“Thank you,” she says, her voice slicing through the quietude I was just beginning to enjoy, “for the tip earlier. It was really generous of you. I don’t always get a chance to thank people when they do that.”
I don’t open my eyes, instead I mumble a quick, “Yep.”
“Can I ask … why?” The car pulls to a sudden LA stop.
I open my eyes to make sure we’re not about to become minced meat. “Why what?”
“Why did you tip me a hundred dollars on a twenty-dollar tab?” she asks.
Shrugging, I sit up straight, accepting the fact that she’s probably one of those types who are going to want to talk the whole ride home. Some people just can’t handle silence. It’s like they don’t know what to do with it.
“Does it matter?” I ask.
Maritza turns to me, her dark eyes fanned with even darker lashes. “It’s just that you were so rude to me at first. I actually expected you to stiff me. So when you went in the complete opposite direction … it just caught me off guard.”
“I don’t know. Token of appreciation for bending the rules.”
“Not like I had a choice.” Her foot presses into the gas pedal and we start moving again. “You all but demanded I give you another pancake.”
“Turn left at the next light,” I tell her, changing the subject.
“For the record, I only caved because you were so damn persistent. And you’re military. I have a soft spot for you guys.”
People always mean well when they glorify you for serving in the military, for when they thank you for your service or offer you free things or discounts, but I’m not some saint and I don’t deserve any kind of special recognition.
I’ve only ever done what I had to do.
No credit is due.
I check the time. Forty more minutes to go.
A long forty more minutes.
“So are you still in the military?” she asks. “Active duty, I mean?”
“Yep. Going back to Afghanistan next week.”
“Do you ever get scared? Going there?” she asks. Her question feels way too personal to ask a complete stranger but I’m sort of stuck here, so …
“This is the wrong line of work if going over there scares you,” I say, releasing a hard breath. I’m not sure how this girl can crash into my Porsche and then act like we’re suddenly best friends having a heart-to-heart.
“How do you do it?” she asks, glancing my way for a second. “How do you not let it get to you?”
I’ll admit the first time was a little unnerving, not knowing what to expect, but a guy gets used to it, especially when he has no other choice.
“You block out the parts that make you feel the shit you don’t want to feel,” I say, shifting in my seat.
“Ah,” she says, hands gripping the steering wheel. “You’re one of those.”
“One of those?”
“Yeah. A macho-macho man,” she says, sinking her perfect teeth into her full lower lip as she fights a teasing smirk. “No emotion. No cares. Personality of steel.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing. We owe it to ourselves to feel. To allow ourselves to be angry or sad or scared or whatever,” she says. “There’s beauty in feeling an entire spectrum of emotions in a world where everyone else is trying to numb themselves with drugs or alcohol or sorry excuses for love.”
If I allowed myself to feel everything all the time, it might send me on my own personal warpath and that wouldn’t be good for anyone. Been there, done that. Can’t do it again. I hurt way too many people—people that I cared about more than anything in this world.
“Take a left,” I say.
“I dated this one guy for, like, three years. Took me that long to realize he was always going to love his garage band more than me.” Maritza chuckles. It says a lot about a person who can laugh about wasting some of the best years of her life on some self-centered prick. She clicks on her turn signal and cuts off a BMW.
“I’m sorry—why are you telling me this?”
“I’m just elaborating,” she says. “On the whole letting-yourself-feel thing. If I would’ve just numbed myself off, I’d probably be knee deep in some new, shitty relationship, repeating all my old mistakes. Negative emotions have a purpose, you know?”
“Sure.” I try to shut her out but her voice is so soft and soothing, annoyingly pleasant. She’s like a real life podcast that I’m being forced to listen to but secretly think it’s not all that bad.
“I told my roommate I’m swearing off relationships for at least a year,” she continues. “I just want to find myself—which I know is completely cliché, but I don’t care. I want to say ‘yes’ more and do things I wouldn’t have done before, meet new people, make new friends. That sort of thing. You probably think I’m insane, but it just feels like the timing’s right. I kind of just want to be solo for a while, you know? Party of one.”
My lips press together. If I were in a chatty mood, I could tell her how much I appreciate that we share many of the same sentiments. There aren’t a lot of girls, especially girls who look like her, who aren’t throwing themselves at every man they meet, desperate to try to pin them down so they don’t have to spend another New Year’s, spring break, or wedding season alone.
“You said you deploy next week?” she asks. “What are you doing until then?”
My nose wrinkles and for a second, I wonder if she’s using some kind of reverse psychology or bait-and-switch tactic on me. I’ve seen girls do that before … acting disinterested or anti-love one minute because they think it makes you want them more, and the second they have you exactly where they want you, they make a move.
Too bad for them that’s the kind of shit that doesn’t work on me.
In fact, it usually tends to do the exact opposite, leaving me turned off and disgusted. Insulting my intelligence is one of the worst things a woman can do.
“Don’t worry—I’m not asking you out. I just feel bad about your car,” she says. “I’m sure you had plans and stuff. I’d hate for you to be stranded all week. If you need any rides anywhere, let me know. My number should be on that paperwork the cop gave you.”
Adjusting my seat, I pull in a deep breath. It’s the least she could do for me—driving me all over LA like my own personal chauffeur, but I refuse to rely on anyone, especially not some chick I don’t even know.
“I’ll manage,” I say.
Ma has an old Mercury Sable in storage—granted, I have no idea if it still runs—but I’ve got my fingers crossed pretty damn hard. I’ll probably spend the rest of tonight tinkering around with it and once I get that running, I’ll head to Pasadena to start fixing my Porsche.
“You think your car will be okay?” she asks.
“Hopefully.” I’m ninety percent sure it’ll be fine, but I won’t know until I take a closer look. Until then, she can continue feeling bad about it for all I care.
“It’s a cool car. Love that it’s not flashy. It’s understated,” she says. “Very classic.”