She’d thought it was a car backfiring.
“I told you, it was a cough,” he protested. “I had something in my throat.”
“How could you have? You don’t believe in movie theater snacks.”
“It was a mint I had in my pocket. It was very dry and I swallowed too fast.”
“There was no way you had a mint. Or swallowed something dry too fast. You think Life Savers are a gateway to treats, and once lectured me when I tried to take an aspirin with some Diet Coke,” she said, then just couldn’t resist. She put her hand on the truck’s side panel, like he had done. Did that almost hip cock he sometimes did, made her face as stiff looking as possible. And lastly: an affected sort of drawling New England accent. “The bubbles force the pill down too quickly, and you choke and die. Is that what you want, Emmett, to choke and die?”
Terrible mimicry, really.
But it made his mouth almost drop open.
He had to clench his teeth to stop it happening. When he finally managed to fumble together some words they came out hissed and strained. “Stop knowing things about me, goddamn it.”
Even though she couldn’t take all the credit.
“I probably wouldn’t if all the stuff you forced onto me wasn’t so weird.”
“Oh, so it’smyfault for not being normal enough? Well, I’m sorry I’m not one of those kind dudes you used to love reading about, with their soft eyes and soft voices and ability to give advice that doesn’t sound like they want to murder you for not listening to it. But pretty soon I will be on the road and you will be in a death trap in the sky, and we’ll all be much happier.”
He went back to loading the truck at that. His back to her, lifting and heaving and stretching and securing things. A boring series of actions, really, and yet she found herself following all of them. The shift of those slab-like shoulder blades under his too-thin shirt. The pull of the shirt over his biceps whenever they flexed. His hands, working so fast and efficiently.
He finished a complicated knot as quick as she could blink.
Fingers thick, but somehow so deft at the same time that they seemed to dance. It made her think of the pens he used to roll between them, up and down and around each one. Then somehow that wasallshe could think about. The always low light in the workshop, the back-and-forth of it, like a fluttering bird.
And even when she managed to force herself away from it, there were other weird things waiting. Like that stuff he’d said about soft dudes. That hint of bitterness in there—had she imagined that? She must have, and yet her mind kept reversing and going over and over it.
It took her an age to get to the real problem.
The one she had probably been trying to avoid, with all this obsessing over finger hypnosis and weird comments. Because clearly, he had assumed that they were going separately. But even though separately would have been wonderful for her, perfect for her, a respite from him and this relentless whatever it was, she couldn’t seize on it. If she did, if she flew and he went by car, the chances of him making some kind of run for it right in the middle of the tour would be too high.
And even if they weren’t, her suitcases were just behind her, slightly beyond the gate. It was obvious what the idea was, and all it took was him catching up. Which he did, almost the moment she had the thought. He caught her standing there silently, and did a double take, and then his eyes slid sideways and—
“You can’t really think we can drive to these places together,” he said, actual amusement in his tone. Though in fairness, it was a desperate sort of thing. And even that slid out of his voice and off his face the moment he saw her expression. He looked haunted and sounded strained when he filled her silence with more words. “Tell me we can’t possibly drive there together.”
But what could she do? She was trapped. He was trapped.
God, you didn’t think this through, she thought.
“Yeah, I think you already know the answer to that. You can see my bags.”
“I was hoping I was hallucinating them. And all of this stuff, honestly.”
“And what exactly brought on this hallucination? Nonalcoholic beer?”
“Joke’s on you, I don’t drink that either. Guess you’re not that up on me.”
“Miller, I am barely up on you at all. We argued so much in college I should know the inner workings of your very soul, given how good I am at observing people and anticipating their every need. But all I have is trivia about candy and characters in movies you sort of like,” she said, intending only to argue with his point.
She heard how it sounded, however.
It had that same hint of bitterness he had possessed when he’d talked about her liking softer men. Like he was denying her something, like she wished to know more than these meager scraps and guesses. Even though he had to know that wasn’t the case.Surely, she thought, as she searched his expression.
But somehow that just ended in eye contact again.
And this time it was even more intense. It felt like her eyes had been jammed into his. Like they were an inch apart, even though it was more like five feet. You could have fit an entire person between their bodies, easily, and yet even so.
