Page 25 of No Interest in Love

“We’re passing on this ride.”

“Because…?”

“Because he’s an…” She stops, her eyes drifting from mine to the truck. I actually feel her entire icy demeanor melt.“Awww!”

The trucker’s mouth turns up in a half smile, and he pats the head of his brown-and-white beagle, which has poked its nose out the window. “Yeah, Truffles has a way with the ladies. Not sure if I can promise he’ll keep his paws to himself.”

“That’s okay.” Shay pushes up on her tiptoes to get a better look, but she’s so short it doesn’t help her out much.

Since she’s lost the ability to focus, I drop the handle of my bag and clear my throat.

“We need a ride to McCarran Airport. Have to catch a flight.”

“Not sure if I’m headed that way,” he says, scratching Truffles’s ears. “Pulling an all-nighter. Have to drop this load off in Albuquerque by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Damn. Thanks anyway, I gu—”

“We can go to Albuquerque,” Shay says in a baby voice to Truffles, cracking me up.

“You just want to play with the dog,” I tease.

“There’s an airport in Albuquerque. We’ve already missed our flight out of Vegas. We’ll catch one there.”

I’m wonderinghow, since we’re fresh out of cash, but maybe Shay has someone she can call. If not…I could call up Landon. Tell him my account number. He can forward some money in and we’ll be set.

“You sure?” the trucker asks. “That’s a long drive. And I can’t promise not to tweet out who I’ve got in my truck.”

Shay’s loving doggy eyes narrow to snake slits behind her glasses when she looks at the driver. I quickly cut in.

“Gives us a chance to sleep. Maybe use a phone.”

I glance up at the trucker, who nods, pulling his cell from his pocket. My horror-movie training creeps into my brain for a brief second, and I wonder if we’re about to make the stupid decision the audience screams at us not to, then they don’t even feel bad when we wind up drugged in a bathroom with contraptions on our faces.

The guy doesn’t look sketchy. Then again, neither did Christian Bale whenAmerican Psychostarted.

But then Shay hops up on the giant step of the truck and reaches in to pet the beagle, and seeing her baby-talk to that thing makes my paranoia disappear.

“Sounds like a plan,” Shay says to the trucker with a sigh.

“Wait, wait…just one thing.” He takes his phone out and snaps a pic of Shay, who drops her mouth open in shock. He grins and pushes it back into his pocket. “Don’t worry. Just proof for my brother.” He then moves to open the door, and I reach out to help Shay down before she falls several feet. My hands lock on her tiny waist, the contact making my heart jump as if it didn’t know I was about to touch her. My mouth goes a little dry when her arms wrap around my neck as she slips. Fabric pushes against my nose, and I can smell my cologne on the shirt she’s wearing, but it’s different now. Almost better.

I feel off balance, my mind swaying back and forth as I touch her toes to the ground and step back for some space. It took two seconds to help her down, maybe. But my hands burn as if it took way longer than that. I run one across the back of my neck just to see if I’m imagining this shit. But my neck feels hot too.

“Only one rule,” the trucker says, and I blink out of my haze. “No sex in the backseat.”

Shay snorts, and it makes all the funked-out feelings disappear into the night air. “Oh no,” she says. “No, no, no, no. We’re not involved in that way. At all.”

She pulls herself up onto the first step of the cab but can’t seem to climb up to the next. She’s right, we’re definitely not a couple, and those words echo through my brain as I put my hands on her waist again to hoist her the rest of the way in. Doesn’t feel weird anymore.

But when I climb in with my bag, the trucker’s mouth is tilted in a half smile at us both. I shut the door and he puts the truck in gear.

“If you say so.”

Tuesday

1:01A.M.

Character bio: Milo the Trucker (aka: Mr. Comedy Filler)

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