And, fuck him, after they checked out and were waiting for the Charger to be brought around, he thought of it and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking it was cute.
They got in the car and the battle instantly began. She didn’t like “fake cold”, what she called air conditioning. He didn’t like the windows down. Compromise, she got the windows down first, he got AC after the clock struck one thirty. Then she hooked up her iPod and tortured him with her music. He told her he thought it was shit. Compromise, when the windows were opened, they played her music, they listened to what he wanted to listen to when he jacked the AC up.
They hit Moab and the bitch flipped for it, making him find a store so she could buy a camera, something he didn’t allow her to do, the buying it part. He bought one for her, an expensive digital camera and when he did, she gave him something else, something new. Her face got soft, her eyes went warm and she leaned her tits into his arm, tipping her head back and smiling at him huge, shining the full force of her light on him and, swear to Christ, he’d been blinded.
At that, he wished he’d watched her open her diamonds.
Then she made him drive her all over the fucking place. At her shout, he’d stopped a dozen times so she could take pictures and anytime another breathing being was close, she asked them to take a picture of him and Lexie together. She’d drag him in front of something, curl into him and smile bright into the camera like she’d hit Heaven not Utah.
They’d checked into a hotel, went out and had dinner, came back and ordered up a movie. It was an action film and she sat sprawled at the end of the bed shouting at the screen the whole time and when the hero finally kicked the bad guy’s ass, she’d actually shouted, “Take that, sucka!”
Sucka.
Proof positive she was a total fucking goof.
That night, too, lying at her side in bed, Walker had trouble finding sleep.
Now they were in the car, two hours into day two on the road, two hours away from home. She’d done the whole freak out at not leaving anything behind but she’d also taken twice as much time getting ready. Yesterday, she’d worn her Paris Las Vegas tee, some shorts and some flip-flops. Today, her hair was done wild and sexy, she had on a pair of nice, army green short-shorts and a sexy-as-hell, loose-fitting, apricot tee that caught on her tits just right and left her back exposed, a drape at the bottom, one string tied in the middle to hold the fabric together and you could see her cream-colored bra strap. She’d added the sandals she’d been wearing the day he met her, the first time he’d seen her wear the same pair of shoes twice, as well as big, gold hoops at her ears and a bunch of thin, gold bracelets at both wrists.
What she was tricked out for, he had no idea. He didn’t ask. He didn’t have a chance. She was busy checking under the bed and opening and closing drawers.
He left her to it and dragged their shit down to the reception desk and out to the Charger after he checked out. She met him there, throwing sass about him being impatient and how, “We can’t just swing by if we left something. FYI, Utah is a whole different state than the one you live in, Ty.”
He decided to concentrate on putting the car in gear rather than responding.
She opened her window, put on her music and his torture began.
Two minutes later she told him she was going to, “Die in five minutes if I don’t have coffee.”
He swung into a convenience store, they went in and she bought a two-liter cup filled with joe and a pack of breakfast Ding Dongs. He bought a cup of coffee about a quarter the size of hers and a stale bear claw from the donut display. After bite three, he decided he couldn’t deal with the stale and threw it out his open window.
To this she snapped, “Ohmigod, Ty! What the fuck?”
“It was stale,” he told the windshield, trying not to smile because he’d learned from her tone which he’d heard before that this was going to be good.
“So! You just littered.”
“It’s food so it isn’t litter.”
“You’re telling me food is omitted from the official definition of litter?”
“Yeah.”
“All Knowing Ty Walker, also known by his superhero alter-ego, Mr. Humongo has memorized the definition of litter?”
Yep, he was right, this was good. Even pissed, the bitch was funny.
“They make you do that kinda shit in prison.”
“They do not.”
“Babe, five years in one building, they gotta do something to keep us occupied.”
“You’re full of shit,” she mumbled, he looked to her and saw her shove an entire Ding Dong in her mouth.
Ding Dongs.
Christ.
Total goof.
They hit the highway, she jacked up the music and he experienced the unusual desire to beg someone to drive ice picks in his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.
Then she started singing while sipping her coffee, just like the day before, at the top of her lungs with occasional car dancing.
And again. Total goof.
The country-rock song finally died and she snatched up the iPod to consider his next agony.