Or sooner, if something went wrong.
She said nothing as I made the purchase, lingering at my side like a reluctant shadow.
Once we were back in the car and on the road heading north, her quiet voice broke through the tense silence. “Where are we going?”
“My brother owns a place. We’ll lay low there.”
“How far is it?”
“Four or five hours, depending on traffic. We’ll need to take back roads.”
She turned to stare out the passenger window, and even though I couldn’t see her expression, I sensed the thought grumbling through her head.
Great.
I didn’t blame her for it, either. Being trapped in this car with an asshole like me might be torture. I found it torturous, too—but only because I wanted her so badly and there was no relief in sight. My mind should have been focused elsewhere, yet all I could think about was how I was going to undo what I’d done.
How to get us back to where we’d been.
We rode in silence for a long time, and I spent all of it running through ideas in my head, but the right words escaped me. How was I going to un-fuck this?
Without warning, she sighed, and it was so loud and frustrated, I tapped the brakes.
“What?” I went on alert and glanced at the other lane but didn’t see anything to explain her reaction. “What’s wrong?”
Out of my peripheral, I saw her fold her arms over her chest and slump in her seat. “Nothing.”
My tone was pointed. “Laurel.”
“It’s not even nine o’clock.”
I blinked. “What does that mean?”
“It means I lasted less than an hour.” She sounded irritated. “I’m supposed to be mad at you, but I’m weak.”
My pulse jumped at her meaning. “Weakis not a word I’d used to describe you.”
“I’ve been sitting here this whole time, trying to convince myself to stay mad, but the truth is,” she took a breath, “I don’t care that much about why you got on the helicopter. Only that you did.”
The tightness in my chest began to ease. “I was trying to do what I thought was the safest thing for you. The fastest way for us to...”
I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, but I didn’t need to.
“I know,” she said.
I gripped the steering wheel to keep my hands from drifting elsewhere, which was a foreign feeling. I wasn’t normally big on touching or holding hands, but with her? Everything was different.
She shifted in her seat, angling her shoulders toward me. “You made me a promise, but I was too angry at the time to really hear it. You said you’d find me when it was over.”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve said things to me before that weren’t true.”
“I know I have, and I’m sorry. But that? It was the fucking truth.”
She considered that for a long moment. “Why?”
“Because whatever this is between us?” The honesty spilled from me. “Shit, I’ve never felt anything like it, and I don’t want to lose that. Even when it...” I was admitting it to myself as much as to her. “It, I don’t know, scares me.”
