If looks could kill, the one I’m giving him would be considered second degree homicide. “I swear to God, Mickey—"
“Keep your claws to yourself until you hear what I have to say.”
Sighing, I cross my arms and lean away from him. “What?”
“You can stay on your side of the car if you face me while you sleep and hold my hand.” Mickey says it with his deep voice and that unhinged sparkle in his eye, but all I can think about is how I used to make the same request to my mother. “Do we have a deal?”
I nod hesitantly.
“Shake on it.” Mickey holds his hand out.
Narrowing my eyes, I take his hand before he can pull it away and turn this into a germaphobe’s nightmare. I still have trust issues after he quickly spit on it and slapped our hands together when I was twelve. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever felt.
“Good.” He releases me, motioning to my seat as if I’ve been dismissed. Such a little shit.
The journey back to my side of the car is less than graceful. A whole bunch of awkward positioning of limbs and less than ceremonious grunts. Oh, and a brutal slap to my ass.
Once there’s no pressure on my backside, and I’m protected by the blanket’s warmth once again, I try to pay attention to something other than Mickey. But there’s nothing else to look at but him because condensation coats the windows, so there’s no way to know if anyone is standing outside.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if anything were to happen, Mickey would risk his life to save me. That kind of knowledge makes falling asleep easier, but the longing in his stare chases the prospect of rest away.
“Hand, Bella,” he scolds.
“But it’s cold.”
I shook on it, and it’s a cardinal sin to break what has been shaken on.
He mutters something under his breath and drags another blanket to the front seat so it covers both of us. Without waiting for me to give him my hand, he shoves his arm beneath my blanket and fumbles around until our fingers are intertwined, and then he grunts his approval.
We’ve been through Hell together, and like he promised, he came back for me. I’m giving him a hard time, but I still want to be wherever he is. As I stare at his profile and let the sound of breathing calm my racing nerves, I realize something; he feels like cocoa in the winter and the first sign of color in the fall. And when I’m around him, I feel like sangria in the summer and daffodils in the spring.
We’re polar opposites, but work so perfectly together.
Or maybe so tragically.
“Goodnight, Princess.”
“Goodnight, Mickey.”
Chapter 23
ROMAN
“I’m just saying, if we were ever in a Mad Max and Aliens situation, we’d be sorted. I’d set us up a nice ride—maybe steal a Tesla, go electric—and we’ll be crusin’ around the country, just you and me. I mean, it would suck because there probably wouldn’t be any radio, and we’d have to hunt our own food—lucky we have the house—but I think we have a serious chance of survival.”
Bella mumbles a non-committal “Yup,” while reading the back of a chip packet, which she follows up with a cute little frown. “The Tesla would be useless without electricity.”
So she was listening to me. Good. “We’ll head to South America, so I can be a cooler Indiana Jones, and you can be Jane.”
Bella still doesn’t look up from the packet she’s been reading for the past ten minutes.
The great news is that her hair is back in her signature pigtails—but she didn’t want my help. So that pissed me the fuck off this morning.
Fuck baby steps. Why isn’t she madly obsessed with me yet?
“Jane’s from Tarzan, and please don’t compare yourself to Indiana Jones. You’ll never win.”
Test number two: Passed.
Wait, actually, no. Now I’m a little bit jealous. What the hell does she mean that I can’t win against Harrison Ford?
That’s it. She’s banned from watching movies with him in it.
All morning, Bella has been either ignoring me or giving me her very obviously distracted attention. I’m inclined to pull over and make her give me her full attention, but she’s lucky that we’ve got an appointment to make, and we’re already late.
It's time to change tactics and say something that will really get her going. Pull out the big guns, as they say. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. While in prison, I read this book that said that when snakes lay eggs, you should always spin and tip the eggs a couple of times to help them grow strong.”