“You good over there, Luce? I can keep driving, if you want. Just give me twenty minutes to catch a quick nap, and I’ll be good.” My last few words are lost on a yawn.
“You sure about that?” she raises an eyebrow in a show of skepticism.
“Sorry,” I send her a sheepish smile. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.” She says nothing, and my words hang heavily in the air, my joke missing its target.
“The gas tank is full?” she asks.
Is she for real? She just watched me fill the tank three minutes ago. That was the whole point of stopping at the Gas n’ Go. Well, gas and snacks. But instead of making some wiseass remark, I school myself. “Yep, just filled it.” I’m immensely proud of my restraint.
“Great. Let me just pitch this trash and then we can head out.” She gathers up the stash of napkins I laid on the center console, then reaches for the bag of Doritos lying next to my feet. She shakes it to hear those two triangles of deliciousness knocking into each other and turns to exit the car, the bag crinkling as she goes.
“Slow your roll, Luce. That’s my road trip snack.” I reach for the bag, but she doesn’t surrender it.
“It’s not. It’s your trash. There are, like, two Doritos left.”
“I know. That’s why it’s not trash. I’m saving those for later.”
She rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh, her impatience clear as she holds the bag open in front of me. I can’t see far enough to know, but I’d bet money she’s tapping her foot. I inhale the salty scent of fake cheese. “Smells good. Why are you shoving it in my face?”
Slowly, as if talking to a petulant child, she explains. “So you can eat your last two Doritos before I throw the bag away.”
“I don’t want to eat them now.”
Her cheeks are red, and it’s not the rosy glow she wore last night in my bed. No. This is full-on irritation. So naturally, I keep going. “I’m full now. But I’ll be hungry for those in, what? Maybe a half hour? Twenty minutes? It’s hard to say.”
“But we’ll be on the road in twenty minutes! Far, far away from a trash can,” she says.
“Yeah, but I’m not hungry now.”
“But...we’re in a car! There’s no trash can in a car.”
“Okay, clearly trash can proximity is a thing for you. Here, gimme the bag.” I nearly wrestle it from her grip to reach in and rescue my snack. I place my Doritos—there are three of them now since she was shaking pretty vigorously—in my lap, right on the pocket of my hoodie. “Voila! See, Luce. Best of both worlds.” The look of abject horror on her face tells me that compromise isn’t what she’s looking for.
She’s damn near apoplectic. “The crumbs!”
Swear to God, I think she’s gonna start hyperventilating, so I shove the chips in my mouth, then carefully lift my sweatshirt to my lips and suck up the crumbs. It’s not my proudest moment. “All gone.”
Shaking her head at me, she takes the trash and throws it away. This relationship stuff is hard. And calling the push and pull between us a relationship is probably generous at this point.
Lucy settles back into the driver’s seat, presses the ignition, and then turns to me. “We need rules, Whit.” She’s probably not wrong, but still I question, “Rules?”
“Yes, rules.”
“Pretty sure it’s a little late for rules.”
She doesn’t take my bait, but I know she heard me. It’s clear in the straightening of her spine and the set of her jaw. “Road trip rules,” she says.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure the only road trip rules are to go fifteen miles over the speed limit and stop for snacks every couple hours.”
“I’m serious, Whit.”
“So am I. But okay, Luce. What kind of rules do we need?”
Her glare tells me, not for the first time today, that I’m an idiot and she has no clue how I’ve survived to the ripe old age of twenty-one. “Obviously, the driver gets to pick the music. Everyone knows that. But the volume should be mutually agreed upon. I propose 5. It’s loud enough to hear, but quiet enough so passengers can rest.”
“Sure,” I shrug. “Sounds reasonable.”
“Each driving shift should be about four hours, but not more than five because it’s inadvisable. And we should break every two hours for fifteen minutes.”
