Another rental, another highway. Mile markers tick past as I drive, sunglasses on, music turned low. Riley has her window down, her hand out in the wind, and her hair’s blowing around but she doesn’t seem to mind.

We speed past field after endless field. We spot cows, tractors, rows of crops, big weird machines riding around spraying water all over, big weird machines riding around cutting down plants, and haybales. It’s about eight in the morning, and we have another hour of driving ahead of us. Riley hasn’t said a word since we got into the car.

Which is fine by me, I don’t feel like talking for once in my life. I keep coming back to that moment by the tree, my fingers on her pussy, my entire body thrumming with her energy. I whispered in her ear, tried to talk dirty, but as soon as I mentioned the baby it freaked her out and she ran away.

I should’ve seen that coming. It’s probably stupid that I didn’t. I guess in the throes of passion, or whatever, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to get her off, make her feel good, and I wasn’t considering what my dirty talk might make her feel. I know that the baby isn’t a good thing in her mind, and she’s probably fucking terrified of it. I can’t really blame her, it’s a terrifying prospect.

I just wish she could see it the way I see it. This baby is a good thing, an amazing thing, the best thing to ever happen to me. The more I think about being a father, the more I want it. I have a hole in my life, a hole that I’ve been trying to fill with work and money and meaningless sex, but I can already feel that hole starting to heal. It isn’t fucking or money that I need, it’s family.

“You ever wonder why I kept sneaking into your basement?” I ask her suddenly.

She looks over at me, surprised. “I haven’t thought about that in… I don’t know, a long time.”

I don’t look over at her, but I smile at the memory. “I used to pull those big heavy doors up and sneak in through the back. Your parents never locked that door, I think because they didn’t mind me coming over.”

“I never looked at it that way,” she says thoughtfully. “I guess I figured they didn’t know.”

“They knew,” I say, laughing. “Your mom caught me one time smoking a joint alone down there. She just shook her head and told me to put some pants on before going back upstairs.”

Riley laughs at that image. “Are you serious?”

“I’m serious. I thought she was going to murder me, but she didn’t seem to care.”

“I can’t imagine my mom letting either of us get away with smoking weed.”

“I wasn’t her son, so I guess… I guess it didn’t matter. I don’t know.”

“God, that’s funny. Did you ever tell Davis that?”

“No, actually,” I say, grinning. “I was embarrassed at the time and kind of forgot about it after that.”

“He’d love it. You should tell him.”

“Yeah. I really should.”

We fall into silence for a second again. I can feel Riley studying me, her hand still in the cool midwestern air.

“So why were you always coming over?” she prompts me.

I glance at her. “It’s going to sound stupid.”

“Maybe, but say it anyway.”

“My parents were good people,” I say slowly. “I mean, they loved me and supported me and stuff, they just… didn’t care about me.”

She frowns a little bit. “What does that mean?”

“I was always a burden at home, always in the way. My mom’s like this crazy neat freak, and my dad is obsessed with World War II and guns and shit, so my mom was busy cleaning all the time and he was busy collecting antique guns or whatever.”

“You were hiding from chores?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “My mom would never let me help her, I would’ve just done it wrong. No, I was hiding from their disinterest. I wasn’t comfortable at home… so I came to your house.”

She’s quiet for a little while. I feel like a needy, spoiled bitch, but there’s the truth. My parents were good people, supported me, helped me, but they just weren’t interested in me all that much. They had their own lives, their own problems. I was just another mouth to feed and ass to wipe.

“What made you feel better at our place?” she asks finally.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I still don’t really know what it was. I guess it was just having other people around, you know?”

“You don’t have siblings,” she says.

“Right. Only child. Can you tell?”

“Totally.” She hesitates. “You wanted siblings. And my brother was like a brother to you.”

I grin at her. “And you were like a little sister.”

She makes a face. “Gross.”

“Well, not anymore, obviously.”

She laughs and looks away, head tipped back. “You just wanted a family,” she says softly. “Guess that’s sad, when you already had—”

Suddenly there’s a loud bang outside. Riley sits bolt upright and the car swerves a little bit. I get it under control pretty fast, but I can feel the car vibrating, and a loud banging slap comes from outside the window.

“Fuck,” I say, slowly guiding the car over to the shoulder and braking. “Fucking fuck.”

“Aaron, what’s going on?”

I bring the car to a halt and park it. We’re on a flat stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, with farms on either side of us, and not a single other human in sight.

“We got a fucking flat,” I say, and she groans.

I push down on the wrench and the lug nut turns ever so slightly. I loosen it up a little more before moving on to the next one.

My jacket’s hanging in the back of the car, and Riley stands off to the side, her arms folded over her chest, the jack at her feet. Once I’m finished loosening the nuts, I nod at her, and she starts to raise the car. I put some blocks at the end of the wheels, just in case, although the road’s totally flat as it is.

Once she gets the car up, I take over. I remove the lugs completely, pull the flat off, and push the useless wheel off to the side.

“You’re such a manly man,” Riley comments as I grab the spare from the ground.

“Tell me about it.” I flex a little for her. “Look at these guns. These are the guns of a true man.”

She rolls her eyes again. “Is that donut gonna get us where we’re going?”

“It better,” I say, frowning and kicking at it. “But we can’t go too fast on it. We’ll probably have to skip today’s meetings.”

“Shit,” she says.

“Don’t worry. We’re in good shape.” I grin as I heft the donut up and onto the car, slotting it in and letting it hang there. “You’ll get your money.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She walks away, sighing and looking up at the sky. “I freaking better.”

I glance back at her. She’s in a terrible mood, but I guess I can’t blame her. It’s hot out and we’re practically baking on this black asphalt. I get the lug nuts back onto the donut, tightening them with my fingers before slowly lowering the car back down onto the ground. Once it’s level, I use the wrench to get the lugs nice and tight, finishing up.

All in all, it took me about a half hour to change that tire. Not too bad for someone that’s never actually done it before. I won’t admit that to Riley, but I’ve never had to change a tire in my life. Sure, I’ve watched YouTube videos, just in case, but never had to put those skills to use until now.

Riley stands off to the side of the road, watching as I finish up. I’m sweating as I shove the old wheel and tire into the back seat of the car, dusting my hands off on my pants as I finish up.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I say, and Riley just shrugs.

“Easy for me,” she answers.

I laugh a little bit and squint through the sunlight at her. She looks distract, annoyed even, as if this unexpected detour were somehow my fault.

And suddenly something inside of me flares up. I don’t expect it and I don’t know where it comes from but I feel it hit me sudden and hard. I’ve been so good to her, trying to give her everything I can, and yeah, I know, this pregnancy thing sucks, and I know she’d rather be an engineer than a salesman, but come on. I’m trying to make her filthy fucking rich. She can design all the shit she wants when this is all over. And here I am, busting my ass to change this tire, and she doesn’t so much as fucking thank me.

She’s so ungrateful it fucking hurts.

“Why do you despise me so fucking much?”

The question takes her off guard. “What?”

“You stand there like somehow I put glass in the road just to piss you off. I’m sweating my ass off, changing this fucking tire, and you’re standing there all pissed off and shit. I don’t get you, Riley.”

She stares at me for a second, eyes wide, before they slowly narrow. “You think I want to be here?”

“I know you don’t. You’ve made it abundantly clear.”

“You blackmailed me into this basically.”

“I got you the deal of a lifetime.”

“A deal I didn’t ask for!” She’s glaring at me now, getting just as angry as I feel. I know this is a mistake, and I’m lashing out because I’m tired and sweating and my hands hurt and our schedule’s fucked. I know this is a bad decision even as I keep pushing forward.

“Oh, sorry, I might make you rich as fucking hell. I guess I really fucked that one up.”

“I didn’t ask for this!” she says angrily. “I didn’t ask to get pregnant and I didn’t ask to go on this stupid trip with you.”

I stand there breathing deep, glaring right back at her. “Why do you despise me so much, Riley?” I ask her again. “You haven’t answered my question.”

She watches me carefully for a second. “You want to know the truth, Aaron? I think you’re arrogant.”

I smirk a little bit. “Of course you do.”

“I think you’re an arrogant salesman. You barely gave me the time of day when we were kids and now suddenly you’re all up in my shit. I don’t get it.”

I laugh a little at that, shaking my head. “Is this seriously because of when we were kids?”

“No,” she snaps at me. “But you were an ass back then.”

“I couldn’t be nice to you!” I say, anger flaring hard again. “Your fucking brother wouldn’t let me.”

She’s quiet for a second, watching me carefully. “What does that mean?” she asks finally.

“You were ‘off limits,’ according to him. Whenever I was nice to you, said hey and talked to you or whatever, your psycho brother would act like I was trying to defile you. Got to the point where it was easier just to fucking ignore you.”

She blinks, clearly surprised. I stand there watching her, remembering how I used to want to talk to her more, ask her about her day, get to know her. But Davis would act like such a fucking prick. The only times I ever really got to talk to Riley was when her brother wasn’t around, but that wasn’t all that often.

“Is that true?” she asks finally. “I didn’t know that.”

“He thought I was trying to fuck you,” I say, sighing. “I mean, shit. You were cute and all, I won’t deny it, but you were way too young back then.”

“You weren’t trying to fuck me?” She arches an eyebrow at me.

“No! I mean, shit, I don’t know. I wasn’t. You were like, what, twelve? When I was sixteen?”

“I guess four years isn’t a huge deal anymore, huh?”

I sigh. “No, it’s not, and you know it.”

We stand there for a minute, alone on the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere. There are probably more cows in the near distance than there are people, and here we are talking about our relationship when we were fucking kids.

“Davis kept you away from me,” she says, shaking her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He used to be super protective, at least before he left for college.”

“He mellowed out,” I agree with her.

“Huh.” She sighs and walks over to the car, leaning up against it. “You weren’t just ignoring me because I was some dorky loser?”

“No,” I say softly, leaning up against the car beside her. “Although you were.”

She grins and bumps up against me. We’re quiet for a second, listening to the wind through the long grass.

“I guess I owe you an apology then,” she says.

“It’s fine. It was a long time ago, you know? And shit, I could’ve been nicer back then, even with Davis being a dick.”

“Probably,” she agrees, smiling.

We lapse into silence again. I want to lean up against her, pull her close, and kiss her deep and slow. I want her to understand that although I wasn’t allowed to get close to her back then, I thought of her like a little sister. I watched out for her when I could, made sure nobody was giving her shit at school for being such a little fucking nerd. Where some kids were bullied, everyone left Riley Hollins alone, because they knew that her older brother and her older brother’s best friend would beat their ass if they fucked with her. Our protection waned once we left for college, but by that time she was coming into her own anyway and didn’t need us anymore.

“Come on,” she says. “We should get going.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“We got some meetings to attend.” She grins at me as she walks around the car. “Gotta make me rich, right?”

I clench my jaw and step closer to her, snagging her by the wrist before she can walk away. I pull her toward me, spinning her around. She stumbles up against me, hands up on my chest.

“You never answered my question,” I say, my voice deeper.

She stares up at me, biting her lips, my hands on her hips. “You really want to know?” she asks.

“Tell me.”

“It’s because you’re a fucking asshole.”

“And you’re just as arrogant as I am.”

I kiss her hard then, and she returns my kiss with as much passion as I feel.