Ready To Go (11 page)

She opened her eyes and sat up a bit to face him. “Sorry. I just had that feeling that someone was staring at me. Figured you were.”

“I was looking,” he admitted. “Not staring.”

She splashed him, and then quickly crossed her arms over her chest. “Same thing!”

“No it isn’t!” he replied, but he smiled. “I saw you naked last night, remember? And it’s not like your bathing suit’s that revealing.”

“True,” she said, uncrossing her arms. “You keep talking about the kissing me part and the fact that you didn’t sleep with me like it makes you a saint, I forgot the part where I was actually naked.”

“I do not keep talking about the kissing,” he said.

“Yeah you do,” she replied with a laugh. “You keep saying I’m so bad at kissing. None of my boyfriends before ever thought so.”

“Have they ever kissed you drunk?” he asked. “Because you were terrible. All tongue. I think you were licking me more than kissing me.”

She splashed him again. “You are so mean.”

“Kiss me again and I’ll tell you how good you are sober,” he suggested, grinning. He acted like he was joking, but it was clear to both of them that he wasn’t. She leaned towards him, but then paused and backed away, shaking her head. This wasn’t a good idea. His suggestive grin softened into a more genuine smile, and he shrugged. “I figured you wou-“

His words were cut off as Nicole, in a moment of boldness, kissed him. She placed both of her hands on the sides of his head, twisting her fingers in his hair to pull him closer. He wrapped an arm around her, his fingers on the bare small of her back. His other arm stayed resting against the side of the hot tub.

As abruptly as she started the kiss, Nicole pulled back. Daniel grinned and said, “Yeah, you’re definitely better sober.”

“Good,” she said with a triumphant grin. “Now that’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“We’re not starting anything just because I kissed you,” she said. “No sex, no relationship that ends badly when you drop me off. We kissed, now we go back to being friends.”

“With benefits?” he suggested. When she glared at him, he tried a different question. “So you think we’re friends now?”

“Aren’t we? I like hanging around you,” she said. “I’m not falling in love with you or anything, but I like driving with you, finding cool places like that random zoo. And I like you paying for everything.” She was giving up to herself while she was talking. She could admit to being friends.

“You’re kind of confusing,” he said. “I’m not looking for a relationship either. I just want to keep making out with you sometimes. Do you really want to forget the fact you
just
kissed me?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “That was just to prove a point. And I can’t do the physical thing without the emotional thing. That’s just not me. Except if I’m drunk, apparently.”

“Aren’t you going on this trip to change your life?” He stood up and stepped out of the hot tub. “You know I’m not a bad guy, and I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m going back to the room, I’ll see you there.”

He grabbed a towel and shook it through his hair to stop the dripping, then slung it over his shoulders as he headed out of the pool area. What was with that girl, anyway? He wasn’t going to hurt her just by sleeping with her. And if she was doing something as exciting as running away, she could be a little risky with a guy.

Nicole, alone now, didn’t know what to think of Daniel. She wore herself down to admit they were friends, and she wasn’t going to let herself give in anymore—emotions and relationships would cause all sorts of messy problems right now. But she did really like kissing him.

Once Daniel had gotten back to the room and had calmed down a bit, in more ways than one, he realized Nicole was right. It wouldn’t be fair to her to push her into the precarious arrangement he imagined. He would be okay with it, but he didn’t really know her. For all he knew, there was some dark secret in her past that made her avoid intimacy, the reason she was running away. But he doubted that. Why would she have gone with him in the first place, then?

Because he offered. He sat down on the bed and leaned back against the mattress. He’d promised he wouldn’t push her into anything in exchange for driving her, and he really had to live up to that. He didn’t know this girl, but he wanted to, and trying to convince her to have sex when she clearly didn’t want it wasn’t going to be the way to get to that. He’d just have to take what he could get.

After thinking all this through, Daniel stood up and got dressed. He grabbed the remote for the TV and sat back on the bed again. He’d only gotten through a few commercials before Nicole re-entered the room.

“You’re back,” he said as she walked over to her suitcase.

“Yeah,” she said. She dug out her pajamas and walked into the bathroom for a shower.

Daniel watched her exit the room, and then turned his attention back to the TV. He wasn’t sure what he had thought would happen when Nicole came back. He kind of wanted to jump in the shower with her, but he’d just reasoned with himself that that was a bad idea.

She came out from the bathroom, toweling off her hair. He realized that he’d never seen her in her pajamas before. She was wearing just an oversized T-shirt with tiny shorts underneath. The thin fabric clung to her chest, patches of it becoming transparent where her hair dripped water on it. Somehow, she looked sexier with more clothes on. Daniel sat up and reached for a pillow to hold in his lap. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Doing what?” she asked. She dropped the towel on the floor and kicked it back through the open bathroom door, then placed her hands on her hips and turned to face him.

“Being
that
,” he said, waving his hand vaguely at her. “You’re
really
hot.”

“I’m wearing more than I was earlier. Or would you like me to wear a muumuu?” she asked, a trace of an amused smile on her face.

“Yeah,” he said, catching onto the joke. “Cover up your sexy body.”

She laughed, and walked to the other side of the bed. She lifted up the covers and crawled under, even covering up her head. “Better?”

“Not really,” he said. “You stole my bed.”

“But you can’t see me!” she joked, her voice muffled through the thick comforter.

He stood up and turned down the covers, climbing into the bed as well. He pulled the covers over his head and found himself face to face with the grinning girl. “Now I can see you.”

She laughed again, but as her laugh died out, she seemed to realize something. She slid out of the bed. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

He sat up. “Sorry for what?”

“Leading you on,” she replied. She shook her head and sat on the corner of the bed, facing away from Daniel. “I can’t be flirting with you when we both know it’s not going anywhere.”

He sat next to her, but didn’t touch her, though he wanted to. “I don’t care. You set the boundaries here, ‘cause I don’t really have any. I can’t keep saying I want you. You already made it clear that’s not going to happen. But can you make up your mind what
is
going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hanging her head. “Could we maybe, I don’t know, keep going like we are? And I’ll just tell you if it’s too far?”

He hesitated. That didn’t sound like a great plan to him. But it was better than nothing. “Yeah. Okay. But if I run off to the bathroom when you stop me, don’t come in.”

She laughed. “That’s fair.” She glanced up at him, and he gently kissed her. He pulled her closer, and let his hand rest on her bare leg, on that smooth skin he’d been dying to touch.

The sleeping bag went unused that night.

They did sleep together, but only in the literal sense. They shared the bed because after spending time on it before falling asleep, neither really wanted to go back to the floor. So they slept side by side. Nicole had a habit of sleeping diagonally to the bed, and this meant she ended up with her head on Daniel’s shoulder. This was only a problem when he woke up first.

There was a pretty girl on his shoulder. He didn’t want to move and wake her, but he really had to pee. It’s not like she looked like an angel while sleeping anyway. She had a weird snore that sounded like a pig snorting, and a puddle of her drool was appearing on the pillow. It was dripping down his arm. Even though her saliva hadn’t bothered him last night, it was a little disgusting now.

He slid himself out from under her, replacing his shoulder with a pillow. She let out a louder snort, but stayed asleep. He sat up and stretched his arms over his head, and then glanced back at the sleeping girl. She was very pretty, once he looked past the snoring and the drool. So he couldn’t help himself when he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

He went to the bathroom and did his business. He noticed a small bag of toiletries, Nicole’s, by the sink. There was a cell phone sticking out of it. Knowing it was none of his business, he picked up the phone anyway. He pressed a few buttons. Dead. He flipped it over to see what kind of charger it took. The same as his, he realized. He had a charger in his car. He’d do her a favor and charge the phone for her.

He exited the bathroom just long enough to grab his clothes, and then headed back in to get dressed. He wasn’t sure why he bothered dressing in the bathroom, but there was just some psychological thing behind it, he reasoned. Getting dressed, or undressed, was different than already being naked. Or in his case, in his boxers. He didn’t want to do that in front of Nicole, even if she was asleep. Before leaving the bathroom once more, he picked up the phone and slid it into his pocket.

Nicole was sitting on the edge of the bed when he got out. “Morning,” she said sleepily.

“Good morning,” he replied. He knew he’d be driving first today. The girl looked in desperate need of coffee.

Once the car was packed up again, the two were once more on the road. By this time, they’d lost track of where they were. Somewhere in the Midwest. They were getting closer to their destination, wherever Nicole decided that was. They did have to stop when they hit ocean, and that was closer now.

“Can we stop at a Laundromat somewhere?” she asked. “Most of my clothes are getting dirty and soon I’ll be riding along with you naked.”

“I’m tempted to say no now,” he joked, but he reached for the GPS to search for a Laundromat. She just rolled her eyes at him. “You want me to pay for it, right?”

“Yes,” she said, like he should have known that. “You’ve got cash to blow, and I’m saving all my money for when you’re not around.”

“Good idea,” he replied. He hadn’t thought much about what would happen to her once she got to where she was going. She didn’t seem to have any kind of plan. He knew she’d be annoyed if he asked, but now that it was on his mind, he needed to know. “What are you doing when I drop you off?”

She shrugged. “I’m working on that part of the plan. I kind of want to go to LA and be a star, but really, being out here is good enough.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m not telling you everything, okay? No matter what happened last night.”

He sighed, exasperated. “I think that because we’re friends, like you say we are, and apparently I’m driving you all the way to LA now, you’re going to have to eventually tell me
why
.”

“I just can’t deal with my family, okay?” she replied. “It’s really just not something that I want to talk about. This is just the best thing for me now. Running away.” She looked out the window, the flat scenery replacing the images in her head she didn’t want to see.

He nodded. “Okay. But you don’t need to hide it from me. If you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t make you. But on the other hand, stop saying that I’m tricking you into talking. I’m not trying to do that. You keep acting like I’m evil, but then you say we’re friends, and then you make out with me. You don’t make any sense.” He was ranting, but she cut him off.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. She was trying not to cry as his words got to her. She knew she was stringing him along, and she didn’t want to be that girl. He was nicer than she gave him any credit for. He wasn’t like the guy she expected him to be

He sighed. “It’s fine. You’re probably stressed. I would be, running away from home.”

“You
are
running away from home,” she pointed out. “The only difference is that you plan to go back.”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a grimace. “Not looking forward to that.” He abruptly changed lanes as the GPS told him his exit was coming up.

The Laundromat they arrived at was fairly empty, just a couple of people washing their clothes. At least it was clean. Nicole wheeled her suitcase to one of the machines, and started loading her stuff inside. Daniel checked his wallet, and remarked, “I have no quarters. Do you see the change machine?”

“No idea,” Nicole replied. “Look around, there’s gotta be one.”

He walked over to the machine. It was one of the finicky kinds, and he had to slide the dollar along the edge of the machine to straighten it out before it would accept the money. He returned a few minutes later, quarters in hand. He gave them to Nicole, who stuck them inside the machine. “What about detergent and stuff like that?” he asked.