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The car in front of us was barely moving.
“See if you can find a weather station,” I said.
She flipped around, trying a few channels before she found what we were looking for. The sky was growing dark already as the storm moved overhead. I glanced in my rearview mirror, and there was no one coming from behind us, which was a little alarming. No one was coming from the other side of the road, either.
“Should we turn around?” she asked.
“I don’t think we can at this point. There’s no place to turn around, not with this giant trailer on the back. And I’m guessing going back the other way isn’t much better anyway.”
“Shit,” she whispered.
I turned up the volume just as the weatherman said they’d closed the pass ten minutes ago. We must have been the last ones through. This was a bad fucking idea. I should have known better. But how many times had they claimed we were getting a storm, and it hadn’t been a big deal at all?
We were almost at a complete stop as the car in front of us caught up to the one in front of them as we edged further up the mountain.
I glanced over to see Presley staring out the window as she fidgeted with her hands in her lap.
“Hey, it’ll be fine,” I said, but the car in front of us skidded out, and Presley shrieked. The car straightened, and I weighed our options. Going forward was really the only choice we had. “Do you have reception on your phone?”
She looked down and shook her head. “No. There’s no service.”
Fuck.
We continued driving, and Presley’s voice shook as she spoke, and her hands started flailing around. “I’m so sorry I dragged you out here. Now you’re not with Gracie, and this was—this was a huge mistake.”
The snow was coming down so hard I could barely see out the front windshield as the wipers moved rapidly back and forth. We’d been on the road for four hours now, and we weren’t even halfway to where we were supposed to be going. Clearly, we weren’t getting there tonight. But I wanted to reach my parents to let them know we were all right, and I’d need them to keep Gracie overnight.
“Presley,” I said, my voice even. “We’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen. We just aren’t going to make it there today. There’s a small motel up ahead where we can wait it out. At the rate we’re going, we wouldn’t be there till morning anyway, so we may as well pull over and get some sleep.”
“Oh my gosh,” she groaned. “I’m really sorry that I’m keeping you from Gracie and that I ruined your night. And it’s freaking Valentine’s Day.”
“This is how you’re spending Valentine’s Day, too, right?”
“I’m in the process of getting a divorce; it’s not like I have a hot date lined up. And I usually spend Valentine’s Day alone anyway.” She paused, as if she’d said too much, and my gaze locked with hers as the car was at a complete stop now. “Wes traveled a lot, and I never minded being by myself, if I’m being honest.”
It was clear that her marriage had been over for a long time. But I hated hearing the loneliness in her voice.
And I heard it loud and clear, without her actually saying the words.
I knew her.
I still fucking knew her as well as I did all those years ago.
I didn’t want to dig any deeper. We’d just be asking for trouble. The timing had always been a struggle for us, and now we lived on different coasts.
We were different people than we were all those years ago.
I leaned forward as we started driving again. It was slow, but at least we were moving. The snow continued to fall harder the further we drove.
“I’m fucking starving. Tell me you brought snacks. You always liked road trip food,” I said, refusing to look over at her, even though I felt her eyes on me.
“It was only supposed to be an hour and a half each way,” she said.
“Fuck. You didn’t bring anything?”
“I didn’t say that. I just wanted to hear you beg.”
“I’ve never been above begging, have I?”
