by Cassie Mae
“What?”
“Damn it, Penny, I’m sorry. But…I don’t do relationships. I don’t do love. And I can’t keep it going with someone who hopes that I’ll love them back.”
“So I was just…a…”
“Notch in the bedpost.” And ten thousand pounds of guilt dropped into the pit of my stomach with the honest words. “I’m sorry.”
She yelled then. Screamed. And I let her. I let her chuck my clothes at me. I let her push me off the bed. I let her cry and break right in front of me, and I didn’t do a damn thing because she was giving me what I deserved. I deserved a hell of a lot more.
She left me standing in the apartment hallway stark naked with my clothes at my feet. I headed down the hall to the apartment I shared with Landon at the time, tossing on jeans and slumping down on the couch. I downed the entire six-pack we had in our fridge (Landon gave me shit for that one), and then Liz dropped by. The first time I’d met her, and she caught me watching some chick flick and babbling about how I didn’t understand why the hell people wanted to fall in love. I passed out in her lap after telling her that she had nice legs. (Not one of my finer moments.)
It was the last time I slept with someone without telling them what I wanted out of it first.
“Um, you still with me?” Shay asks, eyes flicking in my direction. She blinks and reaches up through the neck hole on the large T-shirt to swipe her hair from her face.
“Someone got hurt,” I answer as I kick another loose rock along the winding road we’re on. “But it wasn’t me.”
“Hmm,” she murmurs thoughtfully, then suddenly pushes around me. “I am so getting this one.”
I let her take it, still trying to shake my head free of Penny. Shay spins on her heel, walking backward, waving her hands, and jumping up and down. The trucker looks like he’s about to swerve around her crazy ass, but then the most amazing sound of screeching brakes rings across the road.
“Yes!” she shouts, turning around with the widest smile I’ve ever seen from her. It pulls up to her eyes, shows off the whites of her teeth, and gives my stomach another pounding…but a good one this time.
“Come on,” I say, dragging my carry-on across the road. I snatch her sleeve and lead her along the side of the semi. The driver sticks his head out the blue cab’s passenger side. Relief floods through the tightness in my gut when he tips his hat.
“You gotta be shitting me,” he says, grinning wide. “It’s you.”
“You know me?” I say. Man, that Syfy network has got some reach.
He waves his hand at me. “Not you. Her.”
Shay lifts an eyebrow in my direction before limping a step closer to me. I flex and stand up straight like I’ve suddenly become her bodyguard.
“Elmo Girl.” He makes a face imitating the shot of Shay’s meme. “ ‘Some of us have to make money, asshole!’ That’s you, right?”
I let out a jolting laugh. This guy is better than the last one at least.
Shay huffs out a sigh and turns around to march back to the side of the road. I snatch her arm before she can get anywhere.
“Any chance you got room in there?” I ask, nodding to the giant cab of the semi.
“You guys need a lift?” he asks. Shay tugs out of my grasp and looks me straight in the eye.
“We’re passing on this ride.”
“Because…?”
“Because he’s an…” She stops, her eyes drifting from mine to the truck. I actually feel her entire icy demeanor melt. “Awww!”
The trucker’s mouth turns up in a half smile, and he pats the head of his brown-and-white beagle, which has poked its nose out the window. “Yeah, Truffles has a way with the ladies. Not sure if I can promise he’ll keep his paws to himself.”
“That’s okay.” Shay pushes up on her tiptoes to get a better look, but she’s so short it doesn’t help her out much.
Since she’s lost the ability to focus, I drop the handle of my bag and clear my throat.
“We need a ride to McCarran Airport. Have to catch a flight.”
“Not sure if I’m headed that way,” he says, scratching Truffles’s ears. “Pulling an all-nighter. Have to drop this load off in Albuquerque by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Damn. Thanks anyway, I gu—”
“We can go to Albuquerque,” Shay says in a baby voice to Truffles, cracking me up.
“You just want to play with the dog,” I tease.
“There’s an airport in Albuquerque. We’ve already missed our flight out of Vegas. We’ll catch one there.”
I’m wondering how, since we’re fresh out of cash, but maybe Shay has someone she can call. If not…I could call up Landon. Tell him my account number. He can forward some money in and we’ll be set.
“You sure?” the trucker asks. “That’s a long drive. And I can’t promise not to tweet out who I’ve got in my truck.”
Shay’s loving doggy eyes narrow to snake slits behind her glasses when she looks at the driver. I quickly cut in.
“Gives us a chance to sleep. Maybe use a phone.”
I glance up at the trucker, who nods, pulling his cell from his pocket. My horror-movie training creeps into my brain for a brief second, and I wonder if we’re about to make the stupid decision the audience screams at us not to, then they don’t even feel bad when we wind up drugged in a bathroom with contraptions on our faces.
The guy doesn’t look sketchy. Then again, neither did Christian Bale when American Psycho started.
But then Shay hops up on the giant step of the truck and reaches in to pet the beagle, and seeing her baby-talk to that thing makes my paranoia disappear.
“Sounds like a plan,” Shay says to the trucker with a sigh.
“Wait, wait…just one thing.” He takes his phone out and snaps a pic of Shay, who drops her mouth open in shock. He grins and pushes it back into his pocket. “Don’t worry. Just proof for my brother.” He then moves to open the door, and I reach out to help Shay down before she falls several feet. My hands lock on her tiny waist, the contact making my heart jump as if it didn’t know I was about to touch her. My mouth goes a little dry when her arms wrap around my neck as she slips. Fabric pushes against my nose, and I can smell my cologne on the shirt she’s wearing, but it’s different now. Almost better.
I feel off balance, my mind swaying back and forth as I touch her toes to the ground and step back for some space. It took two seconds to help her down, maybe. But my hands burn as if it took way longer than that. I run one across the back of my neck just to see if I’m imagining this shit. But my neck feels hot too.
“Only one rule,” the trucker says, and I blink out of my haze. “No sex in the backseat.”
Shay snorts, and it makes all the funked-out feelings disappear into the night air. “Oh no,” she says. “No, no, no, no. We’re not involved in that way. At all.”
She pulls herself up onto the first step of the cab but can’t seem to climb up to the next. She’s right, we’re definitely not a couple, and those words echo through my brain as I put my hands on her waist again to hoist her the rest of the way in. Doesn’t feel weird anymore.
But when I climb in with my bag, the trucker’s mouth is tilted in a half smile at us both. I shut the door and he puts the truck in gear.
“If you say so.”
Tuesday
1:01 A.M.
Character bio: Milo the Trucker (aka: Mr. Comedy Filler)
A semi trucker who doesn’t know how to shut up long enough for Mr. Kickass Lead and Miss Unlikely to get some damn sleep. A character who is basically a “comedy filler”—only here to move the story along in a lighthearted fashion and have a page and a half of dialogue at a time.
“…and then the guy tells me he’s running from the mob and he’s gotta get across the border fast. But then his wife pulls up and tells him to get in the car because he’s not getting out of it, and I’m sort of freaking out because I’m thinking this dude is gonna get killed or something and she’s al
l for it, but then she says, ‘I have to deal with your mother, so you can deal with mine!’ and he slumps into his wife’s car. She waves an apology to me, and I got a great story out of it.”
Shay pulls her foot up on the seat, resting her chin on her knee. She took the front while I lounged out in the back with Truffles. Gotta hand it to her, she looks genuinely interested in Milo’s rambles. He went off with loads of road stories when she asked him if he picked up a lot of hitchhikers. What started out as “Not really, since everybody seems to have cell phones” turned into about an hour of hitchhiker stories. My eyes get droopy, but I don’t want to fall asleep until I’m pretty sure I’m not in the middle of Jace: The Horror Movie.
“So, technically, you didn’t give him a ride,” Shay says. “So he doesn’t count as your weirdest.”
“True…Then I guess it was the mail-order bride who only spoke one word in English.”
“I think her and ‘Husband’ are very happy together,” Shay says through a half smile.
Milo takes off his hat and puts it over his heart. “Love and green cards conquer all.”
Shay chuckles and reaches down for Milo’s iPod. She doesn’t look the least bit tired. I don’t know how the hell I’m staying awake.
“You mind if I scroll through?” she asks, and Milo shakes his head. His eyes flick to the rearview mirror.
“You’re the quiet one, huh?”
Shay snorts but doesn’t say anything.
“Just beat,” I answer.
“Then sleep.”
Not a chance. I’m keeping my eyes open as long as I can. I adjust myself in the seat, accidentally nudging a sleeping Truffles awake. Sorry, boy.
“Your iPod looks like mine,” Shay says, snapping in the audio cord. “Almost all country.”
“You like country?” I ask.
Shay blinks back at me. “It relaxes me.” Then she tucks some loose hair behind her ear and my heart stutters unexpectedly. But the sensation is short-lived because a twangy guitar starts playing. Truffles and I let out a unified groan.
Milo laughs. “Yeah, Truffles isn’t a fan. He howls and whines every time I turn on Kenny Chesney.”
“I hear ya, boy,” I say, pulling him onto my lap. His tail starts beating the back of Shay’s seat.
“I’m not surprised you have so much in common with a dog,” Shay says, a grin on her face. I scratch my forehead with my middle finger, which makes her laugh. Whenever I get a laugh out of her I always feel some sense of accomplishment—more than with other women. Like I’m not just funny, I’m the most hilarious guy on the planet.
Then Truffles licks the side of my face, making Shay let out a bigger laugh, and I start feeling jealous of the damn dog.
“He smells good,” I say, rubbing the dog’s ears so they flop against his cheeks. “How do you smell good? You lick your own ass.”
Milo laughs and scratches his scruffy chin. “He gets spoiled at home with bubble baths.”
“Well, it’s working.” I squish the beagle’s cheeks together. “Isn’t that right, Truffles. No wonder you’re so good with the ladies.”
“Apparently he’s good with the men too.” Shay turns in her seat and quirks another grin at me. Seeing her smile always gets me in a teasing mood, so I let my fingers scratch the hell out of the back of the beagle’s ears, getting the little guy’s foot to bob up and down real fast. Then I laugh and push Truffles toward Shay.
“Look at this damn face. I dare you not to fall for it.”
“I think you need to reiterate your one rule,” she says to Milo.
“She’s just jealous I like you better than her,” I say to Truffles. The twangy song ends and is replaced by another that sounds exactly the same. Truffles whines, I laugh, and Shay adjusts in the front seat, eyes drifting closed. Guess it does relax her. Good to know her kryptonite.
“How old is he?” I ask Milo, rubbing my hand over Truffles’s paws. He playfully growls but doesn’t nip at me.
“Don’t know. He was a stray when we got him. Vet said probably six or seven, though.” He pulls out a fresh water bottle from somewhere next to him and hands it back to me. “You have a dog?”
I check the seal on the water. It’s good, so I crack it open and chug it down. “Not currently.” Which blows. But it’s hard to own a dog right now. Little money, small apartment. Dogs deserve a lot of running space. Another thing that’s on the bucket list—get to the point that I can travel the world, but still own a dog. An RV or something maybe…
“I grew up with a lot, though,” I add.
“How many?”
“Seven total. There were always three in my house at a time.”
“You still got some at home?”
I scratch Truffles’s neck by his collar. “Nope. My dad died last year and my mom couldn’t take care of Tony and Pepper by herself, so they went to my brother and his wife.”
“Tony and Pepper.”
“I named them after Marvel heroes. Kind of my thing.”
Milo nods, grinning as he checks his blind spots before changing lanes. “Truffles got his name that way. Shane, the dog’s actual owner—because I think I’m more of an adoptive parent. See, Truffles always goes to Shane whenever I’m home, and he sleeps on Shane’s side of the bed, and whenever I mention Shane’s name his tail goes crazy…”
“I agree,” I say with a laugh as Truffles’s tail beats me across the face as he tries to crawl into the front seat.
“See, see? He thinks we’re going to see him.” Milo gently pushes Truffles back so he can keep driving. “Anyway…he names all his dogs after candy. Truffles is the second dog we’ve had in our place. The first was Kit Kat. We had to put her down a couple years ago, unfortunately. That was the hardest damn thing I’ve done in my life.”
“Sorry about that.” I’ve had to put down a few family dogs. They’re all hard, and it never gets easier either. But giving a pup a good fifteen-plus years makes up for those hard parts.
“Shane had him for thirteen years. For a while we’d walk into the apartment and he’d still expect Kit Kat to come bouncing around the corner. The place felt so empty. And then one day this beagle showed up outside, and his foot was caught in a bunch of garbage and mud. Shane pulled him out, and we put up flyers in case he belonged to anyone, but no one called. It was a good thing too, because Truffles and Shane got attached to each other.”
“And you were cool with your roommate having another dog?”
He laughs a giant bolting laugh I’ve heard a lot during the hour and a half I’ve known him.
“Even if I had a problem with it, Shane gets two votes in our house.”
“Why’s that?”
“He wears the pants in our relationship.”
I grin and shift Truffles onto the seat next to me. “I thought he was just an old college roommate or something,” I say with a laugh.
“Nope. Been together for eight years now.”
I let out a long whistle. “You have my sympathies.”
He lets out another bolting laugh. “Not the commitment type, huh?”
My eyes drift to Shay, ready for her derisive snort or smart comment, but she’s out like a light, fingers curled tight around the iPod. Something tugs in my chest seeing her so content and, well, quiet. It’s the Venus flytrap thing, I think.
“Not exactly…” I scratch the back of my head, ripping my gaze away from Shay. “I mean, I’ll commit to them for a night.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“I’m just not interested in…relationships. Sounds like a drag.”
Milo fixes his hat. “It can be. There are a lot of times I wonder if it’s worth it, because I’m on the road all the time and he’s at home…See, Shane’s a graphic novel artist. Yeah, his job is a lot more awesome than mine. And he’d come with me on trips like this, no problem. But he’s got deadlines, and it’s not exactly easy to have a steady hand while on the road. So he stays home, sometimes lets me take Truffles, and we have
to deal with the long-distance and short-distance relationship all the time. But even with the shit-filled drama, I’m thinking of ways to prolong our relationship. Make it permanent.”
“You want to get married?” I’ve met another romantic sap. Just when I was starting to like the guy.
“Yeah. Now that gay marriage is legal everywhere, we’re just trying to figure out where we want to…or if we want to…”
My mind drifts off—I think because I’m so tired I’m about to pass out—so I don’t catch what Milo’s saying. I’m actually wondering about how it goes down. Who proposes to who in this scenario?
“So how does it work?” I ask, interrupting whatever he was saying.
He furrows his brow and takes his eyes off the road long enough to give me a weird look. “Uh…well, however we want. Whatever feels good. It’s not like we’re assigned positions or anything, just like with straight people.”
“Whoa…no.” A laugh builds up in my throat. “No, no, no. I meant how do you decide who proposes?”
“Oh!” He barks out a laugh too. “Okay, yeah, I don’t know. Shane and I talked very minimally about it when it became legal. I think we’re just going to go with whoever beats the other to it.”
“You think you’re gonna pop it out first?”
“If I ever get the guts. See, there’s all this pressure that comes with popping the question. Where to do it, if it’s romantic enough, and then there’s always that doubt that rests in the back of your head that no matter how sure you are about your relationship, about how they feel about you, there’s still that possibility that they’ll say no. And where do you go from there? Are you over? Are you back to where you were? What now? So it’s like you reach a fork in the road, and down one path is a forever commitment and down the other is facing single life again. And sometimes I’d rather just not make the decision and just sit there at the fork because it’s comfortable there.”
He’s an analogy genius. He’s a romantic sap still, but I see what he’s getting at. I’m at a fork too. Every time I think about putting more of myself out there, I remember that I left my heart somewhere in my high school hallway. Letting people get close just seems like a bad idea, so no way in hell do I want to go down that road. Too rocky. But the road I want that seems like sunshine and roses has a price for admission. Can’t land a shit-ton of women until I get some cash and a job. So I’m just sitting at the fork for as long as I can.
