Dopplebanger (Meet-Cute #5)

Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

“You got your wish,” Evan said in a quiet voice as my eyes fluttered open. He stood across the room, and when he reached up and tugged on a cord, the curtains split, flooding the room with light.

I lowered my eyebrows, trying to remember my wish, but the last wish I remember having was that he’d kiss me and we’d make better use of the bed than a mere cuddling session. Although that was hardly fair—it’d been a spectacular cuddling session. “Not unless we had sex and I missed it.”

Oops. That wasn’t supposed to come out of my mouth. Inside thoughts, inside thoughts.

Evan chuckled and flashed me a cocky grin. “Trust me, if that’d happened, you wouldn’t have missed it. You’d remember every single minute, I’d make sure of that.”

Heat twisted deep in my core, and I contemplated telling him to put his money where his mouth was. Or to just put his mouth on me—yeah, we should definitely take out the middle man and get right to it.

“I meant your brain taking a vacation,” he said before my sloggy mind could come up with the perfect flirty line.

“Right. That wish.” I reached up and pressed my fingertips to my temple. “Unfortunately, this stupid brain of mine is still trying to spin. I might need a distraction to ensure the not-thinking thing.” I pushed to my knees, planning on kissing him.

Then I realized my breath might not be the best, and from the feel of it, my hair was a tangled mess.

“No slamming your big, beautiful brain on my watch. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

Was that his way of saying he was more attracted to my brain than my body? Thanks, insecurities. Why don’t you go away for a few minutes and take my thoughts with you?

Evan’s demeanor morphed into serious mode as he squared off in front of me and crossed his arms. “But I do want to talk to you about something I don’t think is the smartest of choices.”

I frowned. This was going downhill quickly. Maybe I should throw the covers over my head, reset, and try again. I’d roll onto my side, flash him a coquettish smile, and say in a smoky, sultry voice, “My wish is for you to come over here and join me. After I brush my teeth and comb my hair, that is.”

Yeah, real spontaneous.

An idea about asking him to join me in the shower flickered through my head, but then I noticed his hair was damp and he was all dressed and ready to go, and a pang of disappointment went through me. Apparently he’d gone and showered without me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “We’re going to talk about this whether you like it or not.”

I flopped down on my heels. “I feel like I need coffee before this conversation.”

The bed dipped with Evan’s weight. “And I feel like it’s better if I get this out before you start talking one-hundred miles an hour and distract me with that pretty mouth of yours.” He reached up and brushed his thumb across my lower lip, and butterflies fluttered, helping blow some of the rising apprehension away.

A hungry look entered his eyes as they skimmed down me, and he swallowed hard. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it, his hand dropping to his side. “This saving your EpiPen thing? I don’t like it. I need you to keep breathing.”

Oh. That wasn’t nearly as bad as I was imagining. “Okay, but I did keep breathing. Not sure about the walking and talking, but I breathed all night.” I spread my arms to demonstrate how fine I was. “Obviously.”

Amusement danced across the curve of his mouth. “You talked some, too.”

My stomach bottomed out and I dropped my head in my hands. “Of course I did.”

“Do you remember telling the hotel clerk that you were basically taking advantage of me.”

I groaned as the hazy memory came back to me.

Evan peeled my hands from my face and wrapped them in his. “In the middle of the night, you also told me that grooming was all booked, but you could slot me in for my rabies shots.”

My cheeks burned. “I did not,” I automatically said, although I didn’t truly doubt it. I often dreamed about work, and on any given day, people came in without an appointment and couldn’t believe I wouldn’t simply bump other animals for their pookie-poo.

He slipped his fingers into mine. “Where else would I get that from? It’s a very particular thing to make up—my imagination’s not that good.”

Not that denial would help my embarrassment, but I clung to it anyway. “Unless you’re just a liar, liar, pants on fire, thinking you can take advantage of your gullible girlfriend thanks to her drug-induced coma.”

Every ounce of humor evaporated from his features and then he was pulling away.

“Evan, it was a joke.” That only seemed to cause him more pain. “Would now be a bad time to ask if you’ve had your rabies shots?” My attempt to lighten the mood dive-bombed, crashing to the ground in a puff of smoke.

“Breakfast is almost over, so I’ll go grab us what I can while you shower, and then we better push off so we can make all of today’s stops.”

Never before had he cared about schedules, and while he’d acted more psyched about our sight-seeing than expected, something still didn’t add up. Maybe my hair and breath were even worse than I’d imagined.

The quiet hung heavy as soon as the door closed behind him. Since I didn’t know what to do about that, I rushed through a shower, dressed, and braided my wet hair. Since we were already thirty-minutes behind my original scheduled departure time, I kept my makeup minimal and rushed through packing up.

Evan came back with a handful of pastries and fruit. “I made sure there’s nothing with peanuts—as in I asked until the manager looked like she was going to strangle me, but you might want to read the labels to be doubly safe. Also, where is your EpiPen?”

“In my purse. But like I said, the side effects of having to use it suck, and if it’s only a mild attack, it’s much too expens?—”

The stern look he shot me cut off the rest of my sentence. Then he gathered our suitcases and started for the door.

Confusion set in. One minute he would be flirty, and then he was distant, but then he was also worried about my allergies and overall health, and I could tell it was more than worrying he’d have to cart me to the hospital.

Maybe we just weren’t in the same place, though.

Here I’d gone all in, and he was still holding back.

The first hundred miles passed in relative silence, save the radio—his choice—and it wasn’t the comfortable silence. Not that I ever really found not-talking comfortable, but this was on a whole new level.

“Did you need me to drive?” I asked.

Evan glanced at me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. Obviously I’d interrupted some intense thinking.

My throat tightened. “Are you okay?”

“Worried I’m going to turn rabid since I haven’t had my shots?” he asked, and then he cracked a smile that appeared a bit on the forced side, but he was clearly trying.

“Totally. But in my defense, you’re foaming at the mouth a little.”

A laugh burst free and the sound sent hope rushing in. Tomorrow was going to be hard enough with the wedding, and beyond that, my attachment to the guy next to me had grown by leaps and bounds over the past couple of days. Funny how scared I was to lose something I’d nearly ended myself.

“Guess I could use a soda.” He peered over the top of his sunglasses. “You?”

“Sounds good. My coffee was… special.”

“And by special you mean?”

“Gross, oddly thick, and disappointingly short on caffeine.”

“Well, that simply won’t do. I need your hyped-up chatter to keep me going.”

“So you do…” I almost chickened out, but I couldn’t simply stifle myself in hopes he’d realize he liked me as much as I liked him. “You do want me to talk?”

Two creases showed up between his eyebrows. “Of course. I thought… I was… I’m sorry.”

The seatbelt cut into my neck as I twisted toward him and I tugged it away from me. “Sorry for what?”

He sighed and then muttered, “Where to begin?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like you’re suddenly a brick house that’s talking in code.”

“That’s… a statement that’s hard to take the wrong way. First I’d have to figure out the meaning.”

I gave his arm a light shove, and he readjusted his grip on the steering wheel and lowered a hand to my knee. Immediately, I placed my hand over his, wanting to keep it there. Wanting it to mean we were good, in spite of sensing something was still off.

Evan took the exit after the sign that bragged about its attractions, and I wasn’t sure how to take the fact that 7-11 was listed alongside Stonewall Jackson’s house. Unless the 7-11 had a fossil of something besides ancient nachos inside, “attraction” seemed like a stretch.

As he pulled up in front of the lackluster convenience store with its signature orange, green, and red, I quickly unbuckled, my thoughts already on caffeinated beverages, king-sized candy bars, and possibly a donut if they didn’t look too old—everyone knew that calories didn’t count on road trips.

“Hey, Gwen?” His voice came out nice and deep, and the way he said my name sent a pleasant shiver across my skin.

I glanced at Evan. “Yeah?”

“Please don’t stop talking because I’m an idiot. I love listening to you talk. You could read a takeout menu for all I care, and I’d be hanging on every word.”

“Well, sure. I’m like that when it comes to talking about food, too.”

He laughed, then took my hand in his and held it to his chest. “In all seriousness, though. If we were in a church or at a funeral, I’d understand why you couldn’t talk, but I’d also be counting down the minutes until I could hear your voice again. This has already been my favorite road trip ever—was from the minute you climbed into the car. And I just… I want you to know that.”

I leaned toward him, testing where we were at, since we hadn’t kissed all morning.

He closed the few inches of space between us, and I fell into the kiss, my entire body relaxing. The pads of my fingertips brushed his jaw, the scrape of his whiskers comforting and revving at the same time. “Stick around, because when it comes to this road trip, the fun’s just getting started.”