos, please,” Oliver interrupts.
