Page 9 of Road Trip
“I just didn’t want you to think I expected anything. I’m sorry. You’ve already given me a second shot at life tonight. I think you’ve met all sainthood criteria.” He laughed, but it was forced.
It was an incredibly sweet thing to say. Okay, that was a turn-on. All of a sudden he seemed to grow larger, like he was taking up all of the space inside my car. I felt his presence pushing against my own, like a current trying to find its grounding. Whatever was causing that feeling had me aroused and wondering just why I was placed in this man’s path tonight.
“Thank you, Kelly, but I’ve still got my bat. If you pushed the envelope against my will, I think I could take you, sore tushy and all.”
He burst out laughing, and I achieved my goal of lessening the tension that had been building since we’d left the hospital.
“Here’s some water so you can take your pills,” I offered as he polished off his first brownie.
“Thank you.” His fingers lingered on mine as he took the bottle from me.
Chills ran up my arm. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to watch him pop the pills in his mouth and guzzle down half the bottle of water. His lips were so full, and not from his injury. The inappropriate thoughts going through my head were running rampant.
“Hand me one of those?” I asked, and he handed me a brownie. I took a bite and managed to drop crumbs all over my lap. “Shit,” I said, not wanting to take my eyes off the road. I’d been paying close attention to the directions from my GPS as we were now navigating the SoCal freeway maze.
“Let me.” He grabbed a napkin and daintily picked up all the crumbs using the lights from the dashboard. No inappropriate groping or anything. “I think I got it all.” He wadded up the napkin in his hands.
“Kelly? Are you a neat freak? Because, I mean, I usually just flick the crumbs on the floor.
“I guess.” He turned to face me a bit. “I don’t eat in my car. I can’t stand it when crumbs get in the little crevices. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves about being on patrol and having to share cars. The guys on the other shifts are pigs.”
“Ha! Pigs! Get it?” I couldn’t help it.
He shook his head. “Right. But seriously, getting behind the wheel and touching a sticky steering wheel? Gross.”
“So no donuts for you, then?”
He exhaled an annoyed breath.
“Seriously! Those stereotypes come from somewhere, dude.”
“Donuts are not on my approved foods list. No fast food either.”
“Your body is your temple?” I teased. I was finding it my mission in life to fuck with his perfect world. It was fun. Plus, it was keeping his mind off of what had to have been the most frightening experience of his life. Perhaps. Then again, he was a police officer. I had no idea what he’d seen in his line of work. I knew next to nothing about him other than he was so easy to tease. In fact, he was all around easy on the senses…
“There’re good reasons for taking care of yourself. Some of the guys on patrol couldn’t pass the physical exam now because they eat junk their entire shift and never work out. Not me. I’m never going to be like that. It’s too important in my job to be operating at full capacity.”
“I would imagine so. But a little brownie never hurt, right?”
I caught him biting into another one, one of the last in the box, and he looked guilty.
“Totally out of character. I’m just starving, and these are so darn good.”
“Darn.” I snickered and shook my head. “They’re fucking awesome, if I do say so myself.”
We spent the last hour of the trip sharing more brownies, more stories, and more laughs. He was incredibly uptight about cleanliness and food, but we found common ground talking about bad drivers, which we managed to find several of even at dawn. I could tell he wasn’t used to being a passenger by the fidgeting and darting eyes, but he behaved and never once complained about my driving.
“Here we are. Hotel sweet hotel,” I cracked as we pulled up. Kelly had been laughing at something I’d said, but when he got a load of the shithole in front of us, he exhaled harshly.
“Really wishing I had my service revolver right now, dagnabbit.”
“All right, Dudley Do-Right. I’m going to go check us in. You coming?” He opened the car door and got out, looking around to scope out the place.
“I’m certainly not leaving you alone,” he said quietly.
The place hummed with energy and the lot was full. It was highly likely there were other festival-goers staying here. Oh, I couldn’t wait to see the look on Kelly’s face when I told him just where we were going tomorrow. Today. Shit. We’d see if he still wanted to continue his running away fantasy.
Our room was at the end of an L-shaped, single story motel. We parked directly in front and walked up to the room. As I was fitting the key in the lock, Kelly stepped up behind me, or should I say hulked, because his size completely dwarfed my five foot, three inches. He had to be close to six feet himself. I pushed the door open and was grateful to not be hit with a cloud of cigarette smoke. Kelly dropped my bag on the floor, looked around, checked in the closet and bathroom, and checked to see the windows were locked.
