Abby : Reasons…
CHAPTER TWENTY
This time it would be different, I called my mom and told her what my plan was. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of me road tripping around the state with a relative stranger, but she knew there was nothing she could really do about it. After all, we’d already done it once and survived.
I packed everything I needed, sans urn, and shoved it all into my car before heading toward the address Beck had sent over last night. The roads were empty since it was early on a Saturday morning. I’d planned ahead, thinking it would take me longer to get to his apartment, but when I pulled up next to his grandfather’s Camper it was barely seven am. Whoops. He was going to kill me.
I tried to pass some time, rearranging my CDs and making sure the iPod speakers would work sitting on top of my car. After the sun had fully risen and there was nothing left to do, I hit call and waited for him to answer. He didn’t pick up until the fifth ring.
“ Sorry that I woke you up!” I exclaimed into the phone before he had a chance to groan at how early it was. “I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t sleep and so I left my house earlier than I had planned, and there was no traffic.”
“ What are you talking about?” Beck laughed, but his voice still held tones of sleepiness.
“ Come outside after you put some clothes on.”
“ How did you know I wasn’t wearing clothes?”
My cheeks reddened at the thought. “You told me you slept in your boxers usually and I was guessing, but wow…now that I know that you’re naked...”
“ Did you call me at seven to have phone sex?”
I laughed an embarrassing laugh to cover up how much his question flustered me.
“ I’ll be out in a second,” he answered, and then hung up.
I scrambled out of the car and set up the speakers so that they would face his apartment building, then got ready so I could press play on the iPod as soon as I saw him. My heart raced. I was so nervous; I was putting my feelings on the line and if Beck laughed or thought I was a cheesy dork, I wasn’t sure how well I’d take it.
There was a thumping of feet on the stairs and I peered up to see him making his way toward the first-floor landing. I panicked and hit play as quickly as I could. John Denver’s guitar started streaming through the speakers followed swiftly by his soft melody. I reached over and turned the speakers up high right as Beck rounded the staircase and came into view.
His dark hair was disheveled and curling at the ends even more than usual. He’d thrown on a white t-shirt and workout shorts that hugged his solid frame. Once his eyes locked onto me, he dropped his gaze to my jean cut-offs and took his time taking me in. He grinned and his smile momentarily stunned me. There was something about him that seemed different as he stepped closer to me. He was more confident, more in control of his next step. The song kicked up another notch and Beck’s eyes flitted to the speakers resting on my hood. John Denver was in the middle of singing about saying goodbye.
“ Are you about to leave without me?” he asked, turning back to me with a sexy half-smile.
I wouldn’t make it two miles without him in the Camper with me. “No. I just think we started our last road trip off on the wrong foot,” I shrugged, and crossed my arms to wait for his next move.
“ So now you respect the power of John Denver?” he asked, stepping another inch toward me. I caught a whiff of his shampoo. He must have showered right before going to bed. I stared hard at his white t-shirt, willing him to close the remaining gap between us.
“ Maybe I do…”
I caught a glimpse of his smirk before he enveloped me in his arms and picked me up. We were standing in the parking lot of his apartment complex with his hands wrapped tightly around my waist. My hands clasped around his neck and my feet hung a foot above the ground.
“ Hi,” I said, looking into his eyes and trying hard not to smile like a buffoon.
“ When do we leave?” he asked. He was fighting a smile as well and I thought it was so silly that we were attempting to play our attraction off as anything less than clothes-tearing, soul-stealing, gut-wrenching madness.