He paces a few more steps before he stops and looks at me. “I think I dropped something,” he says. “We need to retrace our steps.”
I fight the urge to smile so that I don’t give myself away. “Oh. What did you drop?”
He tightens his lips, considering me for a moment. “I can’t tell you.”
I watch him, narrowing my eyes. “That makes it kind of hard for me to help you find it, don’t you think?”
“You don’t need to know what it is. I’ll know it when I see it.”
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen. “Tina says traffic is on the move again. They’re in the parking lot.”
“Shit,” he curses. “We need to go back. Think of an excuse.”
“I’m sure whatever it was isn’t that important,” I say with a shrug. I head for the door, smiling as I face away from him.
“Wait,” he says just as I touch the door handle. I straighten my face and turn around to look at him. “It’s the ring.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What ring?”
“Don’t play dumb, Priscilla. You know what ring I’m talking about.”
I want to let him sweat it out a little longer, but I also don’t feel like waiting for him to hike alongside a busy highway looking for something he’ll never find.
“Oh, you mean the ring that I took out of your pocket earlier?”
His expression changes from worry to confusion and then to anger all in the span of about two seconds. He steps toward me. I back away until I’m up against the door. He stands right in front of me. I have to look up to meet his eyes, which is a mistake because I can feel his anger, but he’s also so close that all I can think about is how every time I breathe in, all I can smell is the cedar in his cologne and I wonder how someone who smells so good can look so angry. My senses battle each other. I’m not sure which one is winning. I’m torn between cowering in submission and burying my face in his neck to smell him better. My face heats.
“Are you kidding me?” he growls.
I shrug, trying my best to keep my composure. “No.”
“Where is it?”
It’s inside my handbag in the back seat of the car, but I’m not going to tell him that. “I hid it. You’ll never find it.”
He stares at me for a moment, his brow furrowed. He shakes his head and huffs out an unamused laugh. “You are unbelievable.”
He pushes open the door I’m leaning on, making me stumble backward. He grabs my shoulders, steadying me. We lock eyes. I can see that he’s angry, but his touch is gentle, and I know that he didn’t mean to knock me off balance. His hands remain on my shoulders a few seconds longer than necessary. When he lets go, I can still feel him holding onto me.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“You are the most maddening woman I’ve ever met.”
With that, he steps past me and storms off to the car.
ChapterEight
The Fingernail Fiasco
Ialready know that Oliver doesn’t like me, so the silent treatment he’s giving me now is nothing new. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Tina and Ryan don’t seem to notice his change in attitude. He stays on his side of the car, only contributing to the conversation when one of them says something to him.
I think about how angry he looked back at the rest stop. The way he cornered me against the door. I’m used to his smug smirk when he says something just to piss me off. This anger is different. It’s new. It feels a lot like hate.
I watch him from my side of the back seat. His arms are crossed, his face turned toward the window beside him. I pick up the box of Girl Scout cookies and look inside. There are only two left. I take one and hold the box out to Oliver. He doesn’t see it.
“Cookie?” I offer.
He ignores me.
