“Please don’t,” he finally said. “Not with me, anyway. Just… go. We can figure out the rest, whatever it is, later.”
She flinched. Mitch’s gut twisted.
She was hurt. Clearly. And he wanted nothing more than to say he didn’t mean it, and he’d go anywhere with her and to please never leave him.
But that wasn’t fair. He knew himself and what he wanted and where he wanted to be. She needed to figure that out for herself, by herself, without him there influencing her.
Paige took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Paige…” He had no idea what he was going to say.
“No, you don’t have to say anything else. I’ll go. And we’ll just… see what happens. No promises.”
Yeah, that’s what he wanted.
At least that was what he should want.
“Okay.”
She nudged him back and stepped down from the truck seat. “We should go back inside.” She smoothed her skirt, studying her dress instead of him.
They should go back inside. Because if they stayed out here or went home together right now, he’d end up saying all of the things he was barely swallowing now.
18
A snowstorm? In April? In Illinois?
But as Paige peered through her windshield and strove to keep her car on the road, the answer to all three of those questions was a resolute yes.
Followed by son of a bitch!
It was April. How was she in the middle of what seemed, by all definitions, to be a blizzard?
She made herself relax the grip on the steering wheel. Her shoulders were tight, and she’d had to stop crying and singing along with Taylor Swift and eating peanut butter M&M’s by the handful nearly twenty miles ago.
She really needed to cry and sing and eat. She’d just had her heart broken and was driving back home alone for a wedding.
Alone. That word. It was one that she’d actually aspired to, something she’d coveted. And now, here she was. Very alone. Just as she’d said she wanted.
And it sucked.
She didn’t even care that she was definitely going to regret the M&M’s later. Her mostly-sugar-free diet made it tough on her stomach when she fell off the wagon. But she was going to be miserable later—and for the foreseeable future—so what did a little stomach pain matter?
Yes, she was being dramatic.
Mitch hadn’t broken up with her forever.
But… he didn’t want any promises from her. He didn’t believe she could make promises. She’d finally convinced a man that she wasn’t a good bet and… dammit, he was the one she wanted to be a good bet for.
She shook her head.
She needed to concentrate on driving.
Paige caught and held her breath as she saw the sign indicating the exit for Peoria emerge from the swirling white that had been her view for the past almost forty-five minutes. Yes, it had taken her forty-five minutes to drive twenty miles.
It wasn’t as if snow in April was completely foreign to her. She’d grown up in Iowa. But damn, she didn’t drive when it was blizzarding in Iowa. One advantage to living above her place of employment was that she didn’t even have to scrape her windows in the morning before work.
Still holding her breath, she started to exit. The car slid, she shrieked, and nearly broke the steering wheel off as she gripped it tightly. But the car straightened a moment later, and she was able to ease onto the off-ramp.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. She couldn’t see anyone behind her in the rearview mirror. Of course, another vehicle could be right on her back bumper before she’d see them clearly in the white-out conditions.
What the actual hell was she supposed to do now?
She eased up to the stop sign at the top of the exit. There was a slight incline, which helped her slow. Then again, she was only going maybe ten miles an hour at this point.
Of course, trying to start again while on even a slight incline when the pavement was covered in heavy, wet snow was another reason for lots of cussing. And breath-holding.
Her back tires spun, and she felt tears welling up again. These were not Mitch tears though. These were fuck-I’m-going-to-get-stuck-in-the-snow-in-Peoria-Illinois tears.
But the thought of how these tears were not for Mitch made her think of Mitch, and how if he was here, she’d be a lot less scared. He’d know what to do. He’d have stuff in the back of his truck to get them unstuck. Then again, if they were in his truck, they probably wouldn’t get stuck in the first place.
But Mitch wouldn’t know about driving in a blizzard, a voice in her head tried to helpfully point out.
The thing is, Mitch can do anything. He can fix anything. He can be depended on for any situation, another voice argued.
Oh, really? Any situation? the first voice asked. How about the situation where you’re in love with him and want him to go home to a wedding with you, but he sees it as just a chance to have fun and party and decides it’s not worth the long drive?
A horn blared behind her, and Paige jumped.
“Oh yeah, I’m just sitting here watching the beautiful snow come down!” Paige yelled. Not that anyone could hear her.
Still, it felt good to let go of some pent-up emotion.
“If I could move, I would, asshole!” she yelled, just because she could.
The horn blared again, and she tipped her head back and let a long, loud, “Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!” out.
Then she got out of her car and went stomping back to the pick-up behind her.
It was stupid. She knew that even as she was doing it. She had no idea who was behind her and what they might be capable of.
But she didn’t care. She hadn’t had an M&M in almost an hour.
“What the fuck do you want me to do?” she yelled at the driver’s side window of the truck behind her. “I’m stuck!”
The window rolled down, and a man in his fifties with a dark green stocking cap peered out at her. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
The snow swirled around her, and tiny ice pellets bounced off her coat—that had spent the past two-and-a-half months in the back seat because she certainly hadn’t needed it in Louisiana… a thought that made her feel like crying all over again.
“I’m asking you what the fuck you think honking at me is going to do?” she yelled.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
Paige felt her eyes widen. “Seriously? Seriously? What the hell kind of question is that? I’m…”
But instead of yelling about being stuck in the snow or stressed out about driving in a blizzard or being three hours away from Appleby and certain to miss Piper’s wedding, she said, “I’m completely in love for the first time in my life, and he thinks it’s all just for fun. Or rather, he thinks I think it’s all just for fun. Because that’s all I’ve ever wanted it to be before. But he’s different, and I want to be with him, and it’s okay that I’m going to this wedding alone. We don’t have to do everything together. And yeah, I’ve got some shit I need to work out with my family, and maybe it’s better if he’s not there while I do that. But I still should have told him that I love him. But I didn’t. I just left. I left and didn’t tell him I love him.”
The man was staring at her now, and Paige realized she had tears streaming down her cheeks.