Page 43 of Shut Up and Drive

I give Sera a thumbs-up as I waddle-run away. The attendant looks up lazily as the cheery little bell above the door rings—the complete antithesis of this moment. He hands over the key without saying a word when he sees the panic on my face. I duck back outside, my hands shaking asI try the key. When the doorknob gives way, I dive into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

The next few minutes are ones I’d rather erase from memory, and I grimace as I wash my hands with rust-colored water and nonexistent soap. I reach for a paper towel that shreds when I dry my hands, and stagger toward the exit.

My momentum comes to a screeching halt when the knob turns, but the door doesn’t budge. The air is forced out of my lungs as my body slams against layers of graffiti and wood. But the coup de grâce is when I pull someone else’s gum from my hair.

“Fina! Help!” I yell from the bathroom, but I’m not sure she can hear me over the traffic outside.

I slam my fist against the door over and over again, screaming for her to no avail. I want to give up, slink down to the floor, and succumb to my filthy fate, but the floor is more questionable than the door.

Serves me right for teasing Sera so hard yesterday.

Karma is definitely a girl’s-girl.

Chapter 16

MONTESERA’S REVENGE

Sera

Ican’t just sit and wait for Thane to finish. So I make myself useful and pump gas, quietly doing Lamaze breathing because for some reasonthatis what I thought would help in the moment. After the tank is full, there are still no signs of life from Thane. I grab my purse from the passenger seat and lock the car. The moment I start walking, everything settles in my gut with a low gurgle. That’s when I know I’m in trouble. I scurry down the sidewalk to the convenience store and pull open the door. A shady-looking guy behind the counter looks up from his phone but doesn’t say hello.

“Uh, hi,” I start in a nervous tone, shifting my weight back and forth. “My friend came in here and got the bathroom key a little while ago, and he hasn’t come back. Is he…”

“Prob’bly stuck. That knob is tricky.”

“Excuse me?”

“The. Knob. Gets. Stuuuuck,” the man says slowly in a thick southern accent, and shakes his head impatiently.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll just… go check on him, then,” I say before pivoting back toward the door.

I stride as nonchalantly as I can muster—when the lower half of my body is spasming—to the bathroom door and try the knob. Sure enough, it’s locked.

“Thane?” I say against the door. “Are you in there?”

“Oh, thank goodness!” he shouts from inside. “The knob is broken and won’t turn.”

“The attendant said that it gets stuck. Have you tried wiggling it?”

“It smells so bad in here that it’s fogging my critical thinking skills. But yes, I have tried wiggling it. I’ve also been slamming my body against the door for the past five minutes.”

I push past my own discomfort when my train of thought stops on its tracks and switches gears toward Paybackville.

“It smells bad in there?” I ask with a Cheshire Cat grin.

“SObad! Like a carcass in the trunk of a junkyard car in the middle of summer.”

“Reeeeaaaally…?” I reply, failing to contain my laugh.

“Fina, I don’t like that tone. I can hear those wheels turning from in here, and I’m telling you right now—if you don’t want every secret you’ve ever told me exposed, you’ll let me out now!”

I lean my shoulder against the door. “I’m sorry, Thane, it’s hitting me hard too. I don’t have time to tinker with the doorknob.” I pause when I hear him dry heave.

“Fina! Now is not the time! This is the grossestbathroom I have ever seen, even counting the bucket in the rainforest I used in Costa Rica. If you don’t let me out, I’ll be forced to throw up in this toilet, and that will scar me for life!”

The desperation in his voice raises pitch with every word and is punctuated with gagging sounds.

“Listen. I see a coffee shop behind the gas station. I’m going to go there to find a bathroom. It won’t be pretty if I try to wrestle this door open now.”