Page 18 of His One True Wish

Billie didn’t sound angry anymore. In fact, she seemed sad. I felt a little bad about messing with her. “She likes you,” I said, nodding at my dog. “She doesn’t like just everybody.”

Billie shrugged and looked up at me with those big brown doe-eyes. “I’m just really tired. I drove, like, fourteen hours from Seattle today?”

“Why didn’t you fly?” I asked.

“I just didn’t.” She exhaled.

“You drove fourteen hours instead of flying three.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, but I not onlyknowsnow, Iknowhow to drive in the snow. I know how to drive well. The fact is … ” She paused and inhaled.

“The fact is what?”

Her cheeks flushed. She wrinkled her nose. “Fine,” she blurted. “I promised my mother I wouldn’t speed.”

I paused as her words sunk in before I burst out laughing.

“Stop it,” she said.

“No, I’m sorry. That’s just so adorable.”

“What? I happen to have a mother who loves me, and I promised her I wouldn’t speed, and I shouldn’t have to apologize for that.”

“Totally,” I said, still chortling. “I mean, you promised your mom. Makes sense.”

“You are infuriating,” she said.

“I have been told that before.”

Glaring at me, she opened her mouth and then clamped it shut before speaking.

“Nope.” She shook her head as if talking to herself. “I’m not going to go there. Not going to do it.”

“What?” I asked.

“What, what?” She shrugged.

“You clearly want to say something. Spit it out.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“But you do. You opened your mouth. You said, ‘Nope, I’m not going to go there.’ I think this is your inside voice coming outside — ”

“Who was that woman at the rest stop?” she blurted, rocking forward on her toes. She pointed a finger at my chest. “I saw you. I saw you with her.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral. Of course, Angel would somehow continue to fuck up my life. “She’s no one.”

“She didn’t seem likeno one. She seemed like she knew you quite well.”

“Well, she is just somebody I used to know.”

Billie wrinkled her nose. “Did you just quote the band Gotye?”

“I don’t know who the band Gotye is.”

“They have a song with that title,” she said, her tone condescending.

“If you say so. I’m what you’d call a classic rock guy.”

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