Abby

 

The weather was still rough as we crossed into Kansas. The conversation had died down in the truck, which left me with only my thoughts. I loved listening to Doug’s story. About how he met his wife and how he came to be a trucker. It was wonderful to me that he understood his downfalls as a man. It took a very self-assured person to admit their faults and understand that, sometimes, those personality traits were simply beyond an individual’s ability to control. Doug’s face lit up as he talked about his wife and it reminded me of the relationship I had with my ex. I wondered if he ever lit up like that when he talked about me in the beginning. I wondered if he’d ever loved me the way I had loved him.

I wondered if anyone would ever love me the way Doug loved his wife.

Listening to Doug talk about his family made me miss my own. I wondered how my mother and father were on their vacation. My father surprised my mother with a Valentine’s Day cruise this year, and the look on her face as she talked about it made me melt. My father was the epitome of a wonderful man. He was kind and brave and successful. Loving and sensitive, but knew how to stand his ground. You could mess with him but you sure as hell couldn’t mess with his family.

I bet they were having a splendid time.

I bet my father was dancing around their room with my mother in his arms. I bet they were sitting at a piano bar, sipping their favorite drinks while listening to some live entertainment. I bet my father was indulging in the finest foods as my mother curled up in a hot tub. I bet my mother was spending entire days at some onboard spa so my father could take in live entertainment at three o’clock in the afternoon without having to worry about where she was or what she was up to.

What my parents had was wonderful and what Doug had with his wife was incredible.

“You okay, Abby?”

Just hearing Colin’s voice ripped me back to reality. Instead of fantasizing about what having a family would be like, I was sitting in an eighteen-wheeler creeping down the highway. At this snail’s pace because of the weather, we wouldn’t make it to Kansas City until almost ten tonight.

Which meant we wouldn’t get to Wichita until almost midnight.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I said.

“You don’t sound fine,” he said.

“You know what? No, I’m not fine. I don’t understand why you couldn’t just listen to me. I don’t understand why it would’ve been so damn bad to just stay another night with me in a hotel.”

“Abby, I really don’t think now’s an—”

“Whatever,” I said, sighing.

I didn’t care that Doug was around. I was ready to address this situation. It wasn’t the fact that he didn’t listen to my nagging. It was the fact that I was scared. I was anxious and fearful, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even acknowledge the fact that it bothered him in the slightest. I’d ridden in that car gripping onto the emergency handle and shaking in the passenger’s seat, and he didn’t give a damn about it. He didn’t care that I was scared and he did nothing to try to make it better. He wanted me to trust him, but only if that meant keeping my mouth shut.

“You two hungry?” Doug asked. “There’s a giant truck stop with a restaurant not too far up the road. Figured we could all use a stretch.”

“Sounds perfect,” Colin said.

“What about you, Miss Abby?” Doug asked.

“Whatever makes the man happy,” I said, defeated.

I could feel Colin’s eyes on me, but I didn’t care. Whatever excitement I’d possessed at seeing Colin on the airplane had completely dissipated. Whatever fantastical reality I had built up for us in my head had come crashing down around me. The kind, sweet, laid back man who tossed his luggage into the back of the car at the airport didn’t exist any longer, and I was just as ready to get to Kansas City as he was.

If I could get there safely.

The weather was still disgusting. No snow anywhere in sight, but the freezing rain was pouring down. It was icing the bridges and creating low-hanging icicles that shattered against the top of the truck. The temperatures were plummeting to below freezing and the snow that was still on the roads was beginning to harden into ice. I could feel the truck sliding around as we pulled into the rest stop, and my hands were already trembling with fear.

I was just glad we were pulling over.

I shoved Colin out of the truck just to plant my feet onto solid ground. I scurried my way into the restaurant, anxious to sit down and get a cup of coffee in me. Even though it was three in the afternoon, it looked like it was almost midnight outside. The gray clouds that were heavy with angry weather seemed to be taunting me.

Like they used to do when I was a little girl.

I don’t know why the weather frightened me so much, but it did. There was this one snowstorm I could remember, and it kept popping up to the forefront of my mind whenever I chanced to look outside. It was the largest snow storm Minnesota had ever received. It snowed for five entire days before coating us in a sheet of ice. My father was trying to get home from a business convention on the other side of the state, and my mother kept telling him to just stay put until the snow and ice could melt.

But my father was anxious to be home and I was anxious to see him.

He had been gone for two weeks and I missed him. I missed our nighttime rituals and I missed cuddling with him on the couch. And I knew my mother missed him, though she was trying to be strong for me.

I wanted him home and I was excited when Mom told me he would be driving through.

But, what should’ve been a six-hour drive ended up in a three-day manhunt to figure out what had happened to him. His car had skidded on a massive patch of ice and ended up in a ditch. But because his car was white and buried in the shadows of the snow, the police just kept buzzing by him.

He almost froze to death because he didn’t want to wait until the weather cleared.

“Here ya go,” Doug said, grunting. “Got you a cup of coffee.”

“Did the waitress come by?” I asked.

“You looked a little lost in thought. I caught her before she bothered you.”

“You’re so considerate,” I said. “Your wife is very lucky.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t always this way. She taught me how to be. All this? Courtesy of her training.”

I grinned as I wrapped my hands around the warm mug.

“A word of advice?” Doug asked.

“I’ll take anything right now,” I said, sighing.

“Communicate. Even if he’s just your boss. But I don’t really think that’s the case.”

“Trust me. He’s only the owner of the company I work for,” I said.

“Either way, communicate with him. He only knows what you tell him. Us men aren’t mind readers.”

“I just want out of this weather. It’s terrible, and someone is going to get hurt. Hell, we almost got hurt,” I said.

“Then tell him that.”

“I did! He won’t listen.”

“No. You have to tell him why,” Doug said.

I looked up into his eyes and held his gaze until Colin sat down next to me in the booth.

“How far out from Kansas City are we?” Colin asked.

“About an hour out,” Doug said.

“Wonderful. We can get to Kansas City, get another rental, and make it into Wichita tonight.”

Doug shot me a look, so I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Colin, I really think we should get a hotel in Kansas City,” I said.

“No way. Not when we’re so close,” Colin said.

“At this rate, we won’t get into Wichita until close to midnight. And the nighttime is going to make this driving worse. The clouds don’t look like they’re going to let up anytime soon, and I just think it’s safer,” I said.

“Then you can stay behind in Kansas City and I’ll head on. But I need to make it into Wichita tonight,” Colin said.

“Colin, that’s not safe for you and you know it. No preparation you need to do requires you to be in Wichita,” I said.

“If it helps, I think Abby’s right,” Doug said. “Getting a hotel in Kansas City is gonna be much better for you in this weather. It’s not supposed to get any easier, from the looks of weather reports.”

“An eight-hour trip shouldn’t take two days,” Colin said.

“It does if there are blizzards,” I said. “And besides, you’ve already crashed one car. You ready to do that to another just because you’re stubborn?”

Colin’s eyes held mine and I could hear Doug sigh in defeat. Communication wasn’t what Colin needed. I was communicating what we needed just fine. What Colin needed was a swift kick in the ass by someone who wouldn’t take his shit.

And I was going to give it to him.

“There’s a hotel close to this truck stop. About ten minutes outside of Kansas City. It’s an awesome spot. Got a pool and a hot tub and all sorts of amenities to make it comfortable,” Doug said.

“Could we stay there even though we aren’t truckers?” I asked.

“We’re not staying in a hotel,” Colin said.

“Then find a taxi,” I said, flatly.

“You can stay as long as you’re with me,” Doug said. “I was gonna camp there anyway. The roads are getting bad and the weather is supposed to unleash again tonight.”

“Of course it is,” Colin said.

“Are you serious right now?” I asked.

“I don’t understand why it’s so bad that I’m frustrated that an eight-hour trip is taking us this long,” Colin said.

“You totaled a damn rental car, Colin,” I said. “If you really can’t see that your stubbornness is bordering on suicide, then you’ve got bigger problems than prepping for an idiotic conference.”

I held his gaze and dared him to respond. I was ready for a fight. I was ready to dump my shit onto this man. I was ready to bury him in his insolence and his disregard for others around him.

But he didn’t say a word.

“The hotel sounds wonderful, Doug. Thank you,” I said.

“You gonna be joining us, Mr. Murphy?” Doug asked.

“Doesn’t look like I have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. It’s whether you make the right one or not that lands you in the positions you find yourself in,” I said.

“Like spending Christmas with you?”

The moment it rolled off his tongue I could tell he regretted it. His eyes sank and his eyebrows hiked up onto his forehead. I could feel tears rising to my eyes as my world came crashing down around me. There it was. The one thing I was petrified of. The one thing that kept rolling around in my mind that entire night as we laid there beside the fire, tangled up in one another.

I was scared I would become a regret to him.

And apparently, I had.

“Abby, I—”

But all I did was hold up my hand to stop him.

“I’m not feeling very hungry,” I said. “But thank you for the coffee, Doug. It was very kind of you to get it for me,” I said.

“Not a problem. Let’s get some food in us and I’ll get us to the hotel. I take it the two of you will want two separate rooms?”

I nodded lightly before I turned my face to look out the window. My heart ached. A heart I didn’t even understand had become so attached to Colin. That night we shared together in the motel, with the jet tub and the champagne, it had been a dream come true. A desire realized that I had denied myself time and time again. I had missed his body. His presence. What his cock could do to me and how beautiful his lips made me feel. I missed his grunts low in my ear and his breath that was hot on my neck.

And he didn’t miss any of it.

Not even a sliver.