That pings my radar even more. “Are we beyond the first date?” I ask, as cool and casual as I can manage.
“Tom, they’re going to need a new word for whatever this thing is.” She points from her to me. And that deflates me a little bit, but it also reminds me to keep trying with her. To try till we both know exactly what’s happening between us.
“So, where is this mythical playlist? And since I told you I’m not a huge music fan, what on earth did you put on it?”
I hit a button on the screen, then issue a verbal command to the car. “Kitt, play Finley’s playlist.”
“You did not name your car Kitt.”
I laugh. “I didn’t. See, it’s not even responding.” I point to the dash. “Let me try again. Adler, play Finley’s playlist.”
Her mouth falls open in a no-you-didn’t look.
“I needed a good name.”
A cool, modulated voice answers. “Hello. I’ll play Finley’s playlist for you.”
She clasps her hands to her chest. “You did all that for the sake of a joke? You’re so cute.”
I blow on my fingertips.
Finley stops talking when a voice fills the car.
It’s Tina Fey.
“What is this?” Finley tilts her head, like she’s the RCA dog, tuning in.
“I went on YouTube. Cut the audio from some clips for you. Made it into a comedy playlist.” I sneak a glance at her, and the smile that’s tugging at her lips grows even bigger, reaching all the way to her eyes, making them twinkle.
“I love this,” she whispers, almost reverently.
As we drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific spreading majestically to the right, the comedian chats about her affection for Larry Wilcox, followed by the voice of Amy Schumer riffing on how Rosario Dawson should have earned an Oscar for the movie Zookeeper.
We make a pit stop, dropping the car in the parking garage next to my townhome off Fillmore Street, then grabbing the rental I reserved.
Back on the road, the playlist goes to a Tiffany Hadish routine, then a bit from Ali Wong.
By the time we reach Santa Cruz, Finley is wiping tears of laughter from her face. When we park, she reaches across the car, grabs my cheeks, and kisses my . . . nose?
The tip of my nose.
I wasn’t expecting a real kiss right now, but I wasn’t expecting a nose smooch either.
The funniest thing is—I’ll take it. I’ll happily take it.
“That was the best playlist ever. Those are definitely all my favorite tunes,” she says, and that’s why I made it. For that look, right there, on her freckled face.
18
Tom
The white and red wooden tracks rise high above us, the crystal-blue sky and vast expanse of sandy beach forming the backdrop to the thrill ride.
Finley crosses her arms and stares at the big beast, talking to it. “All right, Giant Dipper. Impress me. Show me what Tom can do.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “This one isn’t mine. But it is seriously impressive. It was built in 1924, in forty-seven days, at a cost of fifty thousand dollars, and more than sixty million people have ridden it since then.”
“You’re showing me someone else’s creation?” She arches a brow. “I want to see your handiwork.”
“Tomorrow.” I move closer, bumping my shoulder to hers and whispering, “But will it impress you if I say they added my safety feature to it a few years ago? It’s part of the anti-rollback device.”
Her eyes sparkle. “I have no idea what that is, but it sounds super-hot.”
I tap my temple, glasses-free at the moment since I can’t wear them on rides. I switched to contacts when we arrived. “I have a million more little facts up here at your service. Let me know what you want to hear next.”
As the line for the coaster snakes around a corner, she wiggles her fingertips, the sign for me to give her more info. “Give me some of those safety facts, Tom.”
I serve up one of my favorite ones as we make our way through the queue. “Roller coasters may seem scary, but they aren’t actually dangerous. There’s only a one in twenty-four million chance of getting seriously injured on an amusement park ride, according to the National Safety Council. Which means,” I say, raising my finger for dramatic effect, “you have a bigger chance of kicking the bucket by falling out of bed. There’s a one in 423,548 chance of that happening, by the way.”
She frowns. “Should I wear a helmet in bed?”
“Only if you’re engaging in other dangerous bedroom activities,” I tell her with a wink.
Soon, we reach the front of the ride, and we board the next car, the shoulder bars locking in place. I still get a thrill when I hear that noise. “I love that sound. It’s the sound of knowing you’re about to scream at the top of your lungs and enjoy it.”
“You’re such a geek.”
“I am a geek.”
The car pulls away from the platform, sliding into a tunnel, dropping and curving before it emerges and begins thrusting skyward, the clacking intensifying as we slowly climb the first hill. “That clicking noise when you go up the hill? It’s an anti-rollback device,” I say proudly.
“Oh,” she says, her lips parting in a pretty O. “The thing you said you designed, right?”
“I didn’t actually design the anti-rollback device—that’s a standard safety feature. But I created an advanced component to the toothed metal ratchet that ensures the cars can’t roll back if there’s a power outage or a broken chain.”
“I’m officially impressed.”
“That sound is music to my ears. I think it’s like how laughter is to you,” I say as we near the top of the first hill.
“Like ride foreplay,” she says with a wink as she grips the lock bar more tightly. “And you can feel the car rising higher.”
“I take it that means you’re having a good day at the park?”
We reach the top, and that second-long moment of suspension before gravity takes over, turning potential energy to kinetic energy and powering a fantastic fall.
“Yes!” she screams, and I hope it’s a sign of how much she’s enjoying this day as much as a response to the drop.
I shout too, and we fly, the car careening down the tracks, curving onto its side, and shooting us up, down, and around.
Finley never lets up. Her voice is an epic megaphone of exhilaration. It’s the beautiful soundtrack to a ride well designed, the relentless pace of thrills—of chasing them, living them, making them.
She screams the whole time the wind whips by and the car speed-demons its way around half a mile of track, not letting up until it chugs slowly into the station, where it locks in place when it stops.
I rub my ear. “You’re a screamer.”
She wiggles her eyebrows and answers softly, “I am.”
I freeze, staring at her for a few seconds. She’s always been flirty, always skirted the naughtier sides of our conversations. I have too. But this feels different. Maybe because I want it to be. Or maybe because I know how her lips taste, and I’m determined to find out if the rest of her skin is as delicious.
Or more.
We tackle more of the park, visiting the arcade then playing laser tag and climbing the rock wall. After, we walk along the boardwalk as the sun makes its dip toward the horizon. “Thanks for inviting me,” she says.
“Thanks for saying yes. I’m glad you did.”
“You are?” she asks, her voice tentative, a touch nervous.
“Yeah. I’m really glad.”
She studies me. “How do you see me?”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”
“Are we friends?”
I scoff-laugh. “We better be.”
She smiles. “Yeah, I think we are too.” She stops walking, wraps her hands around the wooden railing of the boardwalk, and stares at the ocean. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
My chest warms—for maybe the first time on this trip, I feel certain that we’re getting somewh
ere. Somewhere that’s a step closer to where I want to be with her. “Life is pretty random, isn’t it?”
“Are you going to regale me with more details about how horny organisms invented evolution?”
I shield my eyes, laughing. “Not at the moment. I was mostly thinking about how you happened to be in the window last week.” But it’s more than random, I think to myself. It feels like serendipity.
She nudges me. “And to think, you might have been road tripping with two burly bikers.”
“Somehow I doubt they’d have taken me under their wing.”
“Is that what I did?”
“Felt that way, for sure.”
She juts up a shoulder and flashes a small smile. “Maybe for a few days. Truth be told, you’re a pretty fast learner.”
“I’m not sure about that, Finley.” I sigh. “I feel like everything I thought I knew about women has been turned inside out and upside down.”
“It’s been unzipped,” she says playfully.
I laugh. “Maybe it has. By the way, I’m glad I’m a fast learner. I’m glad you helped me. I was a stubborn bastard when I met you.”
“News flash. You still are.”
“But maybe not as much?” I ask hopefully.
“You’re five percent less.”
I pump a fist. “Progress.”
She goes quiet for a few seconds, then turns to me, her brow pinched. “But have I changed?”
“Did you need to change?”
“Don’t we all?”
“But what would you change?”
She parts her lips, takes a breath, but then shakes her head before she fixes on a witty grin. “Now’s not the time to talk about the tires on my bike.” She tsks me, and we both know she’s not talking about her bike tires.
I don’t know what she wants to change, or why she doesn’t want to tell me. She turns to continue along the boardwalk, but I grab her arm, pulling her back, looking into her eyes. “What do you want to change?”
She swallows nervously. Shrugs. Looks down.
“Tell me. I’m a stubborn bastard ninety-five percent of the time. I’ll be stubborn till you tell me.”
She waits a beat, then lifts her chin. “I’d take more risks.”
“What’s the risk you want to take? You already ride all the rides, and you went skydiving, and you’re taking a chance by writing this show. You’re a risk-taker by nature.”
She stares at me, and for a few seconds, it’s as if her chatterbox mask slips away and sheer vulnerability replaces it. “Bungee jumping.”
I furrow my brow. “That’s the risk you want to take?”
She nods.
“Really?” I find it hard to believe this scares her. A woman who skydives is fearful of bungee jumping?
“Yes, but I’m afraid to go bungee jumping.”
“Why?”
“It terrifies me,” she says, deadly serious, but it almost seems like bungee jumping is a metaphor for something else. Only, I don’t know what or how to figure it out.
I offer the one thing I have. “I’ll go with you.”
A faint smile spreads. “You will?” Her voice sounds breathy, but it’s not the sexy, flirty kind. There’s an undertone there, one I’m trying to understand.
“Yes. Say the word. Or words, really—I dare you. Three little magic words.”
“Three little magic words,” she repeats. Then she snaps out of it, announcing that she’s hungry.
I point my thumb at the road. “There’s an artichoke-themed diner a few miles away.”
“Hello! Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”
“I forgot,” I say, laughing.
She presses her palms together like she’s absolving me of a sin. “I forgive you for forgetting to mention the best thing ever. I’m going to have one of everything. Take me there now.”
Since the diner seems to specialize in all things fried, Finley doesn’t have one of everything. She does order roasted artichokes and an artichoke salad, while I take one for the team and order the artichoke fries along with a burger drenched in—you guessed it—artichokes. When the waitress leaves, I return to something Finley mentioned the other night.
“Remember when you said some dickhead broke up with you because you talked too much?”
“Why, thank you for reminding me of all my flaws,” she says with a goofy grin.
“That’s not why I brought it up. I mentioned it because I disagree.”
“With why Jaxton Winkler ditched me?”
My nose crinkles. “That’s a trying-too-hard name.”
“He wore plaid pants and a bowler hat. He was a trying-too-hard-to-be-cool guy.”
I pluck at my palm tree–covered duds. “Suddenly, this shirt looks pretty good.” I wiggle a brow. “Anyway, I disagree because I don’t think that’s possible.”
“To talk too much?”
I nod, folding and unfolding the napkin in front of me. “When I said earlier I’ve been holding on to this notion of the past? I don’t know a thing about Cassie now, so I was basing my choices on all this old stuff. I haven’t talked to her in years. How can you love someone you don’t even talk to?”
She takes a drink of her water. “How can you even like someone if you don’t talk?”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I say confidently, feeling a new certainty about my decisions. With Finley, all we do is talk. All I’ve done the last several days is get to know her. And I don’t want to stop. “I’ve been wanting to find someone I could truly talk to.”
“I’ve never understood love at first sight. I think there’s lust, but I think love comes from getting to know someone.” Her eyes are wide as she stares at me. “Do you agree?”
“One hundred percent,” I say, holding her gaze, wishing I could tell her I’m falling for her. But I’m not stupid. Move too fast and she’ll say see you later. “What happened with your last boyfriend? You mentioned him the other night too.”
She groans. “Is this the Finley inquisition?”
I smile. “Well, we both do like talking.”
She narrows her eyes like she’s pissed, but there’s a playfulness to her expression, then a darkness when she says, “He was in love with someone else.”
That news hits me like a hammer. Does she think I’m cut from the same cloth, poised to hurt her? If she does, I don’t know how I’ll reassure her. I thought it would simply take time to prove myself, but now I don’t know if I ever can, even though I know how I feel.
I focus on the other guy for now. “Did he cheat on you?” I clench my jaw.
“No. I don’t think so. And I can’t be mad at him for the reason it ended. He simply didn’t love me the same way he loved her. I was the in-between girl. Trouble was, I wanted to be his everything girl.”
A tornado of jealousy swirls in my gut, and I’m envious of that guy. Envious because she wanted so badly to be loved by him. By someone who didn’t care about her heart the same way. But on the other hand, if he had cared about her, I wouldn’t be road-tripping with her now, so I can’t be too mad that he broke her heart.
Except I am, because I hate she was hurt. “Let me see if I have this straight. That ex was a dick for not seeing what was in front of him, and the other guy is a dick for saying you talk too much when, as I’ve mentioned, you talk the perfect amount. We talked most of the way down here when we weren’t listening to your comedian playlist.”
“Which, for the record, was an awesome way to road-trip.”
“Will you write about the road trip in your show?” I ask after I take a bite.
“Eh, who knows.” She pops an artichoke fry into her mouth. “Just kidding. Of course I will. The main characters actually left for a road trip at the end of the last episode.”
That makes me ridiculously happy, that she already weaved this into her show. “Is that so?”
“Well, the hero invited his friend to go on one. She hasn’t said yes yet.”
I wiggle my eyebro
ws. “I bet I know her answer.”
She kicks me playfully under the table. “Shh. Don’t tell.”
“It’ll be our secret.”
She takes another bite of her salad then sets down the fork. “I’ve been taking mental notes all day. And when I do sit down to write about it, I’ll probably be required to use every road-trip trope known to writer-kind.”
I arch a brow. “How so?”
“In every road trip movie or show, the following are inevitable,” she says, then rattles off, faster and faster, “Forgotten Underwear, Car Breaks Down, Only One Room Left at the Hotel, accompanied by Only One Bed in the Room, followed by Inconvenient Knock on the Door That Prevents Kiss, then Wise Old Widower Remarks What a Good Couple They Make, then Hero Break-Dances, and then He Gets Tipsy and Falls Asleep Nude before They Can Have Sex, followed by Entire Sheet Wrapped around Body When He Gets Up. And of course, the pièce de résistance—the Epic Airport Chase Scene.”
I stop with the burger midway to my mouth. “Sign me up. Well, except for the car breaking down and the tipsy part. I’d like to not fall asleep at the wrong moment.”
“But you have to. It’s the law of the tropes.”
“Are we living in a TV show or a movie?”
She stage-whispers, “You never know. But those things happen in literally every road trip movie or episode.”
“Will they happen in yours?”
“Should they?”
“What if I told you there was one room at the hotel?”
“I’d say you engineered it.”
I sigh heavily. “I reserved two.”
She snaps her fingers like she’s disappointed.
I am too.
When we check in at Seascape Inn, I glance at Finley and mouth, Waiting for the One Room trope.
But the innkeeper, sporting a tweed vest and a matching hat I suspect is the height of hipster couture, hands us two keys. “One’s by the pool. The other by the road,” the innkeeper tells us. “Pool’s the better view.”
I hand her the key to that room, and she thanks me.
I walk her up the stairs, wishing that tropes were as common in real life as in the movies. Come to think of it, nothing that I thought would be like the movies has come true.
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