She grabbed for her pack of tissues, then looked back at him, her hand on the door handle. “Um, it’s light out. Please don’t look.”
“I won’t. But do a little scoping while you’re out there, would ya? I want to make sure we’re still on the road and not snowed in. There’s a shovel in the back, though if you need to dig to find it, we’ll both be sorry.”
While she was outside, he had the chance to smack the staleness of sleep out his mouth in private and dig in his center console for some mints.
“It’s not so bad out there,” she said, climbing into the car. “It must have stopped snowing soon after we stopped. The tire tracks are easy to see, and we should be able to get out no problem.” She patted his leg. “From what I could tell, you even stayed on the road up until you pulled over.”
Her touch zinged up his body, rushing into his ears and tingling the tips of his fingers.
Fuck. He’d promised her that the trip had no cost, that there were no expectations, and he’d meant it. He still meant it. He was a man, not a bull. But not thinking about what she would feel like if they were so close had been easier before she’d been curled up in his arms, before his erection, and before she’d touched his leg of her own accord.
They’d have to get double beds in each hotel room. He would have asked for them anyway, but now it was sleep in separate beds or he’d be on the floor. Or he’d have to pull the old fairy tale trick and sleep with a sword between them. He didn’t want her to wake up with an erection pressing against her again.
“Well good,” he said, plastering a wide, innocent smile on his face. “I figure we can drive for five hours or so, then see what’s interesting wherever we stop. In the meantime, it’s my turn for a trip to our expansive bathroom.”
Her smile was big, honest, and without hesitation. “It is certainly the largest bathroom I’ve ever used, and I do like the white.”
The sun was warming the air up fast and was almost blinding as it reflected off the snow. He took care of his business, inspected his path back onto the highway, then climbed into the driver’s seat and grabbed his phone to check his messages. The first one was from Curtis, assuring him again that they didn’t need to talk. He frowned.
The second message was from one of the guys in charge of the project that Marc’s baby had become. The e-mail had a veneer of politeness, but the words didn’t cover up the point the man was trying to make. In sum, Leave us alone. We’re fine. You sold the project and declined further participation.
Or as Marc would put it, Fuck off.
The e-mail from Curtis hurt worse than the dismissive e-mail from a stranger, though. Terry was his, as much as it was Curtis’s, and brushing him off was a real shit thing to do.
You gave Terry up before Curtis brushed you off.
He tossed his phone into the console and twisted the key in the starter. A small, petty part of him was grateful that he hadn’t bought one of those cars with the push-button starter; it wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying. What he really needed was a motorcycle with no muffler to drown out the voice of reason.
“Something wrong?” Selina’s voice beside him was soft with concern.
“No,” he growled, then felt bad when she just blinked and said, “Okay,” in a small voice.
“Yes,” he said. The word came out in a huff, much like an upset, petulant dog’s would. He shifted in his seat so that he was talking to her face rather than the steering wheel. “I sold my app. It was my baby. Curtis and I worked on it for years. We did side programming jobs for money, but we spent all our spare time on this thing. No vacation. No sick days.”
He swiped his hand down his face, rubbing at the memories of being wrapped in a blanket, a bucket next to him on the floor, and a bottle of ginger ale on the desk next to his computer. He’d written the backbone of some beautiful code that day between bouts of being sick in the bucket.
She put her hand on his knee. Two touches, but he was too worked up to appreciate this one. “You mentioned that at the Chinese restaurant. I can’t imagine putting in that kind of work for anything. I don’t even know what coding is, really. I was really impressed. Still am.”
“But there’s more we can do,” he said, unable to keep the whine from his voice.
“A flaw?” she asked.
“Well,” he hedged, “not a flaw exactly. I mean, it’s not going to break. And it works. But it’s cumbersome. I’ve thought of a way to bypass the biggest issue standing between us and wider adoption of the product by the general public.”
And now that he’d figured it out, that fix was all he could think about.
“And you’ve told Curtis?”
He gestured to the phone. “Curtis and some other people. I haven’t told them what the fix is. I just want a meeting to talk with them about it.”