Noli turns toward me after the song changes. “Has anyone ever told you you’re tone deaf?”
In response, I raise my voice and start belting all the lyrics to “My Shot” fromHamilton.
She shakes her head and goes back to looking out the window.
Our drive continues like this for about fifteen minutes, when I notice flashing lights in my rearview mirror.
I pull the car over to the side of the road, which jostles Noli from her attempted nap. I’m pretty sure she was faking sleep anyway, but I still feel bad.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “Wait, are you getting pulled over?”
I grit my teeth and mentally log my driving, looking for anything I did that was against the rules.
Noli sits up in the seat next to me. Smugness is radiating from her like perfume. I swear I can smell it.
“Good going.” She clicks her tongue. “Must’ve been all that singing. You’re probably going to get written up for distracted driving. Serves you right.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
She snorts. “Wouldn’t you be the first to tell me thatthatis what they all say?”
I don’t respond to this because…yeah.
Noli sits forward so she can see into the rearview mirror.
After what feels like a year, an officer approaches the driver’s side of our rental car. I roll down my window.
“Good afternoon, sir,” the cop says to me.
“Officer—”
“Prowler?” Noli cuts me off.
The cop bends down and peers across the driver’s seat. His eyes fly open, and a smile races from one cheek to another. “Kasper, is that you?”
“Sure is!” Noli unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out onto the shoulder of the road.
The cop—Officer Prowler, apparently—meets her behind the car. They embrace in a bear hug. He lifts her up off the ground, and her happy squeal reaches my ear from where I still have my window rolled down. A streak of jealousy slices through me, like someone has lanced me with a metal rod that’s just been removed from a white-hot fire. Noli’s laugh—the uninhibited, free-flowing, lyrical sound of it—is so foreign to my ears it’s startling. At the same time, I want it. I want more of it. All the time. And I want to be the reason for it.
Where is this possessive side of me coming from? What is it about this woman that makes me care? I scrub my hands over my face before glancing in my rearview mirror again.
Noli punches Officer Prowler in the shoulder, and he laughs. I can’t make out their conversation, but I’m fighting hard against the urge to march back there and shove Officer Prowler out from in front of my girlfriend.
“Fake girlfriend,” I mutter because clearly I need the reminder.
I tap the steering wheel, annoyed with them for being all buddy-buddy. More annoyed with myself, if I’m being honest. But seriously, doesn’t this guy have somewhere else he needs to be? Keeping the peace in his jurisdiction maybe?
Finally, they stroll around to the driver’s side of the car. I work to keep my expression neutral.
The cop has a pie-eating grin on his face. He looks at me, but he addresses Noli. “So, Kasper. This is the lucky man?”
Noli lets loose an easy laugh. I want to bottle it up so I can take it out and examine it from all angles later. It’s like sunshine mixed with an ocean breeze. Warm and bright and airy.
“He’s the one. My platypus.” Noli smirks at me. The woman must take sick pleasure in coining me with names of sea creatures. “Though I don’t know many other people who’d call him lucky besides you,” she adds with a wink to Prowler.
He turns to me. “I’m guessing you know your girlfriend is the most humble creature known to man.”
“That I do.” I turn up the wattage on my smile and flash it at Noli. “Good thing I’ve made it my mission to make sure she knows how absolutely stunning she is every day from here on out.”
