Figuring he was every bit as stubborn – or more – than I was determined, I reached into my bag, taking one pill.
“Happy?” I asked, trying to keep the snippy out of my tone, knowing none of this was his fault.
“That you won’t be shifting in your seat and wincing every fifteen seconds? Yeah. It’s distracting.”
So… not concern then.
Just annoyance.
“What are you–” I squeaked when suddenly, he pulled off to the shoulder, threw the car into park, yanked off his belt, then curled, reaching over toward my door, his chest and face just an inch from mine.
“If you didn’t sit like you’re some goddamned royalty,” he started, grabbing the lever to tilt my chair backward, “maybe you wouldn’t be hurting so much.”
“I–” I started as my seat went back a few inches, the sound making his gaze shoot to mine.
And, somehow, I lost what I was about to say as his eyes pinned mine, the words feeling strangled in my throat, tight and suffocating as food eaten in a rush.
“Better, right?” he asked as he clicked the lever back one more time until I was no longer really sitting up, more like leaning back.
“Ah, yes,” I agreed, voice airy, strange.
“Good,” he said, watching me for another long second before yanking suddenly away, re-fastening his seatbelt, putting the car back into drive, and pulling away.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Waking up.
Me.
I had never been the kind of person who had been able to fall asleep anywhere. In fact, I had found it completely impossible to do so in front of other people, let alone in a car where anyone we passed could look in and see me.
Around us, the windows were dark.
Almost eerily dark.
Country dark.
Not a street light or porch light or headlight in sight.
“You snore.”
“I do not!” That almost sounded like a screech.
My reaction made a small smile pull at his lips before he half-turned to me. “Like an overweight back-sleeper.”
Oh, god.
No way.
That was, well, incredibly embarrassing.
“Relax. I’m fucking with you,” he admitted. “But it’s no fun fucking with you when you look like I’d kicked your dog.”
I didn’t even care that he was teasing me, the relief was so strong.
Wanting to cover that reaction, I cleared my throat as I reached up to flatten my hair. “May I know where we are? Or am I not supposed to know?”
“Seeing as we took all your electronics, there’s no risk in you knowing. We are in upstate New York. We’re almost at our place for the night. We would have stopped for a rest by now, but you were out cold. Figured I would just let you sleep through. The house will be stocked with food.”
“Okay. Thank you,” I agreed, feeling my belly grumble, the only thing I had eaten being the granola bar this morning and some trail mix packet Gunner had tossed at me before I had fallen asleep.
I needed food.
And to stretch my legs.
“Ten minutes,” he added, tone almost… softer. But that couldn’t be right. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who could do soft.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, we were turning off this never-ending backroad and onto an even more backroad-ish backroad.
“I know,” he said when my hands slammed out onto the door and the center console, trying to brace myself as the car jostled violently on the uneven dirt road. “Not too much further,” he added, wincing like he was the one hurting.
It was maybe the first bit of genuine humanness I had seen in him.
A few minutes later, just when I could feel a distinct burning in my eyes, the headlights finally caught on a small, dark log home situated in a semi-circle of colossal pine trees.
“Alright,” Gunner said, putting the car in park. “Let’s settle in. I’ll grab the bags later.”
“I can–”
“I said I’d get them later. Let’s get inside. Make sure you aren’t bleeding after all that.”
Since I was maybe worried about the same thing, I carefully climbed out of the car, following him up the rough path to the front door.
“Go on,” he said once the door was open, as he reached inside to flick on a light.
Sometimes houses could be deceptive. Capes, for example. They looked tiny from the outside, but were bigger within.
This was not the case of this rustic log cabin. It was exactly as small on the inside as you would think from the outside. Directly inside and to the right was a small L-shaped kitchen with black appliances that didn’t look too old, faux black and brown granite countertops, and off-white cabinets above and below.
There was a small, well, it was almost wrong even to call it a ‘hall’ it was so small, but hall that had two doors on either side. One would imagine, a bed and a bath.
Singular.
One bedroom.
Would we be sharing?