Page 57 of Road Trip

Imust have eaten thousands of dinners at the Mercers’ place, but this was the most awkward. And yeah, that was including the Christmas dinner I crashed when I was eleven and Jacob’s grandma, who had dementia, kept asking who I was and if I was lost and if someone ought to call the police. I still didn’t know if she’d wanted them to return me to my family or arrest me.

Mr. and Mrs. Mercer sat at opposite ends of the table. Luke sat on one side and Jacob and I sat on the other. The spot next to Luke’s was empty; cousin Charlie must have gone home already.

Dinner was chicken alfredo with a side of asparagus. I’d barely taken a bite when Mrs. Mercer said, “So. We have some questions.”

Shit.

“Why do you two have a tent?” she asked, which wasn’t the question I was dreading.

“Oh,” Jacob said and glanced at me, the idiot. Hesitating just made him look guilty. Some things you just had to brazen out, but Jacob had never gotten the hang of that or of telling a half-truth like he’d be willing to swear to it in a court of law. Like now, when he spoke and ended on a questioning note, as though he was afraid to commit to the whole thing. “We bought that because some nights we stayed in campgrounds?”

It was the questioning note that did us in.

“Some nights?” Mrs. Mercer asked, arching a brow.

Jacob was hopeless under interrogation. “We only camped at the side of the road a few times!”

“Youwhat?” Mr. and Mrs. Mercer said at the same time.

I shoved more chicken and pasta in my mouth while I could, just in case I had to make a quick exit. I didn’t want to do it on an empty stomach. This might be my last decent meal before Mr. and Mrs. Mercer accused me of endangering their son and kicked me out for good.

Jacob bit his lip. “We were fine! And there was only one night we ended up sleeping in the car anyway, so we were totally safe. Mostly.”

Mr. Mercer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do I want to know why you ended up sleeping in the car? Or is this something I’m better off not knowing?”

I willed Jacob to go for option two, but my psychic powers were obviously on the fritz because he said, “Um, it was kind of funny really. We were hiding from?—”

“Were you chased by abear?” Luke asked, eyes wide.

Jacob glared at him. “No. A skunk.”

Hearing him say it like that, itwasfunny.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Mrs. Mercer’s mouth twitched, and it looked like she was trying to hide a smile when she said, “Well, I’m glad you’re safe, but you’re a pair of idiots.”

“I didn’t think we had to include ‘Don’t camp out on the side of the road’ in the list of rules, but obviously we were wrong,” his father said, but he was doing an even worse job of hiding his amusement than Jacob’s mom.

I stopped shoveling food in my mouth quite so fast since it looked like I wasn’t getting thrown out. Plus, this was a killer alfredo and I wanted to enjoy it.

“Um,” Jacob said, and he put his hand on top of mine, the one that was resting on the table. “There’s some other stuff we need to tell you.”

“Oh?” His mother looked pointedly at our joined hands.

Holy shit, was Jacob about to come out to his parents?

“Yeah.” Jacob cleared his throat and gave my hand a squeeze. “Thing is, we never checked our tire pressure once. We kind of forgot.”

He paused, waiting for a reaction.

His dad waved a hand. “Not the worst thing you could have forgotten.”

Jacob nodded, and his grip on my hand eased a little. I stared at him, confused as hell. Why would he even tell them that? Was this his way of working up to telling them we were a couple?

“And I accidentally turned off location tracking and never figured out how to turn it back on. And I forgot to check in a bunch of times.”

“We noticed,” his mom said drily.

“Also, I spent a bunch of college money on hotels on our way home?” he said in a rush, and there was that questioning note again.

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