Emmy
Glissade [glee-sad] n—A traveling step
Rhys’s knee bounces up, down, up, down, up, down as we sit waiting on my couch for Q to arrive so we can leave for California.
“You’re not nervous about leaving your mom, are you?”
His knee stops bouncing. “Not to leave my mom. No.”
With Cami home from New York to take care of their mother I didn’t think Rhys would be so worried. And I especially thought this after meeting her when we picked her up from the airport yesterday. Cami is kind and smart and funny; he has to know his mom will be well taken care of. His mom is still feeling blue about relapsing, though, so maybe . . . “Are you worried about leaving your mom with your sister?”
“No. They’ll be fine.”
“If you need to stay here—”
“No way. I’m not giving up this time with you for anything.”
Q’s truck rumbles up the street and stops in front of the house, ending our conversation. Evie runs down the stairs past Rhys and me on the couch, flings open the door, and throws herself into Q’s arms.
Rhys stands from the couch and pulls me to my feet, kissing my forehead. “Ready?”
“To spend the entire day driving? No.”
“Well, I’ve been looking forward to this for the last week. Ten hours with you in my arms is going to be heaven.” He grins.
“Remember that when you wake up with drool on your shirt.”
He picks up both our backpacks stuffed full of everything we’ll need for the weekend and opens the front door for me.
We walk down the brick path, and Rhys stops dead in his tracks, our arms pulling taut between us. I look back at him. “Everything, okay?”
He hesitates. “Yeah . . .”
“What’s wrong?”
His chin falls to his chest, and then he points at Q’s truck. I stare at the truck for a second, trying to figure out Rhys’s negative reaction to it, and it hits me. It’s the truck. Black. Ford F-150 Raptor. Everything he’d saved for and then had to sacrifice to care for his mom. I was so excited about spending an entire weekend with him that I didn’t put the two together.
Rhys drops my hand and walks over to the truck. He runs his hand over the metal lines of the body, leaving a foggy handprint on the waxed paint.
“It’s nice, right?” Q says to Rhys.
“Yes, she is.” Rhys steps away from the truck and shoves his hands in his pockets. “What does she tow?”
Q grunts. “This beast doesn’t tow anything but ladies.”
I roll my eyes. Despite the somewhat pleasant conversation Q and I had the day he apologized to Evie, when he makes comments like that, it’s really hard to want to get to know him. Evie and Q climb into the front seat, and Rhys opens the back passenger door for me. His eyes bounce between the bottom of the truck and the ground. “Should I help you up?” He laughs.
I shake my head and climb in. Taking either mine or Evie’s SUV would have been more comfortable, but Q insisted we take his truck. I wish I had insisted we didn’t. Rhys hands me his backpack, and I set it next to mine on the far side of the seat.
“I see what you’re doing here.” He points at our luggage as he sits beside me.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Taking up all the leg room. I’m on to you.”
I pretend-punch his arm, and he catches my fist and pulls me to his side. A wave of his clean scent drifts past my nose as I snuggle into him.
Q revs the engine, and the floor vibrates. Music blares out of the speakers. I cover my ears, and Rhys ducks.
Q turns down volume. “Ready, baby?”
“Ready.”
Q speeds down the street, his tires screeching against the asphalt.
“We might be safer in my truck,” Rhys says.
“True, but then we couldn’t do this.” I kiss his lips.
“I guess we’ll have to risk it, then.”
“Guess so.”
“So, baby,” Evie says to Q. “How long is this drive?”
The question bothers me for several reasons, but mostly because she knows how long the drive is. We’ve done this exact route at least twenty times.
He rewards her with a lopsided grin. “Ten hours, but we’re going to make it in eight.”
Rhys rests his hands on the back of Q’s seat and leans forward. “Help a guy out.” He motions to me with his head. “Make it ten.”
Q looks in the rearview mirror at me, then nods to Rhys in a boys’-club kind of way. “Ten hours it is.”
Rhys leans back in his seat and dips his mouth to my ear. “He may not care about getting his girl to LA safely, but I sure do.”
I snuggle back into Rhys. As we merge onto the freeway, Q turns to Evie. “How’s traffic?” He nods to his in-dash navigation screen. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care how traffic is but more about how his new GPS system looks.
“Oh, I forgot to program the address in.” Evie touches the screen and programs our parents’ Hollywood Hills address into it.
“Not that we need it,” I mumble to Rhys. One interstate will take us all the way to California.
Evie studies the screen, then turns to Q. “Traffic looks good, baby.”
Q glances back at Rhys. “I had this put in last week.”
“Cool.”
“Cost me nearly $800.”
“Steep.”
Q puffs up. “Everyone should have one.”
“Too rich for my blood.”
“Nah. It was worth every penny, right, baby?” Q says to Evie.
Evie flips down her sunshade and readjusts her Chloe sunglasses. “Sure, baby. It’s great.”
I lean toward Rhys and lower my voice. “If I have to hear the word baby one more time, I’m going to lose it.”
“Sorry about that, bebé.” Rhys winks.
“Bebé?” I ask.
“Bebé?” His accent covers my skin with chills. “You remember I’m Mexican, right?”
“Vaguely, sometimes. Honestly, I never think about it. But I’m loving it right now.”
He chuckles and drops a kiss on the crown of my head, and we settle in for a long drive.
Q drums a beat on the steering wheel, and Evie reads a magazine.
“Are you okay with this?” I look around Q’s truck so Rhys knows what I’m referring to.
His mouth slopes down into a tough-guy frown. “I made a choice to put my family first, and I would do it again. Junky truck and all.” He laughs disparagingly.
“You’re a good guy, Rhys.”
His knee starts bouncing, and he looks out the window.
Wanting to take his mind off the truck, I search for a new topic of conversation. “Oh! I forgot to tell you. André Dupont, this incredible choreographer, is visiting BYU next semester. I’m going to audition for the solo.”
Rhys smiles. “You’ll get it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve seen you dance.”