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I come back to the present when Darius reaches into the back seat and fetches a battered, spiral-bound notebook and pen. From the corner of my eye, I watch as he flips it open and pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. The impossibility of his aqua eyes always startles me, a color that can’t exist outside of a book of paint swatches.
Pursing his lips in concentration, he stretches out his long legs, rests his expensive-looking sneakers on the dashboard, and starts working on something I can’t see. Maybe he uses those brainstorming bubble charts to come up with new insults for me. When the book tips in my direction, I realize he’s sketching. Drawings of dogs and cats and human hands fill the rest of the page–from what I can see, they’re beautifully rendered. Feeling my gaze on him, he curls a lip at me and angles the book away before getting lost in his work again. Every once in a while, he reaches automatically for the cup of coffee, then pulls his hand back.
“You didn’t have to be here,” I comment the fiftieth time that he sighs and shoots me a dirty look.
He lowers the pen and rubs his eyes. “Huh?”
“If you didn’t want to sit in a car with me, you could have just used your own. Don’t take it out on me that you’re too lazy to drive.”
Fixing his eyes on the road ahead, he sets his jaw and stays silent.
“Are you too good to–”
“I can’t, okay?” he snaps.
“You can’t drive?”
“Say what I will about you, your verbal comprehension is excellent.”
When I shoot him a look, he rolls his head sideways and cocks an eyebrow at me, puffing out his cheeks sarcastically. Is it sad that this is the most I’ve talked to someone outside a swimming class for months? “Did no one bother to teach you?”
“Next.” Slapping the notebook shut, he throws it in the back.
“Why didn’t you ride with the team?”
“Next.”
“Do you not have any friends or family coming down to watch?”
“I do, actually. Here, I’ll prove it.” He pushes his sunglasses back down and pulls out his phone, holding it up with the camera toward his face. After a few seconds of ringing, a woman’s voice answers. “Dare?”
Darius smiles brightly, but I can’t tell if it reaches his eyes. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Do you want to come over?” she purrs seductively. “I can invite Stacey and Kendra too, like last time.”
Jesus. I splutter on my coffee, and Darius flicks his eyes to me with a small smile. “We can hang out tonight, when you get to Vancouver. Are you gonna leave soon?” When the woman doesn’t answer right away, I can see his expression go flat. “Really, Ali? I took you on a cruise and you can’t even be bothered to drive a couple of hours for me?”
She groans. “God, Dare, stop being so high maintenance. We’re not even in an actual relationship.”
“Fine.” Gritting his teeth, he glares out the window. “I’m done with this.”
“Not if I’m done with you first.”
Ali’s string of insults gets cut off as he ends the call and tosses his phone on the dashboard. He slides down low in his seat, hanging an arm over his eyes.
“The foursome is off, I take it?”
He lifts his arm enough to reveal one eye. “What, did you want to join in?”
“Did you want me to?” I counter, immediately wondering what the hell is wrong with me. He shifts in his seat and eyes me with an expression I can’t read.
“Just a heads up,” I add, trying to change the subject. “Adding more women to your sex doesn’t make you straighter.”
I hear him swallow. When he answers, his voice has frozen over. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. If you’re trying to prove something to yourself, it’s not going to work.”
Shaking his head, he leans his seat back and closes his eyes, poking at the stereo with his shoe until the radio changes to music. “I think you’re jealous.”
