They Left Me Behind on the Road Trip, So I Got on a Better Ride novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Fifteen-Minute Blocks

I had a hundred questions.

I asked the only one that mattered.

"Will you take me out tomorrow night?"

His face softened.

"Yes," he said. "I'll pick you up at five."

"That's very specific."

"I've had nine days to plan it."

He came to Dot's house at four fifty-nine.

I watched him from the front window. He sat in the Audi until the clock on the dash said five, and then he got out.

He was wearing jeans.

I had never seen him in jeans. I didn't know he owned jeans.

They were dark and new and he looked deeply uncomfortable in them, with a gray T-shirt and the wire-rimmed sunglasses.

Shay, on the couch behind me, said, "Oh, no. Oh, he's hot."

"I know."

"He's hot in denim, Frankie. That's not fair."

Dot looked up from her crossword.

"He bought those this morning," she said. "He called me from the store to ask if they were too tight."

"What did you say?"

"I said yes, and that's why he should buy them."

I'd bought a dress that afternoon with the last of my three hundred a day.

It was green cotton, with thin straps and buttons all down the front, and it stopped above my knees.

I'd never bought a dress for anyone before. I'd bought it for me, and then for him.

When I opened the door, he took his sunglasses off and didn't say anything for a while.

"Hello," I said, like a colleague.

"No," he said. "Absolutely not. Not like a colleague."

Then he handed me an index card.

It was typed.

5:00 Pick up.

5:15 Drive to the restaurant, scenic route.

5:45 Dinner, a table by the window, booked.

7:30 Walk by the river.

7:45 Ice cream.

There were more blocks, all the way down to 10:00. Drive you home.

I read every line.

He watched me read it with the face of a man presenting a closing argument.

"It's very thorough," I said.

"Thank you."

I folded it in half.

Then I walked past him down the porch steps to Dot's compost bin, lifted the lid, and dropped it on top of the grocery store roses.

Sawyer stared at the bin.

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