Levi wouldn’t put her laundry hamper down.
“I can carry it,” Cath said. Her head was still in Professor Piper’s office, and she wasn’t in the mood for … well, for Levi. For the constant good-natured game of him. If Levi were a dog, he’d be a golden retriever. If he were a game, he’d be Ping-Pong, incessant and bouncing and light. Cath didn’t feel like playing.
“I’ve got this,” he said. “You get the door.”
“No, seriously,” she said. “I can carry it.”
Levi was all smiles and fond glances. “Sweetheart, get the door. I’ve got this.”
Cath pressed her fingertips into her temples. “Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?”
He grinned. “It just came out. It felt good.”
“Sweetheart?”
“Would you prefer ‘honey’? That reminds me of my mom.… What about ‘baby’? No. ‘Loveboat’? ‘Kitten’? ‘Rubber duck’?” He paused. “You know what? I’m sticking with ‘sweetheart.’”
“I don’t even know where to start,” Cath said.
“Start with the door.”
“Levi. I can carry my own gross, dirty laundry.”
“Cath. I’m not going to let you.”
“There’s no letting. It’s my laundry.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“I don’t need you to carry things for me. I have two functioning arms.”
“That’s not the point,” he said. “What kind of creep would I be if I let my girl carry something heavy while I walked along, swinging my arms?”
Your girl? “The kind that respects my wishes,” she said. “And my strength, and my … arms.”
Levi grinned some more. Because he wasn’t taking her seriously. “I have a lot of respect for your arms. I like how they’re attached to the rest of you.”
“You’re making me feel fragile and limp. Give me the laundry.” She reached for it.
He stepped back. “Cather. I know you’re capable of carrying this. But I’m not capable of letting you. I literally couldn’t walk next to you empty-handed. It’s nothing personal; I’d do this for anyone with two X chromosomes.”
“Even worse.”
“Why? Why is that worse? That I’m respectful to women.”
“It’s not respectful, it’s undermining. Respect our strength.”
“I do.” His hair fell in his eyes, and he tried to blow it away. “Being chivalrous is respectful. Women have been oppressed and persecuted since the beginning of time. If I can make their lives easier with my superior upper-body strength, I’m going to. At every opportunity.”
“Superior.”
“Yes. Superior. Do you want to arm wrestle?”
“I don’t need superior upper-body strength to carry my own dirty laundry.” She put her fingers on the handles, trying to push his aside.
“You’re deliberately missing the point,” he said.
“No, that’s you.”
“Your face is flushed, did you know that?”
“Well,” she said. “I’m frustrated.”
“Don’t make me angry-kiss you.”
“Give me the laundry.”
“Tempers rising, faces flushed … This is how it happens.”
That made Cath laugh. And that was irritating, too. She used most of her inferior upper-body strength to shove the hamper into his chest.
Levi pushed it back gently, but didn’t let go. “Let’s fight about this the next time I try to do something nice for you, okay?”
She looked up at his eyes. The way he looked back at her made her feel wide open, like every thought must be closed-captioned on her face. She let go of the hamper and picked up her laptop bag, opening the door.
“Finally,” he said. “My triceps are killing me.”
*
This was the coldest, snowiest winter Cath could remember. It was the middle of March already, technically spring, but it still felt like January. Cath put on her snow boots every morning without thinking about it.
She’d had gotten so used to the snow, to being a pedestrian in the snow, that she hadn’t even thought to check the weather today—she hadn’t thought about road conditions and visibility or the fact that maybe this wasn’t the best afternoon for Levi to drive her home.
She was thinking about it now.
It felt like they were the only car on the interstate. They couldn’t see the sun; they couldn’t see the road. Every ten minutes or so, red taillights would emerge out of the static ahead of them, and Levi would ease onto the brakes.
He’d stopped talking almost an hour ago. His mouth was straight, and he was squinting at the windshield like he needed glasses.
“We should go back,” Cath whispered.
“Yeah…,” he said, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, then clenching a fist around the gearshift. “But I think it might be easier now to keep going. It’s worse behind us. I thought we’d beat it to Omaha.”
There was a metallic ringing as a car passed them on the left.
“What’s that noise?” she asked.
“Tire chains.” Levi didn’t sound scared. But he was being so awfully quiet.