Page 101 of The Fast Lane

Me: Can we please change the subject since I AM NOT RUNNING FOR MAYOR?

Mae: Fine. Has Theo made his move yet?

Me: MAYBE?

Ellie: Wait? What?

Mae: What does that mean?

Mae: Alicia Grace Ramos! What? Does? That? Mean?

Ellie: Did something happen?

Mae: Ali!!!!!!

Once we got on the road, my plan was to make up for the sleep I’d lost last night. And although my body was exhausted, my mind would not stop. It kept looping back around to this morning and those kisses and what it all meant.

It was smart for us to keep this all under wraps for now, of course it was. I would have to fight my natural urge to scream this news from the rooftops, then send out a group text, and start looking at wedding announcements. My journal entry tonight was going to be epic.

But taking it slow was good. If this didn’t work out, I didn’t want it to be ugly. My family was also Theo’s family in all the ways that matter. I never wanted to put him in a place where he was alone in this world. But seeing him at family functions and dinners and going back to pretending we were just friends might break me. There were consequences to us being an us. We needed to think through those.

Then, with the wedding in a few days, I didn’t want to overshadow Cal and Melanie’s wedding or Abe’s homecoming. There’d be time for us to figure everything out. Like Theo said, neither of us was going anywhere.

While that all sounded very mature and adult of me, sixteen-year-old me was losing her mind right now. Sixteen-year-old me was kicking her feet in the air and deciding when we’d have our first child. A giddy laugh bubbled up. I tried to swallow it, but Theo turned and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head, grinning so widely my mouth hurt.

His return smile was small but no less potent. Because that smile was for me and me only. Giddy delight blossomed in my chest. I yawned and started shifting around to find a good position to sleep in.

“I’m going to take a nap,” I said.

Then, because I could, I leaned forward and ran my fingertips over the back of Theo’s neck. This time, he was the one who shivered.

After three blissful hours, I woke feeling oddly refreshed for a woman who had a crick in her neck from sleeping at a weird angle and drool all over her pillow. At some point, Theo and Abe changed seats and Theo was driving again. Hallie was out cold, her head dangling by the strap on her car seat. Next to her, Abe wore headphones, but the tinny sound of music was still audible. He’d always loved his music loud. Got in trouble all the time when we were growing up for it.

Since I was awake, I pulled out the Alicia Night book, The Pirate’s Booty, the one I’d started last night before the hunt for Mack. It took no time for me to get hooked into the story: There’s a young woman desperately trying to get away from her father who was forcing her to marry an old, lecherous, but very rich, lord. She hears of a pirate who has been known to help a damsel in distress…for a price. After a faked kidnapping, our lady finds herself on a pirate ship headed for the Americas. Trapped with a handsome, dashing pirate and so much extra time on her hands? Whatever could possibly happen?

A lot, it turns out.

“On the plank?” I gasped. “Is that even physically possible?”

“What’s that?” Mack asked from the front seat.

Oh, no. I’d said that out loud.

Even though he’d gotten as little sleep as I did, Mack had been upbeat, happy, and smiling since the moment I saw him this morning. It could have been that goodbye kiss Mimi gave him right before we left though. Karen’s head peeked around his arm and growled when she heard my voice.

“Oh, shut up, Karen,” I muttered.

“Don’t talk to her that way.” Mack cradled the mutt in his arms. “She’s sensitive.”

“Yeah, yeah. She looks real fragile.”

“Now what’s this about a plank?”

“How about lunch?” Theo asked, his eyes making the briefest of contact with mine in the rearview mirror. “We should be hitting a bigger town in the next hour.”

“Sure. Sure,” Mack said, but then like an old man with a history obsession, he asked again. “What’s this about a plank?”