Page 27

“I’d be disappointed about that, but bus bathrooms are even worse than plane bathrooms. I’ll just have to be content with memories of the last time.” He waggles his eyebrows at me, and I resist the urge to elbow him hard in the side.

The bus lurches forward when no one else gets on, and we’re finally, finally moving. All the downsides of the bus are worth it if it means we’re getting out of here.

I glance over at Ares and Callan, and both of them have their headphones on, their faces buried in their phones.

Tate nudges me, and I look at him to see him holding out a book for me to take. It’s the same one from the plane that I was reading over his shoulder, and I feel my cheeks heat at the reminder of how this whole thing started with us in the first place.

I can’t even be that mad about it. If I hadn’t ended up stuck with him and his friends, then I might have been alone in this, and while that would have been more comfortable in some ways, it would have sent me into a spiral in others.

We’re almost at the end of this, and I decide there’s no point in pretending I don’t like Tate or don’t want to read the book.

“Fine,” I say, taking it from him. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure. I have a couple more in my bag, if you decide you need a change of pace.”

“And they’re all like this?” I hold up the book.

Tate’s eyes sparkle as he nods. “I told you, I’m always looking to learn how to please, and I take my study material very seriously.” His tone is flirtatious, and I can feel my cheeks heating.

Instead of looking at him, I crack open the book and start from the beginning.

Any movement is good movement at this point, but I notice that we’re not making great time at all. The roads have been plowed, but there’s still slick ice that was under all the snow, and it makes for slow going. Every so often we see cars stuck in snow drifts, and even though I’d rather be going faster, I’m grateful for the caution.

After a few hours of travel, my phone tells me we’re just about to make it out of Ohio, but I don’t even get to be excited about that because a few seconds later, there’s a loud metallic squealing sound that can’t mean anything good.

12

BRYNN

We manage to pull over to the side of the road, but then there’s another sound of metal on metal and the bus conks out. There’s a moment of silence as we sit there, and then everyone around us starts chattering at once, asking what happened and jockeying for the windows to see if they can figure out where we are.

As far as I can tell, we’re still in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Uh, well folks, it looks like we’re stuck for a while,” the bus driver says, getting everyone’s attention. “I’m going to hop out and see what I can see. Everyone stay put.”

The four of us share matching looks of disbelief. It’s like we’re cursed. Every attempt we’ve made to get to Hope Falls smoothly has been fucked over by fate, like it doesn’t want us to get there at all. At this point it would be comical if I wasn’t so frustrated.

The driver comes back a few minutes later, pulling his phone down from his ear as he climbs back onto the bus and stands at the front. The grimace on his face says it all before he even manages to get a word out.

“Bad news is we’re not going anywhere for a while. But I called for help, and someone should be able to get to us.”

Someone in the back speaks up to ask, “And how long will that take?”

“Shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”

A collective groan goes up from everyone on board. “It should be illegal to start a sentence like that if there’s no good news,” someone behind us mutters.

“This is bullshit,” Ares says.

Around us, it’s starting to snow again, and I wrap my coat tighter around me, wondering if things are about to get worse. It’s freezing outside, and if the bus isn’t running, then neither is the heat. Being packed in here like sardines is only going to keep us so warm.

All I can think is that maybe we should have just stayed at the inn. At least it was warm there. At least we had access to food and water and a comfortable bed. The atmosphere was getting strained, but it couldn’t have been worse than this. There’s no telling how long it will actually take someone to get to us, and what happens if they come and there’s nothing they can do? With the weather getting bad again, they might have to bring us a new bus entirely, and that might not make it much farther than this one did.

My stomach churns with anxiety, and I bite my lip, trying to remind myself that this situation is so far out of my control that there’s no use worrying about it.

Funnily enough, that doesn’t help.

“Fuck this,” Ares mutters, and I watch as he stands up and goes walking down the aisle to the front of the bus. He doesn’t stop to talk to the driver, and he ignores him when the driver says that it’s safer to stay put on the bus for now.