Page 8 of Slick Trip

An insistent thought kept pushing its way up, and I kept pushing it back down. If I didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

I looked at my hands and noticed they were trembling.

Mom fidgeted with the bracelet I’d made her, a sure sign she was more nervous than she let on.

“Please be sensible about this.”

“Who. Is. It?”

There was no point asking since I already knew, but I wanted her to say it. Say out loud the name I knew she was going to say the moment she mentioned the change in plans.

“It’s Jon.”

Even though I’d guessed right, hearing his name still sent me stumbling back until my spine hit the counter. Underneath the panic, something else was stirring. I could still feel his hand on me—unyielding and firm. Frantically, my mind searched for options. They couldn’t make me, right? I was an adult, and I was not going down without a fight.

“No,” I said, the word gaining strength out of sheer desperation.

“Cooper—”

“No, Mom! There’s no fucking way I’m sitting in a car with Jon fucking Beckett!”

A knot of nerves snaked its way into my body. I blinked furiously, fighting off tears. I hadn’t spoken to Jon in months because I’d been too humiliated. Too confused. Ignoring him had been easier than facing the reality—and certainly safer than admitting the truth. I’d let him see me in a way no one else ever had, and instead of wanting me, he had . . . what? Pitied me?

“Language, Cooper,” Mom said sharply. “I’ll say this only once. You’ll travel with Jon, or you won’t travel at all.”

I stared at her. How had my dream trip turned into a nightmare in less than ten minutes?

“I’m nineteen! I make my own decisions.” I lifted my chin in defiance. Mom’s words felt like a betrayal wrapped in parental concern, and I wasn’t going to take it. “You can’t make me.”

“Sweetheart, Grandpa won’t give you the money if you drive there by yourself.”

My jaw dropped. The betrayal ran deeper than I thought. They’d been scheming behind my back, letting me plan and get excited—for what? To pull the rug out from under me so close to the finish line.

“Why, Mom?” I asked quietly.

“Love,” she said simply. “And common sense.” She had the audacity to smile.

“No, you just want me to suffer,” I spat, throwing my hands up in the air. “You know I hate Jon!”

“Jon is a very responsible young man,” Mom said firmly. “And I wish you’d stop acting like a child around him.”

Hah. If Mom only knew.

“He’s a prick!” I snapped.

Every plan I’d made, every single thing I’d been looking forward to—it was all gone. Ruined because of Jon.

“Stop it, Cooper.”

“No! If you’re forcing me to travel with him, I’m calling it like it is. Jon Beckett is a loathsome, arrogant jerkface, and I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate him!”

Silence fell. Then, a low, dry, and painfully familiar voice from the doorway made the hair on my arms stand up.

“No need to sugarcoat it.”

My stomach spasmed as I stood there like a fool. For a split second, the kitchen blurred into the memory of a darker room—the size of him, the pressure, the way I had—NO! I refused to think about it.

I forced myself to turn around, and there he fucking was. He didn’t even have the decency to look affected, no, he just stood there like he’d heard everything and decided my humiliation was mildly entertaining. The space between us felt charged and too small to contain all our history.