“Now, that would be a miracle,” I said.
“Which one? Him quitting or her finally agreeing to kids?”
“Both.”
“Do you want kids?” Shepley didn’t look at me when he asked.
I swallowed. We weren’t even out of town yet, and he was already hitting the hard topics. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick question. Was he looking for a reason to leave? Would my answer be the last straw for him?
“Um … yeah. I mean, I guess. I’ve always thought I would … have kids. Later.”
He only nodded, which made me more nervous. I pulled out a magazine and absently flipped through it, pretending to read the words on the pages. Truthfully, I didn’t have a clue who or what was in it. I was just desperate to look casual. We had talked about kids before, and the fact that it was so uncomfortable now seemed to be an ominous sign that we were going in the wrong direction.
By the time we hit Springfield, the storms were already beginning to organize.
Shepley pointed out dark skies on the horizon. “The hotter it gets, the more those storms will build. Look at the weather forecast for Kansas City.”
I pulled my phone from my purse, tapping in the information. I shook my head. “It says storms, but they won’t start until later.” I selected my favorite radar app. “Oh. There are some angry-looking red blobs in southwestern Oklahoma right now. It’s going to hit Wichita around the time we pull into town.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Hopefully, it won’t hit before.”
“We can always pull over and get a motel room,” I said.
My smile felt unnatural on my face, the air in the car thick and uncomfortable. I suddenly grew angry that I felt that way. Shepley was my boyfriend. I loved him, and he loved me. That, I was sure of. We were neck-high in a stupid misunderstanding, and I didn’t want to be that girl. I opened my mouth to say as much, but the expression on Shepley’s face stopped me.
“I love you,” was the only thing I could manage to say.
His foot slipped off the gas pedal for a moment, and then he reached for my hand, keeping his eyes on the road. “I love you, too.”
By the subtle twitch of his eye, I knew he was working to keep the wounded look off his face.
“Hey, look. The writing on the door of that semi says O’Fallon, Missouri,” he said. “Like Taylor’s Falyn.”
“I think she spells her name differently.”
“Yeah …” He trailed off, unable to pretend any longer.
I flipped through my magazine a second time, pretending to read and intermittently staring out my window at the trees and wheat fields lining Route Thirty-Six. Shepley kept his hand in mine, squeezing every once in a while. I prayed that it wasn’t because he was weighing missing me against putting up with my shit.
When we passed Chillicothe, Missouri, I noticed an exit sign for Trenton. “Huh. Look at that. Should we play a game? Find all the members of the Maddox family? I think there’s a town called Cameron, north of Kansas City. I say that counts as Cami.”
“Sure. Can we count your name already?”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
Even though we were both desperate to lighten the mood, it was still awkward. I wasn’t part of the Maddox family yet, not really. It was possible I’d lost my chance.
When we reached the Kansas City bypass, the sky opened, filling the car with smells of rain, wet asphalt, and the sharp stench of turmoil. I’d hoped the hours in the car would force communication, talking about what we couldn’t say, but there I sat. The girl who took pride in her big mouth was too afraid to bring up anything uncomfortable.
Keep your mouth shut, Mare. He’ll never get over it if you prompt a proposal even if he wants to do it.
Maybe he doesn’t want to do it … anymore.
The constant rat-tat-tatting of rain on the Charger grew irritating. As we drove between storms, the windshield wipers would change from dragging along dry glass to furiously trying to keep up with the downpour. Shepley would offer small talk—about the rain, of course, and the upcoming school year—but he stuck to safe topics, careful not to skirt too close to the edge of anything serious.
“Topeka,” Shepley announced as if the sign weren’t right there in big, bold white letters.
“We’ve made good time. Let’s stop at a restaurant. I’m tired of gas station food.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Check your phone for something on the route.”
“Gator’s Bar and Grill,” I said aloud. It was third down on the list, but it was rated only two-and-a-half stars. “One review says not to go there after dark. That’s interesting. You think there are vampires?”
Shepley chuckled, looking down at the clock above the radio. “It’s just after noon. I think we’ll be safe.”
“It’s three-point-two miles ahead,” I said. “Just off the turnpike.”
“Which one? Four Seventy turns into Interstate Thirty-Five.”
“Four Seventy.”
Shepley nodded, satisfied. “Gator’s it is.”
As promised, Gator’s was just off the turnpike, just over three miles away. Shepley picked a parking space and turned off the engine for the first time in almost four hours. I stepped onto the concrete parking lot, my bones and muscles feeling stiff.
Shepley stretched on his side of the car, bending down and then standing up, pulling his arms across his chest. “Sitting for that long can’t be good. I don’t know how people with a desk job do it.”
“You have a desk job,” I said with a smirk.
“Part-time. If it were forty or fifty hours a week, I’d go nuts.”
“So, you’re not going to stay at the bank?” I asked, surprised. “I thought you liked it there.”
“Wealth management is a good place to be, but you know I’m not going to stay there.”
“No. You haven’t mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I did. I … oh. That was Cami.”
“Cami?”
“The last time I went with Trenton to The Red. You know how much I talk when I’m drunk.”
“I’ve forgotten,” I said.
Shepley reached for my hand as we walked inside, but at least two feet of space and unspoken thoughts were between us.
I glanced around Gator’s, looking up at the tall ceiling. Multicolored Christmas lights hung from the exposed ventilation system, the booth seats had ratty holes torn in the upholstery, and the floor had at least ten years of grime soaked into every twisted tuft of the worn carpet. Stale grease invaded my senses, and the rusted tin wainscot and charcoal-gray paint were more unwelcoming than the intended industrial chic.
“The two-star rating is making sense,” I said, shivering from the air-conditioning.
We waited so long for a table that I almost asked Shepley if we could leave, but then a blue-haired waitress with a chip on her shoulder and more piercings than she had holes showed us to two empty seats at the bar.
“Why did she seat us here?” I asked. “There are empty tables. There are a lot of empty tables.”
“Not even the employees want to be here,” Shepley said.
“Maybe we should just go?”
He shook his head. “We’ll just grab a quick bite and get back on the road.”