“I didn’t ask for your help,” he snaps. “And that wasn’t a compliment.”
“Didn’t sound like one.” I navigate around another bend that’s suspiciously similar to the last three. The road’s narrowed to a single lane now, framed by dark pines and a scattering of isolated farmhouses that look like they’re watching me.
Kip leans forward, peering through the windscreen. “Where the hell are we? Because this doesn’t look like Switzerland.”
“Really? What’s Switzerland supposed to look like? Cows and chocolate shops every five miles?”
He snatches his phone from the console, thumb jabbing the screen. “No signal. Awesome.”
“Mine’s dead,” I offer unhelpfully.
“Of course it is,” he says under his breath. Then he squints past me at a roadside sign we’re passing. Blazing yellow. Black lettering. “Why is that sign yellow?”
I glance too late as it slips behind us. He twists in his seat, trying to read the next one.
“Weil am Rhein,” he reads slowly. Then, flatter, “That’s Germany.”
“I told you, the GPS put us on the A5 at Basel. That took us into Germany. I figured it was dodging tolls.”
A bend in the road opens to a small crossroads ahead. One arrow points left toward a town I can’t pronounce fast enough as we roll by. The other points straight.
Karlsruhe — 82 km.
Kip goes very still. “Hutch.”
I pretend not to hear the shift in his voice. “Yes?”
He turns in his seat. “Karlsruhe is not west.”
I ease off the accelerator, more because of the curve than the accusation. “Directional concepts are flexible.”
“Hutch.”
“It’s relative.”
He presses his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose. “We’re supposed to be angling toward France.”
“We are angling.”
“No, we’re going east. Entirely opposite of the direction France is in. That is not angling.”
I exhale through my nose. “Only slightly.”
“Eighty-two kilometers to Karlsruhe is not slightly.”
Somewhere in the distance, a church bell starts chiming the hour.
Kip leans back in his seat, looking far too awake now. “This must be part of your ‘seeing more of Europe’ initiative.”
“I prefer to think of it as strategic exploration.”
He closes his eyes briefly. “We’re going the wrong way.”
I don’t argue. Because technically? He’s not wrong. Even though I still maintain it was the detour’s fault, not mine.
He runs a hand through his hair, exasperated, making it even more of an adorable mess than it was before. No, not adorable. Annoying. My hands itch to reach out and tamp it down just to see if I can tame it.
“We need to stop,” he insists. “Find a signal. Food. Something.”
