Page 6 of Don’t Be A Stranger

I remain silent, trying to focus on the ticking of River’s blinker instead of the heartbeat drumming against my ears from the level of annoyance coursing through me.

Not at River particularly, but that I’m more annoyed that I can’t tell him why Savannah and I broke up.

I mean, I could but that’d open up a near world-ending disaster.

The car stays quiet and I let my shoulders drop. Maybe River finally got it through his thick skull that I don’t want to talk.

Or at least I’m able to hope for all of two minutes because as River is driving with one hand lazily draped over the steering wheel, he begins to snap his fingers with his other hand that’s resting on his thigh.

Oh, no.

“River,” I warn.

The snapping only gets louder as he starts to hum that all-too familiar tune. I swat the hand that’s snapping but that does nothing but escalate the situation.

River’s god-awful singing of “My Girl” now fills the small space.

I groan. “Stop it.”

He doesn’t.

“Come on, Summer. What can make me feel this way?” he exclaims but answers his own question in song lyrics when I glare at him.

I cover my ears with my hands while chewing on my bottom lip because I don’t need any of my secret amusement to stir him on. River would sing the entirety of this song if I let him.

I know this because he has. Many times before.

His singing purposely grows louder and more obnoxious. I can only handle so much.

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I reach over and cover his mouth with my hand, muffling his singing. “Your mission in life is to annoy me.”

My body slightly jerks forward when River decides to hit the breaks for a red light at the last second.

I should be used to his driving by now but I swear from the moment he was handed his license, River has made it his life mission to win an award for the world’s worst driver. I’ve never been able to tell if it’s because of his achromatopsia, which causes him to experience extreme sensitivity to light—the reason he’s usually wearing sunglasses when he’s outside—or he genuinely just has terrible driving skills.

But who am I to complain when he’s giving me free rides? And I mean if he ends up killing us one day, then at least we’d die together.

River says something but it’s muffled against my hand, so I pull away.

“What?” My attempts at trying not to smile get weaker by the second.

“I just feel like people don’t just randomly break up,” River says and now I’m regretting moving my hand.

“How would you know?” I flick his thigh. “You’ve been in what? One relationship?”

River doesn’t waste time trying to defend himself. “You act like that’s a bad thing. I’m still a young man, Summer. A young man with high standards.”

“Standards?” I snort.

The light turns green again and my head lightly hits the headrest from the abrupt way River presses on the gas pedal.

“I have standards, okay?” River argues. “It’s not like I go after every girl I see. And I’ll have you know that Stacey Ramon—you know the girl who’s with that guy with the eraser-shaped head—”

“Benjamin Parkley?”

“Yeah, him.” River nods and I can’t help but laugh because the guy does in fact have a weirdly shaped head. “She wanted to hook up.”

I gasp. “No way.”