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“Take the door off.”
He opened his door, and a car blew by going eighty miles an hour, way too close. Ashley squeaked. Roman stuck his leg out. “Don’t do that!” she cried.
“Don’t do what?”
“You’re not supposed to get out on that side. It’s dangerous. Here, come across. I’ll get out of the way.”
She opened her own door and unlatched her seatbelt, waiting for Roman’s assent.
“Fine.”
But when she actually looked out of the car, she realized they were perched at the very edge of the road, and she couldn’t just put her feet down onto the ground. She had to jump.
Ashley bit her lip and hoped her legs wouldn’t give out. It would be embarrassing to eat dirt while Roman was watching.
She landed in the drainage ditch, and fine dirt sifted over her toes.
After a moment, Roman jumped down after her. He glanced at his shoes. They’d been shiny when he came out of the hotel this morning.
“You’re right,” he said. “This is much better.”
“Shut up.”
They waded through the scrubby roadside vegetation together. Without the rain to cool her, she was dressed way too warmly for Georgia in August. She sweated through her shirt before they even made it to the door of the Airstream.
Roman had left his jacket in the car. When they reached the trailer, he rolled up his shirtsleeves. After a glance in her direction, he took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, bent down, and cleaned the dirt off his shoes.
“Wow,” Ashley said. “You are anal.”
“Shut up.”
She smiled. She loved dragging him down to her level. There was something subversively hot about flustering a man who tried so hard not to be flusterable.
When he straightened again, he considered the door. In the ditch, they were so far below the level of the trailer that the handle was above his head, the entry step at chest level.
“Can you get up there?” she asked.
“Sure.”
But he didn’t look sure. He grasped the metal step in both hands, lifted a foot, and flattened it against the side of the trailer. His slick shoe slid right off.
Then he tried high-stepping onto the riser, but he couldn’t get his foot up enough—and she thought, even if he could do it, he’d have to split his pants in order to make it work.
If Roman Díaz ever split his pants, the world would pretty much have to stop spinning.
“Here, I’ll do it,” she said. Her cargo pants were loose, with a lot of stretch, and she’d done far crazier things in them than this.
Roman moved aside, and Ashley high-stepped, grabbed the door handle, and pulled herself up onto the trailer. It hurt a lot more than she’d anticipated. Like white-stars-in-her-vision hurt. Her shoulders ached deep in the muscle, her arms were weak, and there was a moment when the door wanted to swing open and take her with it. She felt like a cat, clinging by the claws. She threw her weight forward and somehow managed to regain her balance. When the trailer door opened, she fell inside. Then she dropped to her stomach and held her hand out to Roman.
“Here. I’ll pull you up.”
It was an unrealistic offer. Her arms were shaking, and she’d broken out in a sweat.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Roman gripped each side of the now-open doorway with his hands and hauled himself up as Ashley scrambled to vacate the space he was about to occupy.
There was nowhere to go. The place where she needed to put her body was full of boxes. Roman barreled through like a freight train, propelled by his own weight. He stepped on her ankle, then fell on her.
“Ow! Son of a bitch!”
