“Fine,” she murmurs. We head in and she goes straight to her room, I follow her and plonk my ass down on her bed. “Really, Elijah?” She pointedly looks at my shoes.
“Sorry.” I toe them off, then lie back on her bed.
“Make yourself at home,” she snaps at me. Man, she’s moody.
“I will,” I retort. Looking around her room, I notice she has four guitars hanging on the wall. “I’ve never noticed them before.”
“What?” She quickly leaves her room, returns a minute later and throws me a bottle of water. She then sits on the floor next to her desk. “What haven’t you noticed?”
“The four guitars. Which is your favorite?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve lost the love I had for the guitar, it’s soulless without Alice here.”
Standing, I walk over to them and notice she’s not even taking care of them. There’s a fine layer of dust on them. “So you won’t care if I play one?” I turn to look at her, her shoulders tighten and her spine straightens.
“Um.” She does care. She still loves her guitars, her music, but she’s just lost her way. “Nah, I don’t care if you play one.” Her words are lies. Who’s she kidding?
“Great.” I roughly grab one around the neck, I do it on purpose to see her reaction. She squints and takes in a sharp breath.
I sit back on the bed, and with as much carelessness as I can I strum at the strings. I’m doing this on purpose, so she can see how much she does love music, and how she shouldn’t stop. As I strum the guitar, I start humming a song my Mom hums when she gets sad around the anniversary of Gabrielle’s death. Even though I’m trying to be rough with the guitar, I lighten how I play it, because the song sends me into a heavy headspace.
When I finish, I look over to Becky, her eyes are filled with tears, and some are even cascading down her cheeks.
“That was . . .” she says quietly.
“It’s something Mom hums around Gabrielle’s anniversary.”
Becky looks to the side, wipes the tears away and grabs her guitar. “You really do suck at playing.” She holds her guitar close to her chest, leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes. “God, I miss her so fucking much.” She cries freely. “I want to talk to her every day. I have so many things I need to talk to her about, but she’s not here to respond and it’s killing me.” Her words are real, and mean so much to her. I can tell by how she won’t stop crying, and I know her heart is hurting like mine.
I stand from the bed, and go sit on the floor beside her, pulling her into my arms. She moves the guitar, and cries into my chest.
I know how she feels. The love Alice and I had was nothing short of perfection. She made an impact on all our lives. She may have died, but she left a piece of her soul behind in all our hearts. “It’s okay,” I soothe while petting her hair.
It takes a long time for Becky to stop crying, and when she pulls back she’s staring at my chest. “Shit,” she says and wipes at her puffy eyes. “I wet your t-shirt.” She looks up at me, her eyes pleading.
“It’s okay.” I lean down and absentmindedly kiss her forehead. Becky leans into me, and lets out a small sigh. She feels so nice in my arms; I like being her strength. What we have, Becky and I, is right. We’re right, together.
“I’m such a dork.” She sits back and leans against the wall again. “Anyway.” She graces me with a small smile and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
“Yeah, you’re a dork. You know there’s these magical things called tissues.”
“Shut up.” She pushes on my chest, and the tiny glimmer of happiness dims. “So, about Alice’s bucket list . . .” she clears her throat and sits straighter, essentially telling me with her body language to not get so close. I get the hint, stand to go back to her bed. “I was looking online, and I found there’s an Egyptian exhibition happening down in Miami at one of the museums.”
“Miami?” I ask screwing my face up.
“Yeah, it’s not that far. What, like two, maybe three hours?”
I chuckle at her time estimate. “Sure, if you have a time machine. Seriously, when was the last time you went to Miami?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Years, probably before Mom died.”
“It’s more like five and a half hours with no stops.”
“We can road trip.” Becky perks up. Her eyes enthusiastically light up as a wide smile takes over her face.
“What? Road trip? Are you nuts?”
“Yeah, let’s go. Next weekend.”
Yep, she’s mad, alright. “We can’t just go like that.”
She flips her hand at me and shakes her head. “I swear, you’re like an old man. With you driving it’ll probably take us about ten hours to get there. Oh! I’m going to buy you a bowler hat for the drive down there. Oh!” She jumps to her feet, goes to her desk, boots up her laptop and starts searching something. “I’m booking a hotel.”
“Becky, we can’t just go.”
“Shit, what’s Dad’s credit card number?” she mumbles to herself. She lightly hits her forehead a few times with her hand. “Oh yeah, I got it.”
“Becky!”
“Shhh, I’m doing something.”
She’s like a crazy woman on a mission. Her fingers are typing away furiously as she’s focused on the computer. “Becky.” I run my hand through my hair, then lean my elbows on my knees.
“Right, next weekend. We have a reservation from Friday night and we have to check out on Monday morning. And I’ve pre-paid our tickets to the exhibition. We can share the driving, and we’ll leave here about seven in the morning on Friday.” She grabs some papers out of the printer.
“Just like that? What about school?”
“Pfft, school. There are only a few weeks left. No one is going to miss us for two days. Besides, we’re going to touch a pyramid. It’s for Alice.”
She has a point. It is for Alice, and it’s for us to do what she wanted to do before she passed away. “Okay, but you have to be ready by seven.”
She smiles broadly at me. The happiness reaches her eyes again and she looks so much more relaxed than when the night started.
Thank God.
Oh my God. I’m pacing inside my family room waiting for Elijah to come pick me up. I was close to telling him how I wanted to kiss him, but instead I pushed it way down, because we have Alice’s bucket list to fulfill. Well, as much of it as we can.
Dad wasn’t too happy about me using his credit card to pay for the hotel, but he understood, once I told him why. Elijah said his parents weren’t cool with him missing out on school either, but they also understood, once he explained the reason.
I hear a car roll down the street, and I peek out the front door to see it’s Elijah. I grab my bag, close and lock the front door and head out to the car.
“Good morning,” I chirp as he gets out of the car to place my luggage in the trunk.
“Good morning.”
I’m really glad I got myself out of the funk I was in. I’m happy I have him back in my life again. Missing Alice is hard enough, but me pushing him away wasn’t the smartest decision I’d ever made.
“Are you ready?” Elijah asks as we buckle up.
“Yeah, but I wanna stop off and buy some snacks. I’m a growing girl, you know.”
“I swear you eat more than me.”
“Shut up.” I smack him in the arm.
“Hey, no beating up the driver.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing the exhibition,” I say once we’re on the open road. “I just hope there’s a pyramid there.”
“They won’t bring a pyramid with them,” he says. “They’re kinda huge.” He draws the word ‘huge’ out. “I’m fairly certain they couldn’t even fit one on a plane.”
“You’re such a dork. And I’m hungry.”
“Oh my God. Seriously woman, we’ve been on the road for only half an hour. Didn’t you have breakfast?”
“Yeah, but I’m hung
ry. It’s not my fault. I have a fast metabolism, so I need to eat.” I roll my eyes and look out the window. “And soon.”
“Damn,” he mumbles as he keeps driving.
We pull into a gas station about an hour later and the first thing I do is go inside to grab some snacks. When he finishes putting gas in the car, we get back on the road toward our destination. I open a bag of chips and start eating them. “Want one?” I offer, holding the pack out to him.
“No, I don’t.”
“Suit yourself. You know . . .” I shove some more in my mouth and chew. “If you keep driving like this, we may make it down there by say, tomorrow morning.”
“I’m a careful driver. There’s nothing wrong with being cautious.”
“Careful? More like slow, and by slow, I mean the tortoise would beat you in a race.”
Elijah’s laugh is quite sexy. It’s deep and rumbles from inside his chest. “I can’t believe you said that,” he chuckles. “I’m not that slow.”
“Oh look.” I point out the window on the road.
“What?” he asks trying to look at what I’m pointing at but still keeping an eye on the road.
“That ant just passed us.”
He flicks me on the leg, then puts his hand back on the wheel. “I’m gonna make you walk if you keep going.”
“No you won’t.”
“Say that when I toss your skinny ass out of the car.”
Chuckling at Elijah, I adjust my seat so I’m leaning right back. The sun is making me tired, so I close my eyes to catch some sleep.
The heat from the sun wakes me, and when I open my eyes I look around but don’t recognize where we are. “What time is it?” I ask as I sit up in the seat and fix the back so it’s upright.
“Hello, sleepy head,” Elijah responds.
“How long was I asleep for?” I pull the sun visor down to get the sun out of my eyes. The moment it drops down, something dark falls out of it. It runs across my leg. “Fuck!” I yell as I start wiggling trying to get the damn thing off me. “Pull over!” I scream.
“What’s wrong?” Elijah carefully pulls over on the shoulder of the road, and the moment he does I’m already out of the car. “What is it?” he asks getting out of the car.
“There’s a fucking spider on me.” I rip my t-shirt off and shake it, while I’m trying to flick everything off me.
“Put your damn t-shirt back on!” He comes over to me, and shields me with his body. “Everyone can see your bra.”
“Look around, Einstein, there’s no one here. Besides, I don’t care, there’s a damn spider crawling all over me.” My skin pebbles at the thought of where the spider might be. Flicking my hair over, I shake it out. “Can you see it?”
“There’s nothing there.”
“It’s crawling all over me!” I straighten and wiggle, trying to flick the fucking spider off me.
“There’s nothing there,” Elijah says sounding frustrated with me.
“It was huge. Like at least the size of a golf ball. Are you sure it’s not on me?”
He looks me up and down, and shakes his head. “There’s nothing on you.”
“Check my hair.” I go over to him and push my head toward him.
“Nope, nothing there either.”
“You didn’t check. Run your hands through my hair and feel. I swear it’s up there wiggling around.”
“Put your t-shirt on, Becky.” He rolls his eyes at me and walks to the driver’s side.
“Just check my hair.” I start scratching at my head, paranoid that it’s up there, laying eggs and multiplying while Elijah dismisses me. “Check my hair!”
“Get in the car,” he demands.
“I’m not getting in there until you find the spider and kill it.” I slip my t-shirt on, but my skin still feels like something foreign lightly touching it. I shiver from the thought of having that spider on me. “It’s huge; you can’t miss it.”
“I’m not looking for a damned spider, just get in the car.”
“No way.” I cross my arms defiantly in front of my chest. “Not until you find the spider. It’s huge. Nope . . . not getting in until it’s gone.”
Elijah huffs and gets out of the car again. He walks around to the passenger side and kneels on the seat. He looks around, lifting the stuff in the center console, and opening the glove compartment. “There’s nothing here. You probably flicked him when you jumped out of the car.”
“Until you show me a corpse, I’m not getting back in there.” I point to the car.
“You’re being ridiculous, just get in the car.” I shake my head, and stomp my foot for extra convincing. “Get in the car!”
“Show me a body,” I jut my chin out stubbornly. “Or I’m not getting in there.” I drop my hands and point to the car.
“Crest, get in the God damned car,” he turns and says through gritted teeth.
“Nope. I’ll walk.” I start heading in the direction of Miami.
“Suit yourself, hopefully you won’t encounter any snakes.”
Damn him! Shit, snakes are worse than spiders. “Fine, I’ll get in the car.” Storming back to the car, I open the door and cautiously look around, in case I see that fucker . . . the spider.
Elijah takes a deep breath, then huffs again. “Wait,” he says while watching me.
“What?” I go into semi-panic mode because maybe he’s seen the spider.
He gets out of the car, and comes around to my side. “I’ll check once more.”
Smiling, I step back and wait for him to look over the car again. He’s looking everywhere, under everything, inside all compartments and finally after probably close to half an hour he straightens with his hands cupped together. “Did you find it? And if you did why the hell are you holding it?” I step backward, getting a safe distance between us.
“By the way you were carrying on, I thought that it was a damned tarantula. It was a harmless daddy long legs.” He walks over to the side of the road and opens his hands. He kind of chucks the spider, which lands and, I assume, scampers off. “Seriously, Crest, you’re acting like a girl.” He gets back into the car and closes his door.
“Well, duh, maybe because I am.”
“Just get in the car. We’ve lost over half an hour because you’re scared of a common spider.”
“I bet you’d be scared too if it jumped on you,” I mumble so low I know he didn’t hear more than a murmur.
“What was that?” He merges back on the road and we keep going toward Miami.
“Nothing,” I say as I cross my arms and tilt my head down. “But I’m hungry,” I add a few seconds later.
“For the love of God,” Elijah grumbles.
I look at him sideways and smile, because I can see he’s not really angry at me, he’s having fun. I like Elijah like this, carefree and fun.
“Can we pull over to eat soon?”
“Where the hell do you put it all? Have one of the snacks you bought.”
“I don’t want a snack, I want real food.”
“Look around us, there’s nowhere for us to pull over to get you food. So will you eat one of the snacks?”
I lean back and grab some jerky. “Okay, but when you get a chance, and you see somewhere, can we pull over and get proper food?”
“You know, it’s not my cautious driving that’ll delay our arrival, it’s you and your constant need to eat and exterminate spiders from the car that’s going to make us take longer.”
A small smile tugs at the ends of my lips as I open the bag and eat the jerky. “Fine don’t pull over, but you’re going to have to explain to Dad why I’ll come back to him half the weight I was when I left.”
Elijah takes his hand off the steering wheel to smack his forehead. “Fine, I’ll stop so you can get food.”
“Thanks,” I reply happily.
We arrive in Miami by four in the afternoon, having stopped off to eat lunch and put gas in the car again.
“Wow, look how beautiful that is,�
�� Elijah says as we drive down the main street. The beach is on one side, a line of buildings on the other.
“The ocean looks gorgeous. So clear.” There are still crowds of people milling around the sidewalk. “Are we going to go for a swim?” I ask.
“Absolutely. Let’s find the hotel and check in first.”
The hotel is just off the main street. We pull into the parking garage, and Elijah gets out of the car and stretches. Going to the trunk, he grabs our bags.
“I’ll check us in,” I say as I go ahead to the reception desk.
Elijah waits beside the elevators with our bags by his legs. I walk over and hand him a plastic key. “What room am I in?” he asks as he slides the room key in his pocket then lifts our bags.
“Room 213.”
“Right, second floor. And what room are you in?”
“Room 213.”
He presses the button for the second floor, and stills when I say what room I’m . . . we’re in.
“Wait, we’re sharing a room?” he asks, his eyes wide with shock.
“Now you’ve turned into Mr. Prude. Don’t worry, Mr. Sex-on-Legs, I made sure to book a room with two beds. Besides, I wasn’t going to push my luck with Dad’s credit card and book two rooms.”
“It’s got two beds?” he asks almost like he’s double-checking.
“Yeah, it’s got two beds. Shit, for someone who was once into screwing everything that walked, you’ve become a real prude.”
The elevator comes and we step inside. “Mr. Sex-on-Legs? What are you like, ten?” Well he is cute.
“Better than Mr. Prude.” I shrug.
We get up to the room, and the moment we’re inside, we find we’re faced with yet another obstacle. “That doesn’t look like two beds.” Elijah points to the giant bed in the center of the room. It’s huge, the biggest bed I’ve ever seen. He looks around the room, and his shoulders dip. “And there’s no sofa, just those two arm chairs.”
“I’ll go downstairs and get this sorted out,” I say heading out the door.
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