I don’t know why things are suddenly so stilted between us. We’ve never struggled in conversation before. Words normally flow too easily. I remember texting him nonstop on the drive to New York, earning irritated glances from Matt every time my phone buzzed with one of Fitz’s replies. We weren’t even talking about anything and yet we had everything to say.
Now something is different, and I don’t know what. It might have to do with this car ride being the first time Fitz and I don’t have distraction. There are no colleges to tour, no stars to watch, no definitions to trade. Just us. Fitz and me—and a two-hour drive. Cold sweat prickles my hands.
“Which podcasts do you like?” I ask desperately. I’d put anything on at this point, even the show Anabel is obsessed with devoted entirely to American Girl dolls.
“Oh, any of them.” Fitz doesn’t look pleased with his reply. He turns his gaze to his shoes. I fix my eyes on the highway.
“Pick one.”
“I, um, don’t know any,” Fitz answers. “I don’t actually listen to them. But put on whatever you like. I’m sure it’ll be interesting.”
I almost take him up on the offer, but it feels like giving up. Like stalling the silence instead of breaking it.
“We could talk?” I’m pretty much pleading.
“Yeah,” Fitz replies. “Okay.”
We proceed to not talk. The car fills up with quiet, like water rushing in following our plunge off the bridge of this conversation. It’s not long before the hushed hum of the road under my tires becomes unbearable.
I give up and reach for the radio knob—right as Fitz does too. Our hands collide before we both instantly pull back.
It’s one of those romance-movie moments, where the hero and heroine both blush, the heady current of contact rushing between them. Except it is not romantic. It’s cringeworthy. The mutuality of our defeat makes the whole thing way worse.
“Um, sorry,” Fitz fumbles to say.
I reach for chagrinned politeness like his and find only exasperation. “Hold up,” I say loudly enough to startle. “Why is this suddenly the most awkward car ride of my entire life?”
I steal a glance at him. He looks physically pained. “Surely you’ve had worse,” he suggests weakly.
“Nope. This wins.”
“Well, it’s definitely your fault,” he replies.
I round on him, tearing my eyes from the highway for a brief moment. “My fault?” I repeat incredulously. “It’s definitely not my fault. I think it’s because we don’t have enough in common. We probably exhausted everything we have to say to each other, and we’re not compatible enough for, you know, daily conversation.” The whole idea of this drive, this trip, is beginning to feel ridiculous.
I expect my theory to worry Fitz, because honestly it worries me. It’s the fear I’ve been pressing to the corner of my thoughts for this entire car ride.
But it doesn’t appear to bother him at all. Bizarrely, it seems to relax him. He leans back, pushing up the sleeves of his sweater and revealing—nice forearms. I don’t know why my brain has decided to zero in on his forearms, the light lines of muscle running to his wrist, while I’m questioning the entire premise of our compatibility. Probably because it’s not my brain doing the noticing.
“That’s not it at all,” he says easily. His confidence relaxes me, and I focus on the road, somewhat relieved. “It’s because you began this trip with Matt, you imagined this trip with Matt. Instead you have me, but you’re thinking about him.”
Wincing, I open my mouth and I find I can’t deny what he’s saying. “I’m not anymore.” It’s the truth. I haven’t thought about Matt since we broke this conversation open and began examining what was wrong with it.
Fitz grins. “Good.”
Heat races from my cheeks into my fingers on the wheel, and that’s when I realize I’m not, in fact, thinking about Matt. Not at all. In the start-and-stop traffic I find myself stealing looks in Fitz’s direction. His recently exposed forearms, his hands resting delicately on his dictionary. I didn’t know I had a thing for hands, but I definitely have one for Fitz’s. Kind of the way I have a thing for the winter-sky blue of his eyes, the untidy curtain of red hair covering his forehead, the precise angle of his nose, the restless twist of his lips.
I blink. Focus, Juniper. I’m going to crash the car if I keep this up.
Fitz’s phone vibrates. He pulls it from his pocket. “Lewis got to the hotel,” Fitz tells me, reading the screen. “He’s checking in now.” He frowns, reading his phone.
“What?” I prompt.
“Oh. Just Lewis,” Fitz grumbles.
His tone has me curious. From my conversation with Lewis last night, I’ve started to get one brother’s side of their relationship. I don’t know Fitz’s, but I wonder if it’s something he might not want to keep to himself. “What do you mean?”
“He’s . . . He made a dumb joke about whose room I’ll stay in tonight.” Fitz puts the phone down and looks up. “He’s constantly saying stupid stuff like that. I apologize in advance for how obnoxious it is.” He forces a smile, one I know is hiding his frustration. “I did explain Lewis and I aren’t biologically related, right?”
I laugh, because I can tell he means it as a joke. “I think you guys are pretty similar actually.” Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Fitz’s eyebrows quirk in surprise. It’s not disdainful surprise. It’s interested, even flattered. “No apology necessary,” I add. “But you’ll definitely be staying in his room.” My eyes dart to him, and the next comment on the tip of my tongue leaps off before I have the chance to tell it not to. “I don’t blame Lewis for wanting us to be together, though.”
Fitz’s whole posture shifts. He leans forward, and I feel his eyes on me, focused and penetratingly blue. “No,” he says. “One couldn’t blame him for that.”
I don’t know if it’s me, or if by an unexplained, undiscovered meteorological phenomenon the temperature in the car jumps up fifteen degrees, or thirty, or fifty. Fitz chews his lip. The sight is intolerably cruel to inflict on me in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike. I have the impossible urge to pull over the car, lean across the gearshift—and kiss him, bunching the collar of his sweater in my fingers, pulling him closer and not letting go. I try to banish the thought immediately, which is when I notice the corners of those lips curving upward.
“Juniper,” Fitz says calmly, “you’re staring at my lips.”
I whip my eyes forward. There’s a long stretch of empty road where the car in front of me moved forward. Someone behind me honks, and I guiltily step on the gas. I’m certain everyone on the Turnpike knows I spaced while fantasizing about a boy.