Once Upon a Road Trip (47 page)

Vince’s breathing came slow and even beside her. He was asleep, but Angie wasn’t sure how deeply, and she doubted she’d be able to untangle herself without disturbing him. At her back she felt a slight stirring and an audible huff. Budweiser was apparently displeased with having to share his preferred sleeping space.

The sun sent bars of light streaming in through the parted slats of the window blinds beside the futon. She spotted an alarm clock on the window sill, but it was angled in such a way that she couldn’t read it without moving.

“Good morning.”

Angie’s gaze snapped back to Vince’s face at the whispered greeting. His eyes were open and he was regarding her with a hazy, placid expression. She was struck by the way a ray of light fell across his face and ignited their green depths to a state of brilliance. For the first time, she noticed that the inner ring of his irises were lined with gold flecks that radiated outward, reminding her of sunlight filtering through the leaves of a forest canopy. They were nothing short of captivating.

“Hi,” she said, as all other words eluded her.

He lifted a hand to her face and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “How are you feeling?”

She smiled faintly at the touch and let the weight of her head settle back against his shoulder. “A lot better than I was last night.”

Maybe better than I’ve ever felt.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she liked this feeling — the warm security of being held. She understood the appeal of it now, as much as she understood the potential danger.

“You should have woke me up,” she added.

“I tried.” Vince’s smile reached his eyes. “You were out like a light.”

A sudden flurry of sound and activity from across the room shattered the stillness of the moment. Realization carried with it the hot surge of embarrassment, bringing a flush to Angie’s skin.

Oh no. No no no…

“Vinny!? Did ya forget to set yer alarm?” Marie’s high trill carried through the room as she came barging through the door. She didn’t stop there. Her footfalls carried through the room as she approached. “Son, yer gonna to be late for work! Are ya sick?”

With nowhere to hide, Angie turned her head and buried her face in Vince’s shoulder. Invisibility launched to the top of her list of desired superpowers.

“No, Mom,” Vince intoned, patiently. “I’m taking the day off. Angie got hurt yesterday, and I don’t want to drag her around with me again.”

“Oh…well, bless her heart. I hope she’s feelin’ better.” Marie’s voice took on a pleasant trace of concern. “Just remember to call in. I’ll see ya’ll tonight, if it ain’t too late. I’ve got karaoke with the girls again.” The woman’s footsteps receded into the background. 

Angie waited for several seconds after she heard the door close before lifting her head. The extent of her mortification must have been plain on her face, as Vince’s brows drew together in obvious worry.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” Angie answered, open with her aggravation. “Your mother just found me in your bed. You don’t see how this must look?”

Vince’s expression softened. “What does it matter? Nothing happened. She’s not going to think anything of it—”

“Why, because it’s normal for you to have cuddly slumber parties with girls?” she cut in, sardonic.

He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. That’s just the way it works. She prides herself on staying out of my business and not asking questions. Even if she did think something was going on, it probably wouldn’t bother her.” 

“Well it -should- bother her.” Angie sighed, breaking her gaze away from his eyes to keep from staring into them for too long.

Vince caught the back of her hand and brought her palm to rest against the center of his chest. When he chuckled, the sound reverberated through her. “Sometimes I don’t think you’re from this planet.”

“You don’t have to stay home,” she deflected.  “I’m fine. I don’t want to disrupt your routine.”

“I’ve never had a more worthwhile reason to play hooky.” He smiled at her with a fondness that made her stomach quiver. “Besides, I’ve worked for the state for over a year and never taken a day off. I can burn a vacation day without anyone missing me.”

Angie couldn’t think of an argument to that, and so she laid her head back against his shoulder, setting her eyes on the window. Some consistent portion of her thoughts reminded her she ought to be putting distance between them before she was any more unfair to him. Meanwhile, something else was nagging at her. The room was quiet. Distractingly quiet. It took her another second to figure out why that bothered her. She hadn’t completely adapted to the constant background sound he required at night, but its absence still felt wrong.

“You didn’t have the radio on. Did you get -any- sleep?” she asked, failing to strain the concern out of her voice.

“I don’t think I’ve ever slept that well.” Vince smiled as he answered, rubbing his thumb back and forth across her knuckles in an absent motion while staring up at the top bunk. His eyes were thoughtful, though his face had relaxed to a tranquil state.  “Angeli…how would you define love?” He posed the question seemingly out of nowhere.

Angie felt a tightening of panic in her chest. She consciously forced her breathing to remain steady, even as she felt her heart rate speed up in betrayal. Her instincts blared a warning through her mind. She had every reason to suspect the conversation was about to go in a direction she’d never intended. And yet, the best she could come up with was a delay tactic.

“That depends on what kind of love you mean.” She managed to hold a carefully intellectual tone, refraining from launching into a dissertation on the four separate Greek definitions that came to her mind. “Parental love, friendship love, romantic love—”

“Romantic love.” Vince’s voice held a calm decisiveness.

Angie swallowed hard, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “Romantic love, I think, requires a degree of physical attraction, but devotion is needed to maintain it as an actual relationship. Physical attraction is a feeling you don’t really have control over, but devotion is something that has to be chosen. So, ideally…I suppose it’s passion combined with the commitment to value someone else completely above oneself,” she said, daring to study his face.

Vince took his time considering her words before finally nodding to affirm he’d made sense of them. “Okay.” His voice came subdued, and he turned his head aside to fix his eyes on hers. “Then, by your definition…I’m in love with you.” He punctuated the revelation with a disarming smile.

Angie felt the entire surface of her skin begin to prickle, as though every one of her nerves had been pushed to their highest sensitivity. Guessing what was coming hadn’t made it any easier for her to absorb.

No, no, no...how did I screw up this badly again?!

She commanded herself to remain still. He’d just made himself hopelessly vulnerable to her, and she would have to treat that fact with care if she was going to talk him out of it without crushing him. Never in her life had she so sincerely wished that tact didn’t spend most of its time eluding her. 

“Don’t say that,” she said, pleadingly. “You don’t want to do this, Vince.”

“I mean it.” His face remained gentle despite his insistence. “I’m not telling you this to get something from you—I just wanted you to know. It’s probably too soon to say that without sounding crazy or desperate, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. And I’m sure. I’ve never been this sure about anything.”

“But, you know I have to leave soon.” She opened her first argument. “And they say that long distance relationships never work out.”

“Pfffft. ‘They,’” he countered with a playful air. “‘They’ say a lot of things. And who are ‘they’, anyway?”

“You know what I mean,” Angie said, building urgency. “You have work and school. You’ve barely got time to sleep as it is. And I still have the fall semester before I finish my degree. We can’t be together. You’d be a lot better off finding a nice girl somewhere close by.”

“I can call you every night on the commute back, and I’ll fly up to see you.” His response came with resolute ease. He’d thought this through — she had to give him credit. “We could make it work until you graduate.”

“And then what?” she countered. “We keep indefinitely spending all of our money on airfare going back and forth? I come down here to stay? You move up there? You have to understand, I take this very seriously. I’ve never wanted to just date around or play with anybody’s emotions. I can’t let myself consider a relationship that wouldn’t have marriage in mind as the ultimate goal.” There, she’d dropped the ‘M’ word.

That should to do the trick
. After all, weren’t most young men hardwired to run away screaming at the mere mention of serious commitment?

Vince paused at length to contemplate, but otherwise appeared undaunted. “I’m okay with that. ” He gave a faint smirk at reading her immediate skepticism. “It’s not like I don’t believe in marriage. I’m just...not really sure what it’s supposed to look like. Almost everybody on my Dad’s side of the family has been remarried two or three times—it’s like a running joke. G’s parents are still together…even though they fight all the time. But I figure, it doesn’t have to be that way. Your parents are happy, right?”

Angie blinked, caught off guard. “Well, yeah, most of the time. I think it’s just like anything else—if you want it to work, you have to do your homework and make an effort.”

“Then, you can help me with my homework.” Vince formed an amused smile. “If you decide I’m worth keeping around, I mean. I’m just asking you to give me a chance.” He curled his hand around hers as he spoke, watching her with marked intensity. “Unless you already know you could never feel the same way about me. Tell me right now, and I’ll accept that. I can be happy being your friend, and I won’t bother you with this again.”

Angie’s heart sank in her chest under his expectant gaze. The most blatant way out of this was in sight, but there was one enormous problem. She would have to lie to him.

In the moments following his declaration, she’d let down her guard long enough to entertain the idea of being with him. Now, she was overwhelmed by the realization that she might be able to love him — truly and irrefutably
— if she allowed herself to. While part of her was relieved she was capable of it after all, another part of her was petrified. As well intentioned as Vince might be, the situation would be difficult, if not impossible. She had to stand her ground, for both their sakes.

Oh, God…help me out of this.

Vince had begun to look more hopeful as her silence dragged on. So far, her debate skills had fallen short. She was going to have to do better. Angie knew what she would have to bring up — she’d just hoped that it wouldn’t come to this. “Vince…how many girls have you been with?” she asked at last, forcing the words out one at a time. If her stomach were weaker, she would have felt ill. It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable with personal questions, it was more the fact that she didn’t want to hear the answer.

Vince’s face went blank as he watched her struggle. “Just two. You, and the ex-girlfriend.” 

He answered faster than she expected. A glimmer of hope dared to materialize in the back of her mind, though her cynicism stepped on it. She had yet to clarify. “But her—” Angie paused. “Were you...sleeping with her? And I don’t mean -next- to her.”

His brows pulled into a furrow as the distinction she was making seemed to dawn on him. “Well…yeah. I thought we were always going to be together. We had plans—” He frowned as he reflected. “I was seventeen—I screwed up. I thought we were in love, but it turned out she was just using me to alleviate boredom. I shouldn’t have let myself get so…attached.” He cleared his throat, as though it would also clear the remaining pain. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”

“Did you even know what love was?” Angie spit the question out before she’d thought about it. There was a coarseness to her voice that she didn’t recognize, but she was too intent on studying him to analyze her own slip.

Vince flexed his jaw and broke eye contact for a moment. “No, I guess I didn’t. I get that now. Back then, I just couldn’t imagine that anybody else might want me.” His doleful gaze shifted back to her face. “But that’s just a bad memory now.”

“It’s a lot more than that.” Angie looked away. “It’s baggage.” She closed her eyes as she sorted her thoughts, grateful that he waited in silence for her to continue. Her chest ached — the byproduct of a mental anguish she wasn’t prepared for. This wasn’t going to get any easier, no matter how much time he gave her. She forced herself to charge ahead, “I made a promise to myself, and to God, that I’d save myself for marriage—”

“And I respect you for that. I do,” Vince broke in. “I didn’t mean to push you last night.”

“Maybe you can respect that now, but you’ll resent it later.” She shook her head, then forced herself to hold his gaze. “I know how this works—it’s progressive. Self control just gets harder with time when you want to be close to somebody. It’s never close enough.” She managed to return to a more clinical tone. “And you know what you’re missing. I don’t.”

“I’m not an animal, I can control myself,” he protested. “And I’d -never- do anything to hurt you.”

Angie slipped her hand from his grasp and cupped her palm to the side of his face. She held it there for a time before letting it slide to his shoulder. It pained her that he seemed so sincere. To make matters worse, she believed him. She couldn’t imagine how anything short of honorable intentions could be causing him to persist, in spite of the requirements she’d laid before him. But even the best intentions could only carry so much weight before splintering.

“I’d always wonder if you were thinking about her.” Angie’s vocal control faltered as she choked out the final part of her argument. “I know how I am. I might not be a ‘normal’ kind of girl, but that doesn’t mean that I’m all secure in myself. I’d end up worrying about you comparing us in your head...if you think I’m prettier, smarter, funnier, a better kisser, a better—” She closed her eyes again rather than complete the thought.