Page 48 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

Puzzle pieces were falling into place before my eyes. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it. Maybe I’d been too busy trying to decide whether he was looking at me with pity or affection, and I’d stopped paying attention. Nick and his tense shoulders. Nick and the way he cut all of his smiles short, except for those brief moments where he forgot himself. He’d told me this wasn’t a pleasure trip for him, and me being me had thought,Well, that’s silly. Fun is all a state of mind. But maybe Nick’s mind didn’t have that setting.

All morning, I’d been taking my broken feelings and stabbing them back at him without any consideration for whether any of this was hard for him.

I studied the side of his face, the thrum of his pulse in his neck. “I think we should talk.”

“Fuck, Brit. Not now, okay? Please?”

The way he said “please” made my breath catch. There was pain in it, a plea not to press it. But how could I just let him sit there in all that hurt? He’d been there for me over and over again since this trip started. Last night I’d brought myself to tears over a trip down memory lane and he’d saved my whole night by going with me to that bar. No matter how it ended up. We were the only friends we had right now, and I was going to be a good one.

I leaned forward scanning the side of the road for a mile marker or something to tell me where we were. Finally, I spotted an exit sign. “Get off here.”

“What? Where?”

“The next exit. I want to eat there.”

He huffed out a sigh, but he did what I asked. He always did.

I figured Brit had some other reason for wanting to get off of the highway, since there wasn’t a restaurant around here for miles. The whole time we drove around looking for food, I braced myself for what I knew was coming. She was quiet, painfully so. I knew she was mad at me for leaving her in that bed last night. I just wished she knew how mad I was at myself.

Eventually, we found a convenience store that sold sandwiches. There weren’t any tables but I assumed this wasn’t a conversation for a public place, anyway.

We drove to a rest stop set in a park and I didn’t complain when she suggested we get out of the car and sit under a tree, picnic style, even though we really didn’t have the time. I’d do whatever she asked if she’d just stop looking at me the way she was, with all that hurt on her face.

The sun was high in the sky now, and the constant humidity in the air made the ground feel wet. Brit laid her sweatshirt down and sat cross-legged on top of it.

She unwrapped my sandwich and handed it to me. Then took a bite of her own. “I’m mad at you,” she said when she’d finished chewing.

I’d seen it coming but I still flinched. “I could tell.”

“I’m mad, but I think I’ve been wrong about some things and I want to apologize.”

My throat worked on a swallow, my muscles relaxing a fraction. I was waiting for a blow, but it didn’t look like one was coming. “Wrong about what?”

She blew out a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe everything up until now. I don’t need you to take care of me, Nick. I don’t want to be some problem you deal with because you’re a nice guy. That defeats the whole purpose of why I’m here.”

Guilt warmed my neck. That was the absolute last thing I thought about her. “I don’t think you’re a problem, Brit. I didn’t mean to—”

She held a hand up and I clamped my mouth shut. “This is my apology. I’ll take yours later when you don’t look so sad and worn down.”

I blinked at her. “Okay.”

“You’re being bossy and over-protective, and I’m so tired of being bossed and protected. But last night, with that guy, you were right, and I appreciate that more than the way I’ve been acting. I also think I see now that it’s something you can’t help.” Her smile softened. “I’m trying really hard to accomplish something right now,” she said. “And I was supposed to be doing it on my own. Sailing off on that cruise, buying the house—I’m proving something to myself. But I think maybe meeting you has helped me be even more brave because I know you won’t let me fall.”

“Because I don’t let people down.” She’d said it at the bar, but I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment. It had never been one before.

She slipped her hand into mine and sweat pricked the back of my neck, both because I had no idea what she was going to say, and because after last night, I had to be careful with the way I wanted her.

“Do you want to tell me about that phone call?” she asked.

I stared at her, wondering how much I wanted to say out loud. It seemed like she was giving me a pass here, but I couldn’t tell. Remembering her face last night, though, I couldn’t let her think anything but the truth. She wasn’t a problem. She was the only good thing about this. And I owed her at least half of an explanation.

“My mother drinks,” I said tentatively. Not everyone was gracious about it. Though I should have known there would be no judgment on Brit’s face. Just those curious eyes. “She has since I was a kid, but it was never a danger to me. It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

I blew out a breath. “Exhausting. My brother was born sick—heart defect. His was complicated. There were times when it looked like he was going to be okay, and times when we didn’t know if he’d make it another year. She couldn’t handle it, you know? The ups and downs. The constant hospitalizations.”

She squeezed my hand.

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