I shrugged. “Blue Harbor is my home. Sure, there are some things I don’t like, but you’ll have that anywhere. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, so I figure my grass is green enough, you know?”
“I suppose.”
“Plus, warmer places tend to be humid, and that shit isn’t good for my hair. Makes me look like a fuzzball.”
He breathed out a laugh before cursing and hitting the brakes, throwing his arm out in front of me to keep me from slamming forward. The heavy snow had made it hard to see that far in front of us, and he’d nearly smashed into the back of a car stopped in the middle of the road.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Y-Yeah.” I’d forgotten to put my seat belt back on after leaving the gas station, so if not for his arm, my head probably would’ve smashed against the dashboard. “Thank you.”
“You need to buckle up,” he growled. Though he sounded angry, I saw the worry in his eyes.
“What do you think’s going on?” I asked, pulling my seat belt across my torso and buckling it.
“I don’t know.” He put on the emergency blinker so cars coming up behind us would be able to see us and not have an accident like we almost had. He then unbuckled himself and opened the door. “Wait here.”
As he got out of the car, I looked around, confused. A car pulled up behind us, then another behind that one. Moments later, the door opened, letting in flurries of snow as he got back inside.
“Did someone have an accident?” I asked.
“Not that I could see.” Daniel rubbed his hands together and blew in them. “There’s a line of cars in front of us.”
“Behind us too,” I said, pointing to the rear. “A blizzard and a traffic jam. How lovely. It could be worse, I guess. We could end up—”
“Don’t even say it,” he interjected. “You’ve cursed us enough.”
I laughed. “You say that like I’m some kind of witch. I have many talents, Mr. Sawyer, but fortune-telling isn’t one of them. If I had the skill to curse people, I’d use it on my ex-boyfriends to give them anal warts. Not give us blizzards.”
A knock at my window made me scream. A police officer stood on the other side, so I quickly rolled down the window.
“Afternoon, Officer,” Daniel said, leaning over to speak to him. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”
“I’m afraid the road’s closed,” the officer answered. “You’ll need to turn around and find another route.”
“There is no other route,” Daniel pointed out. “We’re heading to Blue Harbor.”
“Not today you’re not. A few trees are down and blocking the road. Crews are on their way, but it will be a while.”
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, feeling a bit panicky.
“I suggest you turn around and get a room for the night. Should be cleared by morning.”
He tapped the top of the car before moving on to the vehicle behind us. I rolled my window back up and turned toward Daniel, freezing when I met his cold eyes.
“What were you saying about it could be worse?” he said.
“Hey, this isn’t my fault.” The car in front of us drove forward, backed up a little, then drove forward again to get out of place and turn around. I grabbed my phone and opened the GPS. “I’ll look for a nearby town. Oh, that’s not good.”
“What’s not?”
I showed him the screen where most of the routes were lit up in red and orange. “We don’t have many options. Most of these roads are blocked off right now. Man, this is one hell of a snowstorm.”
“What about that one?” he asked, shifting closer to me.
I followed the route a ways. “Looks like it goes to a place called Ivory Falls.”
“Never heard of it.” He put on his blinker to let the person behind us know we were turning around. “But it’ll have to do.”
“Should I set a course, Cap’n?”
Daniel gave me a what the fuck look before a slow smile spread across his face. “And you said you weren’t a nerd.”
“I’m not. Pirates are cool.”
“Sure.”
I chose the route and placed my phone on the stand between us so he could see the screen. It took about an hour for us to even leave that area, then another two before we reached Ivory Falls because traffic was bumper-to-bumper, which made one mile feel like thirty.
“Oh god,” I said, checking out the town as we drove down the street. “This reminds me of a Hallmark movie. Small town in the middle of nowhere with a cute little Main Street area and Christmas decorations everywhere. I don’t think they got the memo that Christmas is over.”
“Some people don’t take down their decorations until mid-January.”
“Well, that’s dumb.”
“So you’re a nerd who also watches Hallmark movies?” he asked.
I peered over at him. His eyes were on the road, though the corner of his mouth was hitched upward.
“I read sappy gay romance novels too,” I said. “Might as well get it all out in the open.”
“I didn’t know you were gay. Not until that night,” he said, frowning. Then his face smoothed, and he returned to his too-serious self. “But we shouldn’t be discussing such personal matters. I apologize.”
However, I wasn’t letting it go that easy.
“I once wore a leather choker to work on accident because I was hungover and forgot to take it off. I still had glitter in my hair too. And I told you I was spending New Year's Eve at Allie’s, which is a gay bar. You’re telling me you never even suspected that I might be gay?”
“I don’t stereotype,” he responded, cool as ever. “Straight men can like leather and glitter too.”
“Do you?”
Blue eyes flashed to me before flickering back to the road. “Find a hotel. I’m ready to get out of this car.”
Sighing, I snatched my phone from the stand and scrolled through the nearby hotels. “There’s a Holiday Inn two blocks away.” I gave him the directions before bringing my legs up into the seat and looking out the window.
We had been in the car together for almost nine hours total, four to Greenville, then the rest on the drive back and getting caught up in traffic and craziness from the storm. In that time, Daniel had seemed interested in getting to know me, but then he had backtracked and changed the subject.
“This doesn’t bode well,” he muttered once arriving at the hotel. The entire parking lot was crammed with cars.
“It really doesn’t,” I said. “This was the only hotel I saw.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope.” I pressed my lips together. “Unless you want to try a motel. There were two at the edge of town.”
“We might have to if this doesn’t work. I’m going to see if they have a room.” He stopped in a non-parking spot and left the car running as he opened the door.
I one hundred percent did not check out his ass as he walked toward the entrance and went through the automatic sliding doors. A huge line of people stood in front of him, and then he disappeared in the crowd. Five minutes later, he walked out of the building with a grim expression. His tie swooshed with the wind as he opened the door and slid back inside the warm car.