Page 64 of The No Touch Roommate Rule
And he doesn’t want babies, either.
And he makes me smile and laugh and feel like I’m adorable, just the way I am, no toning it down required. I haven’t had this much fun with someone in longer than I can remember, and waking up in his arms was lovely. Safe.
Perfect.
Parker truly might be the person I’ve been waiting for—the one I never thought I was going to find.
Now, I just have to decide what I’m going to do about that.
Freak out and fuck it up?
Or woman up and lock this man down.
Fifteen minutes later,we release Crawford by the small stream at the edge of the campground, where morning mist still clings to the shore. When I open the mug, he plops into the murky water with zero fanfare and wiggles away, without a backward glance.
“Clearly,hedoesn’t have PTSD,” I mutter, standing and drying my hands on my sundress. “Meanwhile, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep without socks again.”
“Nah, he’s probably telling his friends about the giants who imprisoned him right now,” Parker says. “Warning them that we’re fast and fearless and amazing at teamwork.”
“Good.” I nod, narrowing my eyes. “Let them fear us.”
“Amen,” he says, taking my hand as we head back to the campsite.
Back on the road, the truck’s AC fights the summer heat as we zoom south again. I fidget with the radio while Parker navigates, but every station is either angry talk radio or Christian rock, both of which feel like a personal attack.
“Just pick something,” he says after the fifth station change. “Or put on my road trip playlist.”
“I can’t, I’m looking for signs.”
“Signs?”
“The universe will tell us what kind of day we’re going to have through music. Like yesterday. Willie Nelson foretold safe road-tripping and success in eating crawdaddies and drinking beer.”
Parker grins. “He really did. Yesterday was fun.”
“It was,” I agree, pulse spiking as I finally find a classic rock station, just as Journey kicks in. “But today might be even better! ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ is an excellent sign!”
“Hell yeah, it is,” he says, thumb tapping on the wheel. “Turn it up.”
I do, and we sing along, Parker belting out the chorus in a very decent baritone, while I wail in Suffering-Animal-Alto, as usual, but he doesn’t seem to care. He barely winces as I draw “feelin’” out into half a dozen notes that end in a bizarre squeaking sound.
Yep, he might really be The One.
How wild.
And unexpected.
And…right?
A couple of hours in, we stop for gas, then get back on the highway, the road stretching out before us, blacktop shimmering in the heat. We play Twenty Questions, but keep forgetting what number we’re on. Parker points out weird billboards—there’s an alarming number about the need to repent in advance of the impending apocalypse—and I praise the weird names of the tiny towns we zip past on our way south. The truck’s cab feels like our own little world, cool and easy, separate from the heat outside and the complicated things waiting for us back home.
We stop for lunch at a place that looks like it might give us food poisoning but smells like heaven. The building lists slightly to the left, and paint peels off the sign in thick ribbons, but the parking lot’s full of semi-trucks, which is always a good sign.
Inside, the waitress is approximately a thousand years old, moving with the careful dignity of someone who’s been pouring coffee since Moses was in diapers. Her name tag says “Dotty,” and she calls us both “sugar” every other sentence.
“Y’all want separate checks, sugar?” she asks after we’ve ordered, her pen poised over her pad.
“Nah, I got it,” Parker says, his knee bumping mine under the table.
