Page 38 of Road Trip

“Fuck you,” he said, his mouth twitching up in a smile. “We were gonna break up anyway. She just got in early. Anyhow, she didn’t dump me because ofthat.”

No, she’d dumped him because she’d seen the truth before either of us had figured it out. She’d dumped him because he wascareless with her feelings when he never was with mine. Because he hung out with me without having to be asked. Because he let her calls go to voicemail but always took mine. She’d dumped him because she’d known she deserved better—a boyfriend who was as into her as she was into him. If I was a better person, I’d feel guilty about how I’d never stepped back and given them space to be a couple, but I didn’t because I wasn’t. Jacob had always been mine, even when I hadn’t been his.

“Your face is doing that thing again,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes.

“There it is again.”

I elbowed him and we both laughed.

“This place is amazing,” he said, gaze drifting to the canyon again. “I’m really glad we came here.”

“Me too.”

He reached out and took my hand and laced our fingers together. We both looked down at our hands.

“Does that feel weird?” he asked.

I snorted. “A bit.”

Which was stupid, because Jacob and I hadn’t had a single boundary in our lives. Personal space? I didn’t know her. But now it was different because every touch might mean something, might lead somewhere. Now it was different because he hadn’t just grabbed me by the hand to drag me somewhere, or away from somewhere before my mouth could get me in trouble; now he was holding my hand because that was what boyfriends did.

“It feels a bit weird because it’s new,” I said. “I like it, though.”

He squeezed my hand and smiled. “Me too.”

We sat together and watched the sunset for a whilelonger.

It was freezing in the tent, but it was okay because now when Jacob spooned me I didn’t have to lie there tense and unmoving, praying he wouldn’t find out I had a boner. Now I could relax and let myself enjoy the heat of Jacob’s body against mine as we huddled together under our sleeping bags. One night at a hotel had turned me soft, though, because I didn’t remember the tent being this uncomfortable before. Still, this was the last night we’d be sleeping rough.

I wondered if Jacob would use the tent on the way back, and my heart ached a little when I thought of him sitting alone around a campfire for one. I pushed the thought away. He’d probably stay at hotels rather than camping solo.

Either that or he’d make friends at every campsite he stopped at because everyone loved Jacob. I couldn’t even be mad about it. He was like a cute dog or something.

“Are you cold?” he murmured, nuzzling behind my ear.

I was, and that brought me out in goose bumps all over. “Don’t start shit we can’t finish in a sleeping bag, asshole.”

“I wasn’t starting anything!”

“Well, good,” I said. “I’m trying to sleep.”

I liked it, though. I liked that he was being this physical, and I wondered if he’d been like this with Layla too. I wasn’t enough of an idiot to ask that question, though. But I couldn’t remember them being close like that. I’d thought at the time they were keeping it respectable for Jacob’s parents—Layla’s too probably, since they were kind of churchy—but my ego liked the idea that he was different now because he was withme.

“You’re so cranky.” He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my track pants. “And I’m the only person who knows it’s all a lie.”

“No, you’re just the only idiot who can’t take a hint.” I liked the way his silent laughter shook both of us.

I was going to miss him when I was living in California.

We fell asleep like that and didn’t move until morning, when the sounds of the other campers waking up for the day filteredthrough the thin walls of the tent, way earlier than I would have liked.

We packed the car in silence—I was always a zombie in the mornings and Jacob got that—then grabbed sandwiches and coffee from the market and went back to the Rim Trail. I slowly blinked awake in the sunlight sitting beside Jacob as we ate our breakfast.

We watched the light paint the canyon a hundred different shifting colors.

I thought about last night and how much I’d miss Jacob when I was living in California. For just a second, I wondered if I could go back to Cape Charles after all, but then I thought of what that would look like and my next swallow of coffee went down sour.

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