Page 61 of Crash & Burn

I shake my head. “No more distracting,” I announce, to her and myself. “In case you haven’t noticed, you distract me. You also know exactly how to get what you want from me. Do you know that?”

I don’t mean to blurt the words out, or for them to come off as a joke, but she laughs anyway, and some of the tension that was growing dissolves. It is the kind of laugh where you tip your head back, and I only see it out of the corner of my eye, but the sight almost blinds me in the best way possible.

“I’m serious, Mia.” I say to the window in front of me. I try to sound stern to let her know I am serious, but I feel my face slightly warm.

“No you’re not,” she laughs. “I get that we need to talk, but you can’t start it off with bullshit.”

“It isn’t bullshit, Mia. You flirt with me and look at me with those pretty brown eyes, and you distract me from what I’m trying to say. Then, all of a sudden, you walk away, and I find myself dizzy from trying to understand what the fuck just happened. It is literally happening right now.”

She continues to laugh, and the words rush out of my mouth. “And then there was the kiss.”

The air around us thickens, and her laughter ceases. I let a few moments pass before I continue. “What I’m trying to say is, we can’t be doing this, Mia. The lines are too blurred. I want to know you and be your friend, but you’re Mateo’ssister.” I regret the last three words the second they leave my mouth because I don’t mean what she thinks I mean. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her mouth open slightly as if what I said physically hurt her.

“Mateo’slittlesister,” she mutters before letting out a huff. She crosses her arms, and I know I said the wrong thing.

I have never been one to word-vomit, but Miaapparentlybrings it out of me. My plan was to explain that, while the kiss was fucking phenomenal (leaving out how much I want to kiss her again), I want to be her friend.

I wanted to tell her how our growing friendship means a lot to me, and I want to avoid anything messing it up. I also wanted to explain that Mateo wouldn’t be happy with her and I being more than friends, which makes sense. Everyone knows that your best friend’s sister is off-limits,especiallyMateo’s.

I didn’t plan to admit how much she distracts me, especially if she somehow didn’t realize it. I wasn’t going to accuse her of flirting with me to get what she wants, even though I will gladly fall at her feet, but it all came out.

And now I can’t take it back.

“I just think we need to make sure we are both on the same page,” I try to explain one more time.

“Done.”

“What?” I turn to look at her. She leans down by her feet to grab her headphones from her bag and I realize I’m losing her.

“We’re on the same page now, raindrop. I thought we were friends, but now I see that we are just two people coexisting in my brother’s life.”

“No, Mia. Please, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Please forget anything and everything I ever said.”

“Mia, wait. Let me explain.” It is taking everything in me not to pull the car over on the side of the highway and beg her on my knees to hear me out.

“No, Eddie. I get it. I’m sorry I dumped all my baggage on you last night, and I’m sorry I flirt with you or distract you or whatever.”

“It isn’t you. It’s me and the whole situation. You being Mateo’s sister complicates things. You have to know that.”

“What makes you think I want to be anything more than friends with you? I mean really, Eddie? You think this is all just a big ploy to get in your pants? You’re the one who kissedme. You’re the one who knocked on my hotel room door last night. I opened up to you last because I thought we were friends. I didn’t read into any of this. You did.”

I squeeze the steering wheel with both hands as hard as I can to figure out what to say to make this right. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want the kiss or last night to complicate things, but I guess it was all in my head.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she says as she places her headphones over her head. “Sorry that whoever hurt you made it impossible for you to see that sometimes actions don’t have ulterior motives.”

I’m left so speechless I couldn’t say something even if I wanted to. She takes the opportunity to open her laptop and pretend I’m not even here.

She spends the next hour of the ride with her headphones on and her laptop open on her lap editing last night’s pictures. I spend the rest of the ride trying to figure out what I can say, so we can go back to pretending.

We have to stop for gas with about an hour left of the ride, and Mia has yet to even look at me. I get off at an exit with a gas station and a place to grab lunch in case Mia is hungry, and she finally looks up from her screen when she feels the car veer off the highway.

I tap her leg with my finger and then point to the gas station sign, so she knows I’m not trying to kidnap her like the sick freaks in those podcasts she listens to. She looks in my direction and then quickly looks away, and I assume we are still not talking.

It has been three hours not talking to Mia, and she feels so far away even though she is right next to me. I need to let her know that it isn’t her. It isn’t even Mateo. It’s me. I’m the reason we can’t be anything more than friends. She made it crystal clear she never wanted anything but friendship with me in the first place, so I’m back to square one of getting my feelings in check.

I park the car next to a gas pump and turn off the car. Mia takes her headphones off, but she still doesn’t say anything.

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