THIRTEEN: James

THIRTEEN

JAMES

Traveling on I-80 East

There’s nothing but blistering white ahead, and my windshield wipers are squealing under the weight of all the falling snow.

The worst of the storm is expected to bear down in a matter of hours.

“Warning: Limited emergency services!” “Shelter in place!” “Winter storm alert!”

The dashboard’s weather app serves me a fresh round of warnings.

Shit…

“I have a confession to make.” Taryn suddenly sits up on the backseat.

Why did I let her sit back there again?

“I’m listening.” My eyes meet hers in the rear-view mirror.

“It's a very honest confession.”

“You don't need to announce that you're attracted to me, Taryn,” I say. “I’m well aware.”

“That's not what I was going to say.”

“Can you finally admit that it’s true?”

“No.” She continues to live in denial. "I'm way too tired to drive the next stretch. We'll need to pull over so I can take a nap."

“In that case, we should get a hotel.”

“For a few hours?”

“No.” I look at my screen again. “We might as well stay put for the night and power through tomorrow. It’ll cost time, but we’re going to lose it anyway with this weather.”

“I’m fine with that as long as we get separate suites.”

“With the storm this close, we can’t afford to be picky.”

“I just want to make it clear that I’m not sharing a bed with you.” She’s doubling down on her insanity. “Ever.”

“Scared you might never want to share one with anyone else?”

“No, I…” She blushes, failing to come up with something else sarcastic.

“There are five exits and a truck stop ahead,” I say. “Start looking up the closest hotels.”

Half an hour passes without Taryn uttering a word, and we’re down to two exits.

“Any luck on finding a hotel?” I ask.

“Just motels and very questionable Airbnbs.”

“Define questionable.”

“Well, one house is offering the use of a room with two beds, but we’d have to share a floor with four other people, and everyone has to walk through our room to use the bathroom.”

I shake my head, doubting that she’ll find something much better soon.

“We’ll park and wait out the night then.”

“You mean, we have to sleep in the car?”

“You can do that if you’d like. I plan on sleeping outside.”

“ What? ” The look on her face is priceless.“Are you serious?”

“Extremely.” I pull onto a side road and park in an open field that’s far from trees.

Popping the trunk, I pull out all my emergency camping gear.

Taryn watches with wide eyes as I set up small heaters and prepare a small emergency flame. After I spread out the tent over the ground, she rolls down the window.

“Do you keep camping gear in all your cars?”

“Yeah.” I nod. “My brother and I used to camp with our dad every Christmas. It’s a bit of a habit to stay prepared.”

"So, you'll sleep in that tent, and I'll sleep in the car?"

“If that's what you want.” I hook a tube to the tent and turn on the air pump.

Air whooshes through the lines, and a large globe dome takes shape within minutes.

I stake it down as fast as I can, and the concern on Taryn’s face deepens.She looks like she’s never been camping before.

How cute.

“I’ll set up a small water pump and some other things within the hour,” I say, checking my watch. “If you plan to sleep in the car, that’s fine, but you’ll need to?—”

“Change of plans.” She flings the door open and rushes into the tent.

Good choice.