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“And by ‘Not long,’ she means twenty minutes,” Jules clarified.
“He was interested!”
“He was shell-shocked. I’m surprised she didn’t drag out that turtle getting a straw pulled out of his nose.”
“At this point, everyone has seen it. They just don’t care,” Gemma added, eyes sad.
Soft, soft soul.
“What do you have there?” I asked, looking at her aluminum container. It could be water, if I was lucky.
“Vanilla soy latte.”
Oh, fuck.
I had a feeling the smell of that would be impossible to get out of the carpets.
“Which is going to stay with me,” Jules informed us, taking it from her sister’s hand.
Thank you, I mouthed to her, watching as she shot me a small smile.
“You two have fun. Gemma, if you could avoid your usual curb-checks, I’m sure Lincoln will appreciate it,” she added, making her way back into the office.
“I’m not that bad of a driver,” Gemma insisted, pouting a little at being ganged up on.
“Yeah, man. Not too bad. She’s only had like three fender-benders.”
“Two of those were not my fault,” Gemma told him, giving him small eyes. “Okay, come on. No more procrastinating. I want to drive your car,” she told me, walking over toward the driver’s side.
“Can I ask you something,” I said as I got into the passenger side–a place I’d never sat before–as she fiddled with the seat settings, trying to adjust them and the mirrors to suit her slightly different height.
“Shoot,” she agreed, grimacing as she flicked off my radio station.
“Why do you want to drive my car?”
Everyone knew she wasn’t a fan of cars, that she only saw them as means of transport, not something to particularly enjoy, just a daily functionality. Loving something like a car, to Gemma, was similar to loving your water heater.
“Your cars are important to you. And, well, we both know they aren’t to me. But I wanted to get a chance to see what it is you like so much about it. I figured the best way to do that was to drive it myself. Looking at them hasn’t really done much of anything for me.”
That was, well, incredibly sweet.
“That’s nice, Gem, but you don’t have to like everything that I like. Just like I can’t like everything that you do.”
To that, she cast a smirk in my direction. “You barely gave yoga a try.”
“Babe, I literally fell onto my head. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“There’s a learning curve.”
“And I said I would give it one more try. But if I don’t like it, that’s okay. And if you do this and don’t like it, that’s okay too. We can have separate interests.”
Lord knew there was no way in hell I was going to be all gung-ho about her wheatgrass shots or morning meditation.
“Okay. Ready?” she asked, satisfied with her adjustments.
God no.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Oh, God,” she shrieked when a tap of her big toe sent the car searching forward. “Okay. Um. Yeah. I don’t like this.”
“Baby, you drove ten feet,” I told her, smiling.
“Yeah, ah, I don’t think I want to do this anymore. It has a life of its own,” she added, voice a little rough.
I couldn’t keep the laugh in at that. “Okay. How about I take us on a drive? You can check out the foliage and shit.” I’d never seen someone who got quite the kick out of the changing seasons as she did.
“That sounds like a much better plan,” she agreed, practically falling over herself to get out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s.
“Better?” I asked, feeling much better in the driver’s seat after having spent a moment restoring all my settings.
“Much better,” she agreed, reaching over to place her hand over mine on the gearshift, giving it a squeeze.
With that, we took off.
She cooed over the trees.
I got to be in control over my car with my woman at my side.
It was the perfect fucking afternoon.
“Hey!” she shrieked, jerking forward in her seat.
“What?” I asked, tense.
“Someone is breaking into my car!” she yelled, jabbing a finger out the window toward where her car was parked on the street a few feet from the entrance to the office.
She was both right and wrong.
Yes, her car door was open. And, yes, someone was inside of it.
But no one was trying to rob her.
Nope.
Someone was trying to help her.
I could barely even put the car into park before she was charging out. Armed with, I don’t know, her good nature.
I had no idea what she thought she was going to say to him if he actually turned out to be a burglar.
Climbing out, I heard her declare to the man’s back that he was in her car.
She missed it.
The smell.
The scent that was always attached to a certain someone we both knew. Industrial cleaners, a hint of lemon, bleach.
She also missed the black bag full of garbage. And the caddy full of cleaning supplies.
