“See, this is why I love road trips.”
I turned my head to see Kalli sitting in the passenger seat of our rental car, sunglasses on, holding a bottle of Diet Coke in one hand and a package of mini chocolate donuts in the other.
Fuck if I didn’t love her.
“You love road trips because you can eat crap and not feel guilty about it?” I gave her my sexiest smile.
“Correct! I love road trips because every time you stop to get gas, it’s like a wonderland of crap and anything you could possibly think of that you would never regularly buy are the only things available. You’re hungry? Eat a bag of dehydrated potato bits covered in flavored dust that contains ingredients so bad for you, even the government has given up on regulating it. Oh, you’re not hungry? Doesn’t matter. The crap you ate earlier tricks your stomach into thinking you are, so grab those pastries that are so full of preservatives they’d survive a nuclear apocalypse.”
“So, what you’re telling me is that you want me to pull over at the next exit with a gas station?”
She laughed and I felt it in my whole body. My heart skidded to a stop, then thundered back to life. My fingers tingled with the need to touch her. My dick hardened in my jeans. Even my arms wanted to wrap around her at the sound of her unrestrained laughter. When she was done laughing, she leaned over the console and kissed my cheek. I wanted to pull over and show her what kind of kiss I needed. But instead I reached for her hand and held it in my lap as I continued down the highway.
When planning our trip to Oregon for Thanksgiving, we decided to fly up, but rent a car and drive back, taking Highway 101 down the coast, planning to stop at every viewpoint we came across. So far we’d managed to get quite a few selfies with the Pacific Ocean behind us. A few times there’d been other people admiring the view who offered to take the photo for us, but most of the time it was only the two of us, and I preferred it that way.
I preferred to have Kalli in front of me, facing away, my arms around her waist, the scent of her shampoo mixing with the scent of the ocean, and everything important to me within my grasp.
When we weren’t admiring the beauty of the west coast, or indulging in convenience store fare, Kalli was bound and determined to keep us entertained with a plethora of road trip games. This was day two of games and I’d given up trying to win because she was much better at spotting letters in license plates and road signs, what with all the driving I was doing.
“Okay, I have something better for us to do,” she said, her thumb moving on the screen of her phone. “I found this list of 100 Things You Should Know About Your Significant Other.” She looked at me with another brilliant smile. “Are you my significant other?”
“You better fucking believe it,” I said, bringing her hand to my mouth and kissing her knuckles. I caught her blushing and I wanted so badly to pull over again so I could make her whole body turn that same color.
“Okay,” she said, trying to pretend as though my words hadn’t affected her. “I’ll ask you a question and then after you answer, I’ll tell you my answer. They look pretty run-of-the-mill.”
“Shoot,” I said.
“Favorite color?”
“Orange.”
“I’ve never seen you wear orange.” Her tone was accusatory, as though I’d lie about my favorite color.
“So?”
“So how can it be your favorite color if you don’t own any clothes that color?”
“I didn’t realize I had to advertise my favorite color in my wardrobe.”
“My favorite color is purple. Half the shirts I own are purple.” I thought about her statement, and she was right; she did wear a lot of purple. The color looked great against her pale skin and straw-colored hair. “If I was judging by your wardrobe, I’d think your favorite color was blue.”
“I look good in blue,” I said, shrugging.
“You do. Although,” she said, leaning back so she could take more of me in, “You have the right coloring to do orange. Not many guys can pull orange off. But your skin is tan enough and your hair is dark enough. I’ll get you an orange shirt. Don’t worry.”
“Crisis averted,” I said with a smile as I checked my blind spot and switched lanes.
“Dogs or cats?”
“Dogs.”
“Agreed. Summer or winter?”
“Uh, summer in the north, winter in the south.”
“Agreed,” she said, her voice rising an octave, as if our agreement on these trivial questions was proof of the fact we were meant to be.
“City or country?”
“That’s not really a great question. Ideally, I’d like to live close to a city, but on the outskirts. But not so far out in the country it’s going to take me thirty minutes to get to a grocery store.”