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“I’ve never seen so much snow.”
I thought it first and then whispered it. I was from Louisiana, the land where we never saw anything other than rain. It occasionally snowed in Atlanta. I’d even been skiing once in the Tennessee mountains, but this Pennsylvania snow was a different kind. It was coming down in blinding sheets and fighting against the windshield.
I looked in the back seat at Tamar. She was propped against a set of pillows, napping with a hand on her belly like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Are you sure we’re okay to be traveling in this?” I asked.
Clyde cut his eyes at me and then back to the road. “I know how to drive in snow.”
“I’m not saying you don’t.”
“I’m from Connecticut.”
“I’m aware of that. I’m asking because this isn’t your van.”
“Well, either you can drive in it or you can’t.” He shifted his eyes back in my direction again and then returned them to the road. “Maybe you should try to nap, like your friend back there.”
“I can’t.” I reached into my bag for my phone. “I’m too anxious.”
I swiped the screen, tried to get on social media but failed to connect to a signal. Maybe music would help. I reached back in my bag and then cursed under my breath. My earbuds were in the tote in the trunk.
“You don’t need to be anxious.” Clyde’s tone softened. “I’m only going thirty miles an hour.”
My belly filled with that fluttery feeling the smoothness of his voice caused. “Good, but at this rate, will we make the wedding?”
Clyde chuckled. “At this rate, Stephen will catch up with us.”
My eyes locked on the snow-covered road in front of us. “He can’t speed either.”
“True, but he might be able to get something bigger to drive at the airport, and he’s coming in the opposite direction because he’s flying into Harrisburg.” He glanced at me and I knew my face showed I had no idea why that mattered, so he clarified. “The storm is traveling east. Stephen’s coming in from the west.”
I nodded. That wasn’t complex at all, but I was on the edge. Clyde was trying to reassure me, but this trip felt wrong. I glanced back at Tamar again. It was the third time in ten minutes. She was sleeping like she didn’t have a care in the world. I wanted some of that rest to jump on me, but the energy in the front seat was making it impossible for me to relax.
I swiped my phone again. “It’s three. Do you think we’ll make it by nightfall?”
“Sure.”
“It gets dark earlier though.”
Clyde tapped the steering wheel and looked up at the sky before saying, “Not really. When snow is falling, it doesn’t really get dark.”
I nodded. “It’s snowed in Atlanta. I’ve never noticed that.”
Clyde cast a glance in my direction. “Well, it’s true.”
Silence filled the car again. This small talk was unbearable. Clyde and I weren’t small talk people. All our conversations had been rich and full and fun and passionate until that last one...and now they weren’t. Now we were sitting inches from each other, being civil, talking about weather and when we couldn’t force words, all I could hear was the crunch of snow under the tires and the quiet pelting of ice against the windshield. Those sounds made me nervous.
“Is it okay if I turn on the radio?” I asked.
Clyde nodded. I reached for the dash and pushed the button. Careful not to wake Tamar, I lowered the volume before scrolling through the channels in search of a good one. Frustrated, I said, “I thought this thing had satellite radio.”
“They do, but we’re driving through trees and mountains and the weather can affect it.”
“Great,” I groaned and turned the system off.
“Why don’t you connect your phone?”
“My battery is at fifty percent and I left my charger in the trunk.”
Clyde reached into his jacket pocket and took out his phone. He handed it to me. “I think I have some music you like.”
I took the phone and stared at it for a moment. “I don’t know the—”
Clyde cleared his throat. “It hasn’t changed.”
I frowned. “Hasn’t changed?”
“Yes, I gave it to you that night...” his voice trailed off. The night we broke up in an angry screaming match where we’d said words we never should have.
“I never opened it that night,” I said.
We both glanced at each other through our peripheral vision.
“It’s Kim and the number ten. I haven’t had a chance to change it.”
I swallowed. Now I remembered.
“What do you have to hide, Clyde?”
“Nothing. You want my phone?” He tossed it onto the sofa next to me. “It’s Kim10. Go ahead and look!”
He’d walked out the door and hadn’t come back for hours.
I pushed the phone back in his direction. “Why don’t you turn on what you want to hear.”
“I’d prefer to keep my hands on the wheel. Besides, you’re the one who wanted music.”
I pulled the phone back to me and swiped the screen. I entered the passcode and went to his music. He had a bunch of playlists. I scrolled through the variety. I came to one titled “Love” and looked at the artists he had saved to the list. Luther Vandross, Al Green, Barry White, and a bunch of nineties artists like Tony, Toni, Tone, Jodeci, Boys II Men, and Xscape. I forgot how much older Clyde was than me. At thirty-seven, he’d been a teenager in the nineties. My finger hovered over the play button for the first song on the list, but then I realized how ridiculous it would be to play “love” when all we had between us was war.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
I scrolled down to a list titled “Driving Music” and pressed play for a Ne-Yo song. “Jealous” filled the car and I immediately wished I hadn’t pushed it. I could feel the heat of Clyde’s stare on the side of my neck. I turned my head to look out my window.
“What is wrong with you? What have I done to make you trip?”
“You disappear on me.”
“When I’m working, Kim!”
“At night?”
“I work at night. I’m a sports agent.”
“You’re surrounded by groupies.”
“Yeah, and the only woman I want is you, but I can’t have you can I?” He dropped onto the sofa. “How long are you going to play this game?”
“It’s not a game. It’s a way of life.”
“Not having sex?” Clyde dropped his head in his hands. After a minute, he popped to his feet. “I’m not Stephen, and you’re not going to turn me into him.”
“You don’t have to tell me that you’re not Stephen. Trust me, I know that.” I crossed the room and picked up my shoes. I slid them on. “How are you two even friends?”
I could see the hurt on his face. I wasn’t sure what I meant by that, but Clyde had interpreted it to mean far more than I thought.
“Way to get an insult in.”
I dropped my eyes. I felt bad about it, but I couldn’t say sorry. I couldn’t take back anything.
“Why don’t you take my phone and look?” He handed it to me. “That’s what you want anyway, right? Check my text messages and voicemail messages. Look at my pics. Heck, while you’re there go through my social media and emails.” He pushed the phone at me. I met his eyes again. I saw all the disappointment, hurt, and pain I’d felt over the years looking back at me. “Take it. Find my lie.”
“Kim, are you listening?”
I shook off the memory and turned to face him. “What?”
“I asked if you were going to Louisiana?”
“My mother is on a cruise.”
“Are you staying in Pine through Christmas?” His voice rose to an awkward pitch.
“Yes.” His tone made me curious about his plans. “Are you?”
He glanced in my direction. “I’m not sure.” A beat of silence and then, “If I do, maybe we could go see the new Will Smith movie. It comes out Christmas.”
Heat rose from my belly. I hadn’t heard from him since our breakup a month ago. Not a phone call or text and now he was trying to hook up on Christmas. “There’s no movie theater in Pine.”
“There’s got to be one close.”
“There is no we, Clyde.” I snapped. “There’s you and I and you and I aren’t friends right now so I don’t want to talk about my mother or my Christmas plans.” I looked out the window to my right.
He was quiet for a few before he said, “You think I don’t know that? That was your choice.”
I smirked inwardly and mumbled, “A choice you didn’t exactly give me.”
“It didn’t have to go down the way it did,” he said.
I turned my head and caught a look at his profile. The cleft in the chin of his square jaw was hidden by the goatee he’d let grow in. Clyde was pretty. Like Brad Pitt dipped in chocolate kind of pretty. His eyes slid off the road in my direction for a second. My heart thumped. His dark brooding irises were sexy even when he was angry. I hated pretty boys.
“I just want to survive this trip, Clyde. Can we do that?”
“Yeah, we can sit here and not talk, because that’s what you want and we both know it’s always about what you want.” He cursed and the car swerved a little.
After he got control of the vehicle, he looked at me again. “I didn’t mean survive literally.”
He threw up a hand. “Are we talking now?”
“No, we’re not. But don’t you wreck this van.” I looked back at Tamar. She hadn’t stirred.
His hands were a vice on the steering wheel. He fussed under his breath and then wiped a hand over his face. “You didn’t have to walk out like that. You didn’t have to break up with me right before the holidays.”
“So, I guess I should have waited until you dumped me after the new year?” He was silent. “I know I’m right. We’d hit a brick wall. There was no point in dragging it out.” I put my elbow on the window frame and perched my head on my fist. “Let’s stop fighting. I don’t want to hate you. You were good to me.”
“I never cheated on you. I never even thought about it.”
I hesitated before admitting the truth he deserved. “I know.”
I felt the tension from his energy come down. Neither of us spoke. We let the silence grow. In my peripheral vision, I could see him glancing at me, but I didn’t turn. I wasn’t going to look in his intoxicating eyes again, so I closed mine and hoped he wouldn’t say another word. I was weaker for him than he knew.
