Page 56 of Anywhere with You
“Sure,” I said. “But…why, exactly?”
Cara met my eyes across the table. “I don’t know.”
I thought about it until Lane brought our food, and then I focused on my French toast and hash browns because I have my priorities straight in life.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I said, once we had finished our first platefuls. “The numbers, I mean,” I said.
“Right.” Cara stabbed a sausage. “We just keep recording for the sake of the trip. Then we’re done.”
For the sake of the trip. For ourshow the world we’re fineplan. For our exes.
It was funny how quickly they’d ceased to be the point.
Honestly, the only reason I could come up with for continuing to record at all was that I wanted these memories of our trip. I wanted to thumb through them when we got home, and again in a year, and in five years. I wanted to remember the amazing time when I got to see a littlemore of the world and got to know Cara better. I didn’t want to forget a single moment.
Except for the terrifying jackrabbits. I would happily forget them.
Too soon, we’d be home. It was probably too late to see Muir Woods. We’d be back in Houston in a few days, back to real life.
I pictured the envelope on my desk and the alternate reality of this week, the one where Cara never walked through the door of Strings & Things. The one where I spent a week trying not to fall apart, desperate to keep my business and my home, sleeplessly holding all the what-ifs in my hands.
What if I’d loved Bridget better?
What if she’d loved me, too?
In this reality, those weren’t the important questions. These were: What if I’d never gotten to spend this time with Cara? What if I’d never heard her laugh or sing or snore? I couldn’t stand the thought. I wasn’t perhaps on the vacation of my dreams, stuck here in a town from a Stephen King novel, but I was undeniably better off than I would’ve been at home, actually dealing with my problems like a boring, responsible adult.
After we were both full of greasy food, we took our doggie bags and walked slowly back to the motel. The night was cool, nice in comparison to the heavily air-conditioned diner. I wondered if Cara still felt the chill of being out in the rain and if there were extra blankets hidden somewhere in the motel room.
It was fully dark now and more evident than ever that we were in the smallest of small towns. There were four streetlights, the motel light, and the restaurant light, which switched off a few minutes after we left. The auto repair shop was dark, and the few houses we could see had nothing more than a lamp or two shining through the windows.
I looked up and stopped completely, gasping out loud. I reached out for Cara’s arm to stop her, too. She looked at me, then followed my gaze.
I could see maybe ten stars from my house in the Houston suburbs.
Here, there were billions. They shone in faint colors, not uniform in size or shade as I’d always assumed before. Here, I could see that they were rich in variety, merging in a bright path across the middle of the sky.
“There’s no moon tonight,” Cara whispered. She hadn’t pulledaway from my hand, and I was glad because nothing else rooted me under that vast wonder. She was so close that I could smell her shampoo, not whatever miniature bottles the motel offered, but her own, a fruity smell with a hint of coconut. I took a deep breath, moving an inch closer.
I would swear that I could feel the heat of her body from where I stood. We were only ever a couple of feet apart in her tiny car, but it was nothing like this, standing so close to her, aware of exactly where her body would touch mine if she would take one more step.
“I don’t want to be weird,” I whispered back, still looking straight up at those incredible stars, “but I’d like to kiss you right now.”
Instantly, my heart started pounding like I’d just finished running from a javelina. Had I actually just said that? The impulse to do something or say something, to touch her and kiss her and pull her against me, had been strong and growing. I just hadn’t realized that the impulse was about to jump out of my mouth and possibly make the rest of this trip extraordinarily awkward.
Cara looked at me, but she didn’t seem startled. She didn’t move away. Her eyes moved from my eyes to my mouth and back again, and I felt her gaze like a touch. I shivered.
“Our room has one bed,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, my thumping heart suddenly very much liking where this conversation was going.
“Like a bad rom-com setup.”
“Yes?” I asked, like maybe that was a good thing?
“Then, no. At least,” Cara said, sounding thoughtful, “at least, not today. Ask me again tomorrow?”
Then she kept walking toward the motel as though that was a normal request.
