They fell quiet while Jo merged onto the highway.
“Are both your parents Spanish?” she asked, hoping to steer the conversation somewhere a little less intense.
“Just my dad,” Felix said. “Tito and Lita came to the U.S. in their twenties, when she was pregnant with him. I don’t know the details, but apparently it was a rough childbirth, and she almost didn’t make it. They never tried for any more kids after that. Mom doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, but she always thought Spain was so romantic. She and Dad went to Barcelona on their honeymoon, and she’s the one who convinced him to retire there.”
He paused for a long sip and said, “Your turn. You’ve never talked about your parents either. Or any siblings. I have none, by the way.”
Jo reached for her coffee and bumped into Felix’s elbow where it rested on the console between them. She muttered an apology and hoped he didn’t notice her blushing. “My parents divorced when I was in high school. My mom moved to NorCal once we were all in college, and my dad is still in Garden Grove, where we grew up in the shadow of Disneyland. I’m the middle child, between two brothers.”
“Are they also named after Dolly Parton hits? Let me guess: ‘Nine-to-Five’ and ‘I-Will-Always-Love-You’?”
Jo tossed a look his direction. “You know she has a song called ‘Joshua,’ right?”
“Damn it,” he cried, smacking his palm on his knee. “That would have been much more clever.”
She reached over and patted his shoulder. Even through the thick hoodie, she could feel its firmness. “I forgive you. You haven’t finished your coffee yet.”
He sighed and took a long gulp. His loud swallows and the smack of his lips were probably meant to be funny, but each sound his mouth made sent a shockwave of desire rocketing through Jo’s body. She bit down, hard, on the inside of her cheek. She could still smell the cloves-and-sweet-coffee scent of him and his damn vanilla café con leche. How adorable was it that Felix liked vanilla in his coffee?
Jesus fuck. This road trip was definitely her worst idea ever, but not for the reason she’d feared all week. Being beside Felix was like sitting too close to a fire. She was going to combust before the nine-and-a-half-hour drive was over. Maybe even before the first hour was up. At least she would go surrounded by pretty country—all these amber waves of grain, waist-high prairie grasses, and fields of sunflowers as far as the eye could see.
“I didn’t expect Kansas to be so beautiful,” she said. Hopefully Felix didn’t mind the sudden change of subject, but she needed to say something to distract herself.
“Beautiful?” he asked.
“Yeah, look how green it is!” She gestured through the windshield. “All this rain you get—back home, everything turns brown in the summer. And the smog, God. The air out here is so clean you can see forever.”
Felix quieted, turning away from her to look out the passenger window.
“You don’t think it’s pretty?” she asked.
“It’s not that,” he said softly, almost wistfully. “I suppose I just haven’t really thought much about it since moving back to the Midwest.”
“I guess if you grow up with it, you get used to it.”
“Maybe,” he replied. He turned back to her, and she stole a glance to see a gentle smile on his face. “But it’s nice to see it through your eyes.”
Jo’s whole body felt even hotter. She turned the heater back down and checked the clock on the dashboard. Only nine hours and thirteen minutes to go, not including lunch, gas, and pee breaks. She was never going to make it to Indianapolis alive.
Felix took a minute to breathe in the rest stop men’s room, which, given his surroundings, was not the smartest decision. They were stopped in Missouri, between Columbia, where they’d gotten lunch, and St. Louis. Four-and-a-half hours down, five to go. He was losing his mind. He was crawling out of his skin.
The night before, lying in bed at two in the morning, wide awake and horny as fuck, he’d made a decision. He was tired of settling for his hand and his imagination in the shower. Tired of making excuses about professionalism. Tired of pretending he didn’t want Jo. Tired of pretending he didn’t see the way she wanted him too. She’d always thought he was hot. That much had been obvious from their first Friday after hours in the library. Even without the text from Aida he wasn’t supposed to see, he would have known. Jo wasn’t exactly subtle about it.
But there was more to it now. They were friends, and they liked each other, and they wanted each other.
So he’d decided: he wasn’t going to hold himself back anymore. He wouldn’t admit his feelings right away. On the off chance he was misreading her, he wouldn’t risk making things awkward when they were about to spend four straight days together. But he was done pretending. By the time she dropped him off at home on Monday night, she was going to know exactly how he felt about her.
He’d finally been able to sleep after that and had woken up in the morning resolved to be as kind and caring and charming and gentle as possible. Everything he wanted to be for her. Everything she deserved. He just hadn’t expected that the moment he sat down in the car beside her, his insides would turn into jelly, and he’d regret making the comfortable choice to wear sweatpants.
He stepped out of the men’s room into the blazing afternoon sun. Jo was standing next to her car, her legs wide, rocking side to side to stretch out her hips.
“Fuck everything,” he mumbled, hypnotized by the sway of her teardrop-shaped body. No, not a teardrop—that was much too sad an image for Jo. She was a dew drop hanging off the point of a leaf on a damp morning. A bead of sweat running down heated skin. He wanted to stick out his tongue and drink her down. To take all that she was inside of him and finally, finally quench his thirst. To drown in the flood of her magnificence.
Apparently, Tito wasn’t the only poet in the family.
Jo grinned at him, oblivious to the storm raging inside him, the thunder roaring in his ears. “Ready?”
“Would you like me to drive for a while?” he asked. “I’d be happy to give you a break if you don’t mind me driving your car.”
“Seriously? That would be amazing. Think fast!” She tossed her keys at him, and he caught them easily. She ran around to the passenger side and dove for the door, as if he might change his mind if she didn’t get there first. This woman was going to destroy him.
Fuck, she already had.
Back on the highway, he said, “All right, we’ve talked about family, the beauty of the Midwest, childhood vacations, minor high school traumas, and your California friends. What’s next?”
“Actually, do you mind if we put some music on?”
“Sure,” he replied. “Here. Use my phone to save your battery for the GPS.” Felix dug his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it with his thumbprint. He opened his music app before handing it to Jo. Their fingers brushed as she took it, and he didn’t hurry to pull away. “Pick whatever you want.”
She quietly connected his phone to the car speakers and scrolled through the app. He tried to keep his eyes forward, but her nails were painted a distractingly pretty kelly green with orange d20 shapes on her ring fingers. Suddenly, she gasped and tapped something. Before he could ask, a bass-y synth hit sounded, followed by an electronic “whoop.” He’d know that intro anywhere.
“‘Aughts workout mix’?” Jo said, holding up his phone as the lyrics to “Circus” kicked in. She’d found his boxing playlist.
“Don’t you dare make fun of me,” he said, completely deadpan. “Britney is a legend.”
“Nobody is arguing that,” she laughed. “It was just unexpected. Are you a ‘put on a show kind of girl’?”
