by Lisa Suzanne
My brows draw down. “You learned what?”
“I learned how to do laundry.”
I freeze. “You learned how to do laundry?” I repeat.
He nods. “My mom taught me.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. “Congratulations.” It’s lame, but it’s the word that comes out of my mouth.
I cut the tension by leaving the room and getting ready for bed, but the whole time I’m away from him I can’t stop thinking about how he learned.
He took one of the most ridiculous things I’ve been harping on in my own mind—one of the things that made him a boy and not a man to me—and he changed it.
And he took care of that dog.
I’m seeing new sides to him I didn’t know existed—sides I never gave him the chance to show me. Things might’ve turned out very differently for us if I would’ve been paying attention to those things instead of getting stuck in my own head about our future and being scared of getting hurt like I did when Ian broke my heart.
He’s on the couch scrolling his phone when I climb into bed, and that must be where he stays all night.
When I wake up in the morning, he’s asleep across the room from me—a real shame since this is one of the most luxuriously comfortable hotel beds I’ve ever slept in.
I don’t want to wake him, but I also don’t want to mess up his schedule, so I take a quick shower. When I emerge, he’s still sleeping. The couch must be as comfortable as the bed.
I leave a note on the bathroom counter so he can’t miss it. Going downstairs to grab some breakfast. Text me if you want something.
I find a restaurant down near the lobby. My eyes widen when they land on the prices, but I don’t think I have much choice in where I can go to breakfast since I’m at the will of my driver. I order an omelet, and I’m drinking coffee and mindlessly checking my email on my phone when someone slides into the chair across the table from me.
I glance up and am surprised to see Will.
“Good morning,” I say, trying to inject some brightness and enthusiasm into my voice, but it’s just...not there.
It’s gone.
He took it with those words last night, I guess.
We’re two days away from our final destination, halfway across the country from home, and as I wait for the most expensive omelet I’ve ever ordered, I finally start to feel like I’ve done my time.
I’ve paid for my sins.
He’s playing on my emotions because he knows what this trip means to me. He knows that there are potential answers at the end of it that could change the course of my life.
It doesn’t seem to matter to him, though. He’s making this as miserable for me as he can in his own quest for revenge, and meanwhile I’m slowly being driven closer and closer to the edge of insanity while the pressure of what awaits me in a couple days looms in front of me, growing bigger and stronger with each passing second.
He flattens his lips into one of those fake smiles in response to my greeting, and I can’t help it when it all comes to a head and I finally give into the confrontation that I suppose has been building inside me for a few days now.
“Why are you sitting with me if that’s how you’re going to act?”
He looks surprised by my question—or maybe his surprise is at the volume of my voice.
He glances around the mostly empty restaurant. “I was going to say because it was an open seat, but there’s only like four people in here.” He chuckles at his own joke, but he’s the only one laughing.
My forehead creases with anger. “I’m tired of the way you’re treating me. I’m not getting anything out of this anymore, but you still are.”
“What am I getting?” he asks.
The waitress comes by to drop a menu off for him and take his drink order, effectively interrupting our fight. When she leaves, I lean across the table. “You’re getting your footage for Rock on the Road. You’re getting the chance for more airtime.”
“I don’t want any of that shit,” he mutters.
“Excuse me?” I ask. “Then why are you making it so entertaining for everybody but me? I can’t be the butt of your jokes anymore, Will. I can’t sit in silence for hundreds of miles somewhere between not your friend and the girl you can screw when you feel like it. I can’t be forced to face my fears when you’ve taken me totally off guard and not just when it comes to dogs but when it comes to everything. And I sure as hell can’t listen to another goddamn country song.”
By the end of my tirade, I’m yelling, and the people at a table on the other side of the restaurant are glancing in our direction like they’re pretending not to listen—or maybe pretending like they don’t know who the guy I’m with is when I’m sure they recognize him. Or maybe they don’t. He does look awfully different than last season on the show. Maybe I’m just imagining things.
But none of that matters. All that matters is that I finally said what I needed to say.
His gums flap a bit like he isn’t quite sure how to respond to my outburst, and I feel a slight sense of vindication. I fold my arms across my chest.
“I...uh...I’m sorry,” he says quietly, his eyes downcast as he thinks through what I just said. He finally looks up. “You’re right. You deserve better than how I’ve treated you, but god dammit, Amber, so do I.”
He’s right, too.
And that brings us to a crossroads.
We’re both sorry for how we’ve treated the other one, and we’re still stuck together for this trip despite the fact that we both technically have outs if we need to use them. Expensive outs, yet outs just the same.
But neither of us has.
And that realization tells me even more than his words ever have.
CHAPTER 24: WILL
After breakfast, I take a shower.
Her bottle of shampoo is still in there, and I can’t help myself. I flick open the lid and breathe it in.
I’ve smelled it across the car for days now, and every time I catch a whiff, a knife twists in my gut. This time is no different, but I’m also naked and in the shower and remembering what it’s like to fuck her.
I squirt a little of the shampoo on my hand and rub it between my fingers. It’s sudsy, and it smells like the sweetest, most succulent raspberries, and fuck I want her back.
My dick wants her.
Speaking of my dick, he shows up to join my shower party, rising up to a full salute.
My hand is all slick from the raspberry shampoo and the smell that reminds me of her fills the small, hot, wet shower.
I fist my dick in my hand and fuckkkk it feels so good. I’ve jerked off plenty of times and in plenty of places while thinking about plenty of women, but this time it’s all about Amber.
Her gorgeous blonde hair that smells like this very shampoo.
Her big, brown eyes that look at me with lust and hatred and love and everything in between.
Her brain that’s too smart for its own good sometimes. The way she can make me laugh harder than I’ve ever laughed and hurt me more than I’ve ever been hurt.
I put the hurt out of mind and focus on the good times.
I think about the other night, when she let me take her over that bed in Amarillo. I slammed into her, and as I picture it, I move my hand down my shaft. As I remember pulling out of her, I slide my hand up. I think of her gorgeous tits and what a handful feels like, her nipple rubbing against my palm as I fucked her good.
I pump my slick hand up and down, and it doesn’t take long before my balls draw up and my body feels ready to burst. A dart of fire burns through me, and I quicken my pace before pulse after pulse causes jets of come to shoot out my dick.
Luckily I’m in the shower. Easy clean-up.
But for as many times as I’ve done this, for some reason this time I’m left with a strange feeling of guilt.
Maybe we should’ve stayed in St. Louis a little longer. It felt like somewhat of a breakthrough.
I lashed out at her last night
because I was about to throw her on the bed and fuck her good and hard. But then I remembered how I felt yesterday morning, all that regret that washed over me when I saw her sleeping in the bed we banged over the night before, and I knew I couldn’t do that to her again.
It was why I slept on the couch.
I was terrified that if I got into bed with her, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands to myself.
Yeah, I’m still in love with her. Obviously. What sane man wouldn’t be?
But fuck if I can have a relationship with her. I now know what power she has over me, and that knowledge is enough for me to keep my walls way the hell up high.
I texted my mom last night after Amber fell asleep, and I read it over this morning again when I heard the door click shut as Amber headed down to breakfast, something I realized when I found her note. I’ve read over our conversation a couple times since then, actually, and her words keep playing in my mind in the car ride. I’m ignoring the comedy podcast as I think about what she said.
Me: I still love her. I know if I tell her, she’ll only break my heart again.
Mom: Why do you know that?
Me: Because she already did it once.
Mom: What if it’s different this time?
Me: Why are you pushing for me to get back with her when you know what she did to me?
Mom: You’ll just make fun of me if I say.
Me: Promise I won’t.
Mom: You asked me to teach you how to do laundry.
Me: So?
Mom: I’ve never seen you like you were with her. It just seemed like you were finally growing up.
Me: Finally? I thought you said I’d always be your little boy.
Mom: And you will. Forever. But I want you to find love. Everyone deserves it, especially you.
Me: Why me?
Mom: Because you’re my little boy.
Me: What if love’s overrated? What if it isn’t in the cards for me?
Mom: It’s in the cards for you. You had it with her. Your timing was just off.
Me: You really think so?
Mom: I know so. You may not see it yet, but you will.
And she isn’t wrong.
I didn’t see it last night, but when I woke up and she wasn’t in the room, I panicked for a second before I found her note.
That tells me something.
And then when she yelled at me over the breakfast table, that was a real turning point for me.
She went from this girl I could walk all over back to a strong, independent woman. And maybe that’s what I needed to see. I needed the bold, brash, kind of bitchy woman I fell in love with to emerge from the shadows of this sniveling, apologetic girl.
I miss my fun, lighthearted Amber, the one I started to fall for in Vegas. I haven’t seen my smart, sophisticated, funny girlfriend since we broke up, but she came out at breakfast this morning.
And my mom’s words came right back to me.
You may not see it yet, but you will.
But the question still remains: Can I trust her, or will she just break my heart all over again?
And even if I can, does she want to get back together? Was that night we fucked something more to her like it was to me—even though we labeled it as meaningless?
Every time I start to think we could try, a little voice in my head reminds me how much it hurt when she broke up with me.
Does she even want this? I keep finding myself back at square one.
But fuck it all, sharing this truck with her as we drive across country and smelling her raspberry shampoo that I jerked off with this morning and wanting her with every fiber of my being...it’s fucking hard.
CHAPTER 25: AMBER
“What did you think of that one?” I ask, glancing over at Will. I put on a different comedy podcast and honestly I think I preferred the first one.
“It was great,” he murmurs.
“Great?” I ask. We’re almost halfway through our trek of just over eight hours today. We just passed through Indianapolis, and I’m already tired of podcasts.
I’m bored.
I wonder if it would be different if the man driving the car didn’t hate me.
I also wonder how different it’d be if I wasn’t getting more and more nervous about the destination. This trip was supposed to be about the journey, but now that we’re just driving straight through each state, it’s not about that.
At this pace, we could be at our destination in Maine by late tomorrow night.
I thought I had more time to think about whether I really want to do this. To think about how what I discover there could change things not just for me, but for my entire family.
I’ve been avoiding the topic in my own mind, instead listening to mindless entertainment.
“Yeah,” he says. “It was fine.”
“You weren’t even listening.” My tone is accusatory, and he lifts a shoulder.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“What’s on your mind?” I ask lightly.
“Everything,” he says heavily without really giving me any sort of response at all.
I’m desperate to ask more, but I just don’t know if he’s in a position to give me more. Besides, we’re still in front of the cameras. Our mic packs are on. We’ve got a responsibility to put on a show for Kylie and the rest of MFB, and as much as I want to press this conversation, I guess we can’t.
I grab my phone and run a quick search. “There’s a huge pink elephant with a martini glass just fifteen minutes off the highway,” I say, trying to get him out of this funk. “Oh man, we just missed a giant peach and the shoe tree.”
“The shoe tree?” he asks.
I scan the info about the tree. “Some tree where you can leave shoes, I guess.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’d just like to get to Cleveland.”
“Does it matter whether I want to see the giant pink elephant with the martini glass?”
He glances at me, a little smile playing at his lips. “You want to?”
“Uh, yes, I want to. I love elephants, and pink is my favorite color, and I’d never say no to a good dirty martini, extra dirty, obviously,” I say, and his smile widens a bit. “It’s in two exits.”
And in two exits, he signals his way off the highway.
I don’t know why, but that means everything to me. It feels like another shift for us. He seemed to come out of his shell a little when I yelled at him this morning, but then he retreated again. And now I’m telling him something I want to do, and he’s giving it to me.
What changed?
There’s a pattern here. Something happens when I stop being the quiet girl who gives into whatever he’s doing just to appease him. Something happens when I speak my mind. When I ask for what I want.
When I’m aggressive and brave.
He seems to respect that side of me, and I realize it’s because that is the girl he was starting to fall for.
If I’m just myself again, maybe we can turn this whole ship around and find our way back to the friendship we had.
And maybe, just maybe...the dog affected me more than I thought.
Will did something so selfless for somebody else.
It makes me wonder how he’d be with kids of his own. With our kids.
The pink elephant sits outside a liquor store that looks like an old red barn. “Take my picture,” I say, tossing my phone to Will, and he snaps a few with me in different poses as we both laugh. “Take one with me, too,” I say after he hands my phone back to me, and he does as he’s told while I flip the screen so our faces fill it. I try to position the camera so we can see the elephant behind us, but it’s so big that I just get some of the pink neck in the shot.
I look at him on the screen as I take the picture. I can’t help it. This is the closest he’s gotten to me since the night we had sex in Amarillo. As I snap the photo and then snap it again for good measure, I have no idea how many times I’ll look at this photograph in the days to come. How many
times I’ll study it and stare at it and hold it close to my heart.
Because, as it turns out, he’s not looking at the camera, either. He’s looking at me.
We’re less than an hour away from Cleveland when he stops for gas. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who plans ahead, but he likes starting the day with a mostly full tank.
I get out to stretch, but since we’re so close to the finish line, I don’t go inside for a drink. We’ll probably just go to bed after we check in, anyway.
He clears his throat and takes off his mic pack, and then he motions for me to do the same. My brows dip down because anytime the mic packs are off, well, that means we can have our real conversations. The hard ones.
And this one is one of the hardest yet.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he says. He stands on the opposite side of the truck from where I stand, his hands gripping the side of truck’s bed.
“Can’t do what?” I ask.
“I can’t take one for the team anymore. I can’t pretend in front of the cameras that everything’s okay for us when it’s just...not.” He tugs at his hair, and it’s clear he still wishes it was long. “You fucking broke my heart when you ended things, and now I’m stuck with you on this stupid trip that was supposed to fulfill some goddamn lifelong dream but it’s not fulfilling anything. It’s making me fall back into old habits and behave a way I don’t want to. Not anymore.”
When he finally glances up at me, all I can see is the pain in his eyes. He’s at a crossroads—do what’s right for MFB or do what’s right for himself.
His whole life, he’s blindly done whatever he was told to do.
And now he’s taking control.
God, this is a Rascal I can get behind. He’s in control of his life and his emotions. He wants to do what’s right, even if he isn’t exactly sure what that is.
He’s growing up.
He’s maturing right before my eyes.
And there’s something so damn sexy about that even if it doesn’t matter since he’s already written me off.
“So what are you saying?” I finally ask. Does this mean he wants me to go home? Does this mean the trip is over?