Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss (15 page)

I’d just sent Grace’s email when my in-box beeped to show there was an incoming message. It was from Grace. Emails that cross in the ether have to be one of my all-time least favourite things. I glanced over at Dylan who was looking up roadmaps on the internet, even though we had about fifty billion guidebooks and decided I had time to read and reply.

I smirked at the PS. When I was sixteen, I’d spent all my time angsting about my monster-sized crush on Dylan and the vain hope that one day he’d declare his undying love. I looked over at him. He was still mesmerised by his ’puter screen and was now looking at his in-box, even though I was the only one who ever sent him emails. I knew one way of getting his attention.

I grinned as his computer beeped and started to compose my reply to Grace.

My wifi time was almost up. Dylan was paying for our coffee as I clicked on the message he’d just sent me.

We spent most of the day wandering around and going into air-conditioned cafés when the heat got too much. The rest of the time we asked people where Chicago County Hospital was while they looked at us as if we’d asked them if they wanted to accompany us to The Mothership. The things I do for that woman!

Last night Dylan didn’t sleep at all. His tossing and turning kept waking me up. I thought it was the cold air coming from the ventilator shafts that was stopping him from sleeping. I rolled over so he wouldn’t keep disturbing me and went back to this strange dream where I was appearing on the Norwegian version of
Deal or No Deal
.

The first watery rays of sunlight were coming through the blinds when I realised Dylan wasn’t in bed. I sat up and stared blearily around the room. He was sitting in a chair in just his boxers, poring over one of the guidebooks.

‘Dylan, what are you doing?’ I asked sleepily. ‘Come back to bed, it’s (I peered at the travel clock) five in the morning.’

He turned round. ‘Go back to sleep,’ he said quietly. ‘I just wanted to check something.’

I groaned to let him know he was being weird and snuggled back down. When I next woke up, it was nine and Dylan was asleep in the chair, the top half of him draped over the desk.

I climbed out of bed and ran a gentle hand down his back. I could feel all the individual vertebrae in his spine. Dylan didn’t stir.

I crouched down and stroked his hair. ‘D,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘You’re gonna have terrible backache when you wake up.’

Dylan muttered something and pushed his head against my hand like a dog does when it’s really getting into the whole petting experience. I nudged his shoulder a bit more firmly and Dylan opened his eyes and gingerly sat up.

‘Ow, ow, ow,’ he moaned as he straightened his spine.

‘You should have a shower and put it on sting-spray setting,’ I suggested helpfully. ‘Then I could give you a massage.’

‘Maybe,’ Dylan said blearily.

‘So what’s the deal with you getting up in the middle of the night to start checking the route?’ I teased. ‘Don’t you trust my fail-proof itinerary?’

‘Not now, Edie,’ snapped Dylan, walking into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him.

And at first I wasn’t too bothered. There was a difference to Dylan being ratty because he was sleep-deprived, and
us
not talking. But this morning he just pushed his Lumberjack Slam breakfast around his plate and gave monosyllabic replies to my bright enquiries about what he wanted to do today.

The only useful information I could get out of him was that he was bored with Chicago and he wanted to get on the road again.

‘I suppose we should head in the direction of North Dakota,’ I said as we started to drive out of Chicago. ‘I’ll just check what route we need to take.’

Dylan cleared his throat. ‘We have to talk about that.’

I raised my eyebrows at him. ‘Is that what got you out of bed in the middle of the night? Did I make a mistake on the itinerary?’

Dylan’s hand shook slightly as he adjusted the rearview mirror. ‘I don’t want to go that way. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Er, why?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

Dylan’s face was set in grim lines. ‘I want to head to Kentucky and then maybe Tennessee, we might have to go through Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and then LA.’

I stared at him. ‘What?’ I demanded incredulously.

‘I don’t want to go your way,’ he insisted grimly.

‘Pull over!’ I demanded furiously but Dylan ignored me. I didn’t know what he was thinking, which weirded me out almost as much as his sudden brain implosion. I can read Dylan pretty well but this… this was entirely out of my realm of experience. His whole body was tense, his knuckles white as they clutched the steering wheel.

I reached out and covered his hand with mine.

‘Dylan, what is going on with you?’ I said gently.

He knocked my hand away.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘Oh God!’ I half-screamed in frustration. ‘Pull over. NOW!’

Dylan yanked the wheel, cutting through two lanes of traffic to the accompaniment of car horns and pulled in to the side of the road.

‘You want to add weeks to our journey and you don’t want me to ask why?’ I started, but Dylan just crossed his arms and wouldn’t look at me.

‘I’m just asking you to do this one thing for me,’ he snarled. ‘I don’t see what the big deal is.’

I waved the notebook with the itinerary in his face angrily and started ranting at him. Which probably wasn’t the most beneficial way to handle Dylan’s sudden freaky mood shift but it made me feel a lot better.

‘You couldn’t tell me before we left Washington which would have saved us a week in the car?’ I berated him. ‘Was it so difficult to say, “Edie, I think your schedule sucks and I’ve spent two years telling you I want to go to Seattle but I’ve changed my mind and would like to spend weeks driving through the Deep South during the hottest part of the year”? You are such a jerk sometimes.’

That got through to him, he snatched the notebook out of my hand and tossed it out of the window, catching my arm on his watch-strap in the process and ripping the skin.

I sucked the damaged flesh into my mouth. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

Dylan turned on me, his eyes flashing furiously. ‘If you loved me Edie, you’d trust me and you’d shut up for one bloody minute!’

‘Dylan,’ I said deliberately, trying desperately to keep my temper. ‘We’re in this together, OK?’

‘You don’t have to talk to me like I’m mentally challenged,’ he interrupted.

That did it. ‘I prefer the term retarded,’ I sniped. ‘You just spring this on me and I have no comeback, because bottom line is you’re driving.’

‘That just about covers it,’ agreed Dylan. ‘Can we go now?’

He turned the key in the ignition and shot out into the road.

‘You are bloody unbelievable—’ I began but before I could finish my sentence about just what a dickhead he was, Dylan reached forward and switched the radio on so loud, it drowned out the sound of my voice.