by Lexy Timms
Where the fuck was the Colin I knew?
I crossed my legs and looked out the window, bobbing my head to the music. Minnesota was passing by in a flash as we barreled down the highway. Trees that were trying to bloom were thriving with a life being stifled by the cold and the road underneath the tires was roaring to life. The sun was shining high in my home state sky, and never would I have imagined that weather would have grounded a flight today.
“How was your New Year?” I asked.
“Full of work,” he said.
“Now, why is that not shocking to me at all?”
“Because I had a very successful meeting I missed that catapulted us into a very busy next year,” he said.
“Us?” I asked.
“You know, the company we both work for?”
He looked over at me briefly and I snickered when I saw him wink.
“Did you just wink at me?” I asked.
“Depends. Did you like it?”
“What in the world has gotten into you? You are definitely not the Colin I remember.”
“Well, you look a bit different yourself. I’m still trying to figure it out,” he said.
“I know. Having a job and being single look good on me.”
The conversation on his end fell away and we rode for a little while longer before he broke the silence.
“How are your parents?” he asked.
“They’re good. They ask about you from time to time. They don’t understand how I can work at your company and never see you.”
“Did you tell them we work in different states?”
“Yep. They still don’t get it,” I said, giggling. “I’m not sure what’s not connecting, but I just let it be. I tell them you’re good, and by the looks of it I haven’t been lying to them for the past two months.”
“Not at all. Things have been good. Busy, but good. Is everyone treating you okay?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“At the branch in Minnesota. You’re not having any difficulties?”
“If I was, you are definitely not who I would report them to,” I said.
“Don’t wanna get anyone in trouble with the boss?” he asked.
“Don’t want to get anyone in trouble with the founder,” I said. “How are things going with your fun little media competitor? Nothing’s crossed Hadley’s desk lately.”
“It seems to have toned down for now. Hopefully it’ll stay that way.”
“How’s your mother doing?” I asked.
“She’s good. She went to Hawaii for Christmas.”
“I take it you had something to do with that?”
“My mother’s terrible at doing anything for herself. At the beginning of last year, I told her if she didn’t take a vacation of some sort that I would send her on one myself. She didn’t take one, so I sent her to Hawaii.”
“Did she even want to go?” I asked.
“Not until I told her I’d booked her two weeks at an all-inclusive spa resort,” he said.
“Yep. That would’ve done me in, too.”
Colin was very different. He was less grumpy and more easy-going. Talking with him this time around wasn’t like pulling teeth. I didn’t feel the need to tiptoe around him, nor did I feel like he was holding any secrets back from me. It didn’t feel like I was riding with a stranger, but instead, an old friend I’d come to know along the way. His hands weren’t white-knuckling the steering wheel and he was a little more relaxed in the car. It was refreshing to see him this way.
It was refreshing to know he’d taken my advice.
“Looks like you do listen,” I said, murmuring.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing. Are you getting hungry or thirsty at all? We’re about to hit a stretch of highway leaving Minnesota that doesn’t have anything for a while.”
“Sure. Anything in particular?” he asked.
“Whatever you want. I can eat anywhere.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“Because I’m not a snob,” I said, grinning.
“Hey, neither am I.”
“I never said you were. But now that you’ve brought it up, it seems like it’s something you’re probably self-conscious about.”
“How can I be self-conscious about something I just told you I was not?” he asked.
“Okay, okay. Take a deep breath. I was just playing with you.”
So, maybe he wasn’t completely changed, but he had made significant steps in the right direction. He was easier to be around and I didn’t feel like I was about to piss him off with my voice or anything. But there was one thing that hadn’t changed. One thing that was still hard for me to do.
It was hard for me to get a read on him.
Even though his eyes seemed less guarded and there seemed to be the slightest smirk on his lips, I still couldn’t easily read him. I had to make him reactive in order to figure out things about him. Like the comment about my not being a snob. He had to react to that statement in order for me to assume something about him. It was easy to talk, but the topics were still very superficial.
An improvement from last time, but not enough of an improvement for me to understand him any better.
Nonetheless, I was very excited to be on a road trip with Colin again. Even in my dreams, he was nowhere near as handsome as he was in person. His body heat radiated towards me, clawing at my skin and trying to pull me closer. I had to slide my hands in between my crossed thighs just to keep myself from reaching out to him. My fingertips hummed for his touch and my lips were being pulled towards his neck.
I’d missed his presence and his voice. But more than that, I had just missed him over these past two months.
“How do you feel about wraps?” Colin asked.
“What?”
“There’s something called ‘The Wrap Joint’ off the next exit. Know anything about it?”
“It’s actually pretty good. You can get all sorts of things there. Let’s go ahead and drive through,” I said.
He took the exit and we pulled into the parking lot. I could tell he was debating on whether to go in or not. He was looking up at the clouds before looking over in the distance, and I took it as an opportune time to test out our boundaries.
I reached over and put my hand on his forearm to get his attention.
“We can just go through the drive through. There’s no need to go in. I’ll give you my card for the window,” I said.
His eyes looked down at my hand, studying our connection for quite some time. He looked at it for so long that I figured he was getting uncomfortable, so I quickly pulled my hand back. His body underneath his coat was just as muscular as I remembered it, and suddenly my mind was filled with flashes of his naked body pounding into mine. Flashes of his warmth against my neck and his face between my legs. Sounds of a headboard knocking against a wall and the fireplace warming our bodies. I could feel his hand bracing my neck while our tongues danced like the licks of fire crackling beside us, and I had to turn my head out the window to hide the flush growing in my cheeks.
If my touch affected him the way it had affected me, he made no mention of it as we sat there.
“Drive through it is,” he said.
He drove around as I dug through my purse. I handed him my card and we both ordered, shouting at the speaker time and time again to try and get the woman to hear us. We finally had to just pull around and give her our order so she could understand what we were saying, and by the time we got back out onto the highway I was glad we stopped to get food.
In all the excitement of seeing Colin again, I’d forgotten I hadn’t eaten anything all day.
Things quickly turned awkward. The polite and superficial conversation quickly dwindled back into the uncomfortable silence that characterized our first adventure. My chicken Caesar wrap seemed bland as the mood of the car fell, and soon Colin was back to white-knuckling his steering wheel. I could see his anxiety and that uncomfortable n
ature of his slowly creeping back into his body, straightening his posture right off the back of his seat. His eyes were transfixed on the road in front of us just as we crossed into Iowa, and I sighed as I turned to look back out the window.
I put the rest of my wrap in the to-go bag before I grabbed my drink, then I slouched down into my seat and tossed my feet up onto the dashboard. The air in the car quickly turned from comfortable to tense and the electricity was no longer surging between us. The playful grin on his cheeks slowly slid into the form that was painted on the lips of the Grinch I’d ridden with two months ago. The sparkle in his eye slowly set itself into stone, his eyes now transfixed on the road ahead as he robotically took sips of his soda. I shouldn’t have touched him. I should’ve fucking kept my hands to myself. I shouldn’t have let my thoughts ruin something that had been going so wonderfully.
Why was I always such a screw up? How in the world could I have messed up something like this?
I mindlessly drank my lemonade until I was sucking up the last of the sugar mixture from the bottom of the plastic cup. I placed it in the cup holder between us before I sighed, my head turning back out the window to take in the passing state of Iowa. Already, the clouds over our heads were beginning to darken. Already, the tone of the outside world was shifting with the tone of the car. The once sunny state of Minnesota had kept us bright and smiling, and then the doom and gloom of the Iowa sky had quickly sunken our moods.
If only it was the weather that caused Colin to pull away from me.
I didn’t expect the man to grab me and kiss me. Hell, we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in two solid months! But this kind of visceral reaction was a slap in the face. A punch in the gut. Any other imagined physical assault I could conjure. It was like the touch of my hand against anything he owned had magically turned everything dark. Like the touch of Midas, except everything I touched withered away and died.
Like my ex, or my former job, or my former best friend, or my former home.
Like the little slice of happiness Colin had finally found for himself, or even the happiness I had experienced upon seeing him on that airplane.
If only there was a river I could bathe in to wash this curse from my body. If only the water threatening to pour from the sky could cleanse me and bring back the polite and superficial Colin I had before I made that stupid move to touch his fucking arm.
I figured the situation couldn’t get any worse at this point. The worst that could happen was that we traveled in silence to the conference and then didn’t see each other again for another two months. And things hadn’t gone completely sour. The music on the radio was still playing, and if I kept my mouth shut and didn’t sink, maybe it would breathe new life back into the rental car the two of us were sharing.
Then in perfect Colin fashion, the music on the radio ceased to exist, and we were both right back to square one.
Damn it.
Chapter 3
Colin
The chicken and tomato basil wrap I had ordered was actually decent. The car was filled up with gas before we left the airport, so there was no need to stop until we got about halfway through Iowa. There was something very different about Abby. There was a strength to her. A confidence she hadn’t possessed when we’d first met. Not only that, but she was a little more subdued. Her voice wasn’t as high-pitched and she wasn’t bombarding me with asinine questions all the time. The conversation with her was easy and her smile was a little softer. More genuine than the massive smile she had plastered on her face when we first met.
But now, things had grown solemn quickly.
Her touch at the drive through had sparked a fire down to my toes. The way her fingers wrapped around my forearm reminded me of all the things that kept me up at night. The warmth of her body and the way her voice echoed off the corners of my mind. There were many evenings that were spent wondering how she was and wanting to know if she was okay. There were many lunch breaks spent sifting through employee reports and daily input for the Minnesota branch to make sure she was doing well at her job. So many nights where I’d fallen asleep alone and I woke up thinking she would be next to me.
I knew what she was doing when she touched me, and I had to shrug it off.
She was sexy as hell, just as I’d remembered. The high-waist black pants she was in did wonders for her figure, framing her backside nicely and exposed the deep dip in her waist that gave her the undeniable figure that kept popping up in my dreams. She was wearing this pale yellow blouse along with a Christmas green coat that had a massive collar to keep her neck warm.
And the black heels she was in gave her the perfect boost to her height necessary to put her forehead right at my lips.
I thought about kissing her skin. When her hand reached over for my arm, I’d thought about taking her hand and bringing it to my lips. I’d thought about raising my gaze and leaning forward to find that beautiful little forehead. I’d thought about taking her right there in the backseat of that rental car, reminding her of how beautiful she was to me and how lucky I had been to have met someone who wasn’t willing to give up on me.
Someone who was willing to be just the right amount of annoying to show me how much of a rigid, cold individual I had become.
But I was her boss now. Not only that, I owned the company she worked for. And we had to keep things professional. With Beddingfield striking up his media persistence of my public persona, I couldn’t conduct myself in a way that could be misconstrued should it get out to the media. That was why I’d sworn off all women, not just Abby. I told myself that this year would be filled with nothing but work. Work, meetings, the occasional corporate party to schmooze, and lots of time with my mother. No women, no improprieties, and certainly no sexual relationships with beautiful women named Abby who worked for my company.
But oh, how I’d wanted to call her.
Every time I went to pick up the phone over the past two months, I had to remind myself all I’d worked for. I had to remind myself of the work I had ahead of me and, sometimes, I even had to watch Beddingfield’s interviews that mentioned me, just to get my head back in the game. There were moments where Abby’s memory consumed every single bit of me, and there were moments where I actually considered risking it all just to call her.
Just to get her to my hotel room.
Just to feel her taste upon my tongue again.
But now, things had fallen into an awkward state again. I felt the tension growing in my body as Abby slouched into her chair. She threw her legs onto the dashboard of the car like she was so used to doing, and I found myself growing annoyed. The music in the car seemed louder than it was when I turned it on, so I reached over and turned it off.
I heard a small sigh escape from between Abby’s lips, and I knew what she was thinking.
She was thinking that we were falling back into the same pattern. Into the same people we were when we first met. The comfortable part of this trip was fading quickly, and as we rode over the border into Iowa, there was an uncomfortable tension you could slice with a spoon.
We rode in silence as the skies above our heads began to grow still grayer. I was trying to stay optimistic about this road trip, but I felt my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. We were going to hit nasty weather much sooner than I’d been anticipating, and I was not looking forward to traveling in it.
“Want to stop for a bathroom break and get some snacks before we get into this weather?” I asked.
I watched Abby shrug, and something inside of me lurched. Maybe I could make a goodwill gesture and turn the music back on or something, but I couldn’t pay attention to that now. If we made one more stop for snacks, drinks, and fuel, we could make it almost the rest of the way to Wichita. We might have to stop thirty minutes outside of the city for more gas, but that was it.
We would make it if we stopped now.
I pulled off onto an exit and drove into the nearest gas station. Abby unbuckled her seat belt and was out of the car
before I could even get the engine shut down. Without asking me what I wanted, she started for the double doors of the gas station. Her arms were curled around her chest and her hips were swaying underneath the beautiful coat she had on.
If she wasn’t so disappointed, she would’ve been radiant.
I hopped out of the car and started filling up the tank. All I wanted to do was get to Wichita for the conference. I had too many things I was set to attend and lecture on to be dealing with this type of shit. I didn’t want to deal with any more obstacles and I didn’t want to deal with the awkward pressure of having to be a specific way for Abby. I didn’t want to sit and be alone with this beautiful woman any more than I had to be, because every second that passed by wore me down another millimeter. The walls I’d thrown up in order to get my work done were being quickly eroded with every smell of her perfume and every glimpse of her I stole.
If I stayed on this road trip with her any longer than necessary, I was going to be in trouble.
The gas pumped stopped and I topped the tank off. I could see Abby standing at the cash register through the windows, smiling and talking to the man behind the counter. He was leaning up against it with his eyes roaming her body, and I clenched my jaw as I watched the sight. She was giggling and blushing, and he was obviously throwing down his best game. Jealousy rolled around in my stomach as she picked up the bags of things she’d purchased.
It should have been me making her smile like that.
The moment our eyes connected, the smile from her face dropped. A tight little grin crossed her cheeks, which I guessed was her way of staying cordial while still telling me I was a shit-bag person to be on a road trip with. She had a bag full of snacks and food, and a bag full of drinks hanging from her hands, all paid for by her.
“Thanks,” I said. “That should be more than enough to get us the rest of the trip.”
“And get us through any hiccups along the way, should there be any,” she said.
“I hope not. I’m ready to get to this conference.”
