Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
She stared out the window, lost in thought, saying only an absent “Yeah.”
Fitz was about to remind her that she was an adult and could make whatever choice felt right for her when she seemed to snap out of it and turned to him with a bright smile. “Let’s play a game.”
“No.”
“This is a fun one,” she insisted. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”
“You’ll answer mine anyway.”
“Come on, Fitz, you want to just sit here in silence?”
“Yes, actually.”
Only…he wasn’t sure that was true anymore. The problem was he knew he couldn’t answer her questions with his usual smooth evasions and cover stories. The backstory he’d painstakingly constructed at school—about his rich parents, his life of luxuriant happiness in Spokane, his easy ambition—wouldn’t work with Ren. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he did: She would see right through him. And the second Fitz let her in even a little, he worried that every secret about his past he’d kept wrapped up from the moment he stepped foot in the marbled atrium of the Fitzsimmons home would come tumbling out.
“How about I teach you how to make some bird calls?” she asked, pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts. “Technically that’s not speaking or singing, so I wouldn’t be breaking any rules.”
“I’m good.” Fitz glanced over his shoulder to change lanes and pass a slow truck.
She ignored this, folding one hand over the other. “So first you want to overlap your hands with your palms facing upward.”
“Ren.”
“Then you cup them, lifting them to your mouth, and—” She blew, letting out a sound like a dying loon.
“Okay,” he cut in, fighting a laugh when he caught a glimpse of her expression and realized she’d done this terrible call on purpose. Holy shit, she looked so proud of herself for making a joke. “God, fine, let’s play your game. But I’m skipping anything I don’t want to answer.”
She turned in her seat, pulling one leg under her to face him. “What are three things you’d take from your house in the zombie apocalypse?”
This pulled the laugh free. “That is not what I expected.”
“Want me to ask about girlfriends instead?”
“Definitely not.” Fitz wiped a hand across his face, feeling his smile crack open like a fault line. “Okay, I need a minute to think. Tell me yours first.”
“Duct tape, a pocketknife, and a cast-iron frying pan.”
“That came out of you so fast, I’m impressed and worried.”
“I’m prepared.”
“But God, Ren, those are boring options. Duct tape? A frying pan?”
“How is duct tape boring? It’s the most useful tool on the planet. It can be used in the place of nails, or for waterproofing. I assume, since this is an imaginary apocalypse where I can only have three things, that this roll of duct tape would be never-ending. And a cast-iron frying pan can be used to boil water, for cooking, as a shovel, or to bash in a zombie’s brain. What about you?”
“I guess I’d take my phone—”
“Are you expecting there to be power in this apocalypse?”
“Don’t you get never-ending duct tape? Why don’t I get power?”
“Okay, sure.”
He thought on the other two. “My pillow and a gun.”
“I hope you’re planning to use that gun to bludgeon people, because if you get power you don’t also get unlimited bullets, and after about a week, with no bullets that’s all a gun will be good for anyway.”
“The rules of this game aren’t very clear.”
She grinned at him. “Should’ve picked a frying pan.”
“I’ll just make sure I still have you with me in any apocalyptic scenario,” he said before the wording had time to bake. Ren went still, and then slowly turned her body, facing forward. “Okay, my turn,” Fitz said, quickly changing the subject. “I want you to answer my question from before. If you could go anywhere right now—except Atlanta, that is—where would you go?”
“I’m still thinking. Where would you go?”
He shook his head. “I asked you.”
She pointed out the window at one of the ubiquitous billboards they’d passed over the last hundred miles. “I want to go there.”
“Wall Drug? Not, like, Paris or Istanbul?”
“I’ve got no idea what could possibly be so exciting it needs this many giant billboards, but I think I need to find out.”
He glanced at the fuel gauge. They’d need to fill up again before Kansas City, but not quite yet. Two days ago, it would have been a quick no—he had a schedule he’d wanted to keep, and besides, this trip hadn’t been for fun. But as he’d already realized this morning, the original plan was crumbling; Fitz hadn’t been able to deny her any adventure, no matter how small.
So right then, he made a deal with himself: He would give Ren her adventures, but that’s it. No more of this unfamiliar, perseverating attraction.
Without overthinking it more, Fitz exited, parking in front of a long metal-sided business with giant signs that informed them Wall Drug had been open since 1931.