Page 10 of Almost Enough

“As a heart attack.”

This is either going to be the most entertaining or excruciating trip of my life.

My mouth twitches again. Three times in five minutes. A record.

“And what do I get out of this agreement?” I ask, eyes on the road.

“He speaks in full sentences! Alert the media.” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “You get…my sparkling conversation for nineteen hours. Oh, and I promise not to tell Violet that you glared at me like I kicked your dog.”

“I don’t glare.”

“You absolutely do. It’s very Clint Eastwood.”

I pass a minivan that’s been hogging the left lane and glance at Whitley. She’s not looking at me, just watching the landscape blur past in flashes of green and gold. Her fiery hair catches in the morning light. It almost makes me wonder if her hair is as soft as it looks.

The miles slide under the tires. Whitley runs commentary on everything—the weather, the music, the scenery, conspiracy theories. She tells stories, most of them with herself as the punchline, and at some point, I stop tuning her out and just let it in.

She has a way of filling the silence without making me wish for it back. That’s new. And maybe I don’t hate it.

four

. . .

Whitley

Four whole hours of highway, country stations, and Beau saying maybe five words. Six, if you count the grunt he gave when we passed a gas station without stopping.

I lean my forehead against the window and sigh. “If I don’t hear another human voice soon, I might start talking to your truck.”

He doesn’t look away from the road. “You’ve been talking nonstop since we left.”

“Exactly,” I say, sitting up and turning toward him. “And still, I get nothing.”

Beau just arches a brow. The man communicates in micro expressions and occasional shrugs. It’s maddening.

But here’s the really dangerous part. Somewhere between mile marker 112 and 187, I stopped being annoyed by it. Now I’m…curious.

Underneath the stoic thing he’s got going on, I catch it in the way his jaw tightens when we pass a run-down farm or how his fingers flex on the steering wheel when I laugh too loud. Like he’s holding himself together with duct tape and grit, and I’m just nosy enough to want to know why.

“So,” I say, kicking my feet up on the dash, which earns me a side-eye. “Tell me one thing about yourself that doesn’t involve car parts or monosyllabic grunting.”

His fingers tap the steering wheel once. Twice. “I like the quiet.”

Of course he does.

“Fine. You like the quiet. Groundbreaking. I hate long silences, and I once adopted a cat just so I wouldn’t come home to an empty apartment.”

Silence.

I glance over. He’s not laughing, not smirking. Just watching the road with that unreadable expression of his.

Then he says, quietly, “What happened to the cat?”

My breath catches. Not because the question’s dramatic or anything. Just because it’s the first time he’s actually asked me something.

“She still lives with my ex,” I say after a beat. “He got custody. I got the couch and some truly mediocre closure.”

Another pause. And then…