Once Upon a Road Trip (46 page)

“But you don’t go to Auburn,” she said, cautiously.

Vince shook his head. “They only gave out ten scholarships that year, and I came in eleventh in the testing. I was the best of the runner-ups. Not much of a consolation prize.”

Angie winced. “I’m sorry.”

I know how that feels.

Vince gave her an easy smile and shrugged. “It turned out okay. I’m getting done with school faster this way.” His smile faded suddenly and Angie was startled when he lifted a hand to touch her chin, turning her face toward him. He brought his face closer to hers and she froze, perplexed by his actions and even more by the intense expression he wore. “Are those…bruises?” His voice registered obvious concern.

It dawned on her that he wasn’t looking into her eyes, but just below them. She lifted a hand to touch her face, in case there might be some tactile sign of what he was referring to. “There’s something on my face?” Self-consciousness replaced all previous thought and she pulled away from him, making a beeline for the bathroom mirror.

Angie hadn’t looked at herself at all since getting ready in the morning. Rarely wearing makeup meant that she didn’t have to worry about it smudging or requiring maintenance. But with that explanation excluded, she couldn’t imagine what Vince could have confused for bruising. She hadn’t been near any soot or—

“Oh.” The exhaled word escaped her lips before she knew it had formed. There -was- bruising under her eyes. She leaned toward her reflection and wiped the pads of her index fingers at the tiny speckles of black and blue discoloration, though she knew the effort was useless.

“What’s wrong?” Vince stood in the doorway, seeming hesitant to come any further. His brows were drawn together in worry, and his voice carried an underlying tension. “Did he...did Brad hit you?” Though leaning his shoulder into the door frame gave a casual cast to his posture, his hands tightened into fists at his sides.

“What? No—” Angie shook her head and looked back at her reflection. She lifted her chin and gave her neck a brief examination. No bruising there, at least. But then, she didn’t expect there would be. Fingers left bruising. A forearm would have distributed the pressure. “It’s just…what’s the word?” She rolled her wrist as she pointed to herself, groping for the proper terminology. “Petechiae.” She nodded once at the medical term. That sounded right.

“Petiki…what?” The controlled anger in Vince’s voice cooled into confusion.

Angie lowered her head and slunk past him out of the bathroom, cutting left into his room. “It’s bruising. But not the kind you’re thinking of,” she said, stepping onto the frame of the lower bunk to reach her overnight bag. She sat down with it on the edge of the futon, beside a sleeping Budweiser, and readied a less technical explanation while she rummaged through the bag. The dog emitted a disgruntled sound and hopped off the bed. “I thought he just cut off my airway when he had me in that head lock, but he must have pinched an artery, too. Those are little blood vessels under the skin that burst from too much pressure.”

Vince crossed the room and sank down beside her while she hunted through her things. “You’re saying…he tried to strangle you?” He spoke in a slow, deliberate voice.

“I’m not saying that’s what he was going for.” She shook her head. “It was just reckless and stupid. I never should have put myself in a position like that.” Angie ended her search and sighed, turning up only an old eyeliner pencil and a small pot of lip gloss. Frustrated, she dropped the bag to the floor at her feet. “No cover stick. I guess I can’t hide it.”

Vince’s weight shifted next to her and his hand settled on her shoulder, commanding her attention. Looking toward him, she turned to show as little of her face as possible. It was unreasonable, she knew, but part of her insisted on being embarrassed.

“He almost killed you, and you’re worried about how it looks?” Vince’s tone held a quiet sobriety. With his other hand he touched along her jaw and turned her face fully toward him. “I should have taken you to the hospital.” His thumb slid over her cheekbone and brushed beneath her eye. “Does it hurt?”

“No hospital. I’m fine,” Angie insisted. “Really. It doesn’t hurt. I mean, the back of my neck is still sore, but my eyes don’t—” Her voice caught in her throat when he brought his face closer.

Vince lowered his chin and his forehead came to rest against hers. He held himself there, eyes downcast and subdued. Angie, meanwhile, reminded herself to breathe. He smelled clean — a faint, simple mingling of bar soap and shaving cream. For some reason, she liked that.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I wanted you to have some good memories of this place by the time you left. So far, I’ve dumped my problems on you, made you carsick, and, oh yeah, nearly got you killed.” His self-directed sarcasm fell short of humorous.

Angie’s distraction with his nearness was trumped by distress at his melancholy. She thought carefully before lifting a hand and laying it over the crook of his neck and shoulder. Her impulse was to touch his face, but she was still afraid of leading him on. Encouraging the wrong idea would only cause him more pain, and as far as she was concerned, he’d been hurt enough for one lifetime.

“Stop apologizing,” she said. “It’s not like I regret letting you talk me into coming here. Yeah, it’s been a little weird at some points, but if I excel at anything its weirdness.” She lightened her voice and smiled, willing his gaze to lift. “It’ll make a great story one day.”

Vince’s eyes met hers with some reluctance, and he drew his face back several inches. His brow creased with skepticism.

Angie took a deep breath. If she couldn’t convince him, she could at least redirect him. “Hey, random question—when is your birthday?”

It worked. After a brief flash of bewilderment lit his features, he answered, “The sixth of June.”

Before he had a chance to ask why, she pressed him, “What year?” It occurred to her then that she didn’t have a backup plan if she turned out to be wrong, and she immediately began praying she wasn’t.

He told her the year, still looking mystified by her line of questioning. His hand fell away from her face and returned to him. Angie forced herself to ignore the sense of loss that accompanied his withdrawal.

“So that makes you nineteen—” She stated the obvious in an attempt to buy herself time to count months, though she was already excited.

“Uh-huh,” he said, holding her in a blank stare. “What—”

She pressed onward at a nervous ramble, “I know it’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have been nosy, but I found your parent’s wedding picture and the date was written on the back of it. Its August thirteenth.” When his expression didn’t change, she added the year.

Vince’s jaw slackened and his gaze grew distant as he began to comprehend the direction of her thoughts.

“You weren’t an accident,” Angie said, putting her own elation on hold as she gauged him. “She couldn’t have been pregnant when they got married. I mean, the dates are pretty close. You were probably a honeymoon baby. But they didn’t get married because of you.” 

“All this time I was sure—” He looked away after a lengthy pause, and then back to her with sharpened focus. “I don’t know why I didn’t check the dates. I just thought it made sense.”

Angie shook her head. “Not that it should matter. It’s not like you’re any more or less valuable as a person either way, it’s just…I know it was bothering you. But you were all knotted up over believing something that wasn’t even true in the first place. I just thought you should know.”

Vince stared across his room for a moment, blinking rapidly. She wasn’t sure if he was controlling an emotional response or simply processing the information.

“Thank you for being nosy—for caring.” His voice came quiet and pensive as he took his glasses off with one hand and folded them, placing them on a shelf nearby.

Angie felt her pulse quicken, an instinctual reaction to sensing something her conscious mind couldn’t pinpoint. When he turned back, he took her face in his hands.

She wasn’t surprised when he kissed her, only by the enigmatic fervor she’d read in his gaze as he’d pulled her close. His lips met hers with sureness, separating this kiss from the one they’d shared the previous day. This was no nervous conveyance of simple affection or even brave curiosity. His mouth moved with hers in pliant warmth, and a keenness she wasn’t sure how to interpret. She had to wonder if it was all a result of misplaced relief and gratitude. That seemed like the most reasonable conclusion, though it caused a tightening of regret to grip her chest.

Angie told herself she would end it quickly, for his sake. But when the kiss deepened, her rational mind seemed to retreat. His fingers caressed her cheeks and splayed to graze along her neck. Beyond that, she found it difficult to keep track of them. As her reeling senses attempted to derive an underlying meaning from the expression between them, only one word came to her mind.

Cherishing.

It was a sense she’d never encountered before — though granted, she had limited experience with this sort of thing. But she did feel certain there was a driving force at work that stood well apart from physical attraction. And something about that frightened her.

Vince shifted closer still, arms encircling her and bringing with them an enthralling sense of security. His fingers played along her spine, causing her to shiver. His lips began to surge against hers with what she vaguely recognized as a growing eagerness. Before she’d fully comprehended the progression, he’d eased his weight forward and lowered her onto her back. She knew she should stop him, but there was a part of her that didn’t want to. And that part was more persuasive than she’d ever imagined.

His lips broke from hers only to roam along her jaw line, which failed to grant any reprieve from the confounding dizziness that overwhelmed her. His hands were roaming as well. The one that wasn’t supporting him glided along her side before tugging at the hem of her shirt. Warm fingertips graced the skin of her belly, and a mental warning ran through her like an electrical shock. Her mind jolted from its haze back to clarity as she snapped a restraining hand around his wrist.

“Clothes stay on!” She blurted out the first coherent thing that came to her.

Vince looked as though he’d just stumbled out of the same hormonal miasma she’d been caught up in. He took in several deep breaths, nodding as his eyes searched hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” His brows drew together in a pained expression, but he made no move to put any distance between them.

Stupid. Selfish.

Angie berated herself for letting things get out of hand so easily. Whatever she thought she’d interpreted amid their kiss, she was probably wrong. Like the typical gullible girl she’d never wanted to be, she was reading something into it that wasn’t there. She wasn’t aware of the iron grip she’d maintained on his wrist until Vince rotated his arm inward and bent his head, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. His eyes never left hers.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Angie shook her head.

Not physically.

But if she was risking the same emotional pain she’d been trying to keep him from, she knew she had no one to blame but herself.
“I should go...and sleep.” She glanced up to the top bunk and then back to his face. Separation would be the wisest thing, she knew, but she had no delusions about him acknowledging the fact.

“Let me rub your neck first,” Vince requested. Then, as if he knew she was prepared to argue with him he added, “I don’t want you to wake up in the morning and not be able to turn your head.”

Angie considered his point for a moment before rolling herself away from him and onto her stomach. She turned her head, exposing the right side of her neck. “Okay.” She had to wonder why she was finding it so difficult to be firm. It wasn’t as though she felt sorry for him, of that much she was sure. If anything, she’d developed a solid sense of respect for him — not pity. Despite his youthful appearance, he was more of a man than most.

Perhaps his natural charisma truly made him that convincing. Or, maybe his personality had some sort of a moderating affect on hers. Either way, she didn’t have much chance to ponder it further.

“Tell me what to do.” Vince’s request came in a earnest tone at her ear. His fingers settled against the back of her neck, awaiting instruction.

“Focus on the pads of your thumbs. Use medium pressure…small circles.”

With one hand he brushed her hair back, while the other began to knead along the distressed muscles. Her soreness was acute at first, but the steady warmth of friction and circulation eased her into a more pliable state. His fingers gradually smoothed down along her neck, following the tension into her shoulder. He was a quick study, tuning in to her every twinge and working away at its source.

“Thank you,” Angie said after several minutes had passed. Or at least, she thought it had been several minutes. Fatigue was catching up to her, affecting her perception of time. She considered blaming tiredness for her prior poor judgment while she was at it. At least Vince  remained silent while he worked, even if it was a result of a new awkwardness between them. She didn’t think she had enough will left for conversation.

Her eyelids fluttered with heaviness, and she allowed them to rest for just a moment. 

Chapter 27

Angie awoke to the glare of sun in her eyes. Her dreams blurred together into a meaningless kaleidoscope of familiar images, leaving her to wonder if this was just a continuation of one of them.

She turned her head aside to shield her eyes from the offending streak of light. As her eyes refocused, an uneasy realization washed over her. She found herself curled on her side with her cheek pillowed soundly against Vince’s chest. He was lying on his back with one arm cradling her shoulders and the other draped over her waist. She lifted her head slowly, testing the strain this put on her neck. When the shooting pain she anticipated didn’t happen, she took a moment to examine the predicament she’d gotten herself into.