“Your family is here,” Mr. Fletcher says, quieter than his father, but not quiet enough. “Cousins, aunts, uncles.”
“Grandparents,” Oliver adds darkly.
Oof. The generational trauma is strong with these ones.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.”
“Early,” his dad says.
“I’ll do my best.”
When Oliver drops his phone in his lap, he lets out a heavy breath that I feel more than hear. I hum quietly along to the radio, hoping he’ll think I couldn’t hear every word. The air in the car feels thick, heavy with everything unsaid.
I won’t say anything unless he does.
And ten miles later, it’s clear we’re done talking.
My brain is cloudy and my eyes are sandy from two days of travel and not enough sleep. But when I lie, I lie with conviction.
“Hey, I know we’re getting close to our hotel, but I think I’m hitting my second wind. I feel wired.”
“Huh?” he asks, like I bumped him out of his thoughts. He pulls his gaze from wherever it was out the window to glance at me.
He looks wrecked. His stubble has nearly crossed over into beard territory. His shaggy blond hair is fighting to stick up at every angle. But it’s his eyes that make me feel like my heart has cracked open. They’re so raw and unguarded, it makes my throat tight.
“I said I’m kind of wired. We both want to get home tomorrow. Do you mind if we keep going for a couple more hours?”
His brow tugs together, forming an 11 that could cast him as the brooding hero in a period romance. “You can’t keep driving.”
The fact that he cares enough to protest only makes me more certain.
“Sure I can,” I say. “I feel fine. I’m a night owl anyway, so I always hit my second wind around ten. I’m not saying I can drive all night, but at this rate, I’ll be up until 2 anyway, so I may as well drive.”
Bald-faced lies, all of them.
His expression tells me he’s torn between skepticism and … not. He wants to believe me. “You were out well before 2 last night,” he says.
“How would you know?” I shoot back. “You were snoring then.”
His pause tells me he isn’t sure which of us is lying. I keep my eyes on the road, my hands on the wheel, and my back straight. My shoulders ache from the tension of gripping a steering wheel all day. But I make sure to bounce a little, just enough to sell the lie that I’m all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed instead of wrung out.
Fake it till you make it to Cleveland, Poppy Grace,I tell myself.
“I don’t snore,” he finally says.
“I beg to differ. You don’t snoreloudly, but you snore.”
“You break your nose taking a ball to the face in ninth grade and see how you sleep,” he mutters, and I know I’ve got him. He pauses, and I can feel his eyes on me before I let my eyes flit to him. “Only to Cleveland. And if you get tired, you have to promise to tell me.”
“I will,” I lie.
Another thing I won’t tell him: my ankle is screaming. The roads into Columbus are stop-and-go, requiring constant pressure from my bruised, swollen ankle. But once we’re past the city, I can use cruise control again. I can do this.
“And we’re talking the whole time so I can make sure you’re okay,” he adds. Then he digs into his snack bag. “Also, here. Sunflower seeds. They’ll keep your mind just occupied enough to stay sharp.”
I wrinkle my nose, my eyes fixed on the road. “Ew. You want me to spit seeds into a cup?”
He sounds either offended or incredulous, I can’t tell which. “You have a problem with sunflower seeds, Miss Spicy Cheetos?”
