Page 44 of The Road Trip Romance

I step away before the others can see my reaction to him. “OK, let’s do this,” I say in a fake cheerful voice.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Penn states with a laugh.

* * *

“Alright, that wasn’t horrible,” I begrudgingly admit as we make our way back to the car.

“I told you. We could go back and try a harder trail,” Penn says with a mischievous smile. I glare at him, and he laughs.

“No fucking way. Any more walking and someone will need to carry me back,” I grumble as I walk toward the car. We all had teased Penn relentlessly about his puppy dog stares over at the folks climbing Devil’s Tower as we walked. That man reminds me of Anissa. His need for constant adventure is palpable.

“Besides, it’s nearly dinner?—”

I’m mid-sentence when I’m suddenly swooped off my feet. I yelp as Tate throws me over his shoulder to the chuckles of Penn, Jordan, and Rex.

“Hey!” I say loudly.

Tate slaps my ass. “M, chill, people are going to look over here,” he says as he carries me the last twenty feet to the car before setting me down.

I place my hands on my hips, and I get some “ohs” from the guys.

“You can’t manhandle M like that,” Penn says to Tate.

Rex crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “I think M likes being manhandled.”

I blush. “Shut up, Rex. No woman likes to be randomly manhandled.”

Tate leans in toward my ear. “Lies are not becoming on you.”

I glare at him because he’s right and I hate that. I may have let him read my latest manuscript and I have a feeling that I’m going to regret that. This man is a fast study!

Penn clears his throat and Tate and I look over at him. He’s eyeing us suspiciously. I frown and step away from Tate. “What’s up?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he says slowly as he glances at Rex and Jordan and then at Tate. “Tate, would you be pissed if we delayed the ‘grand gesture’ day until after tomorrow? I’d love to camp here. The weather tonight is supposed to be legit perfect, and I looked up some local campsites. There’s one that offers gear for rent. And it’ll give us more time to work out logistics with a helicopter pilot.”

We’ve talked off and on today about my ‘grand gesture’ idea. Everyone seems on board with it, but we’ve had a few hiccups in getting some of the details sorted. There’s a flower vendor an hour away but they don’t have the roses, so we had to call one two hours away. They are seeing if they can get enough by tomorrow.

“That’ll give that florist more time,” I point out.

“Do we really need roses and helicopters?” Tate asks me.

“I mean…I think it would help,” I urge. “You could show up with your speech and no bells or whistles, but women like over-the-top stuff…or at least, from what I know of her, I think Lacey would.”

“You don’t,” Tate states.

“Yeah, bro has a point. You just agreed to sleep in a rented tent in the middle of nowhere with four men you’ve known for less than a week,” Penn says.

Rex punches him in the arm and Jordan sighs. “You are a jackass, Penn,” Jordan says as he shakes his head.

“OK, not all women want that, but am I wrong about Lacey?” I ask them.

They all shrug and shuffle their feet. I can tell I’m right and not one of them wants to admit it. “Boys, lesson number one. Some women are high maintenance and those women want more bells and whistles. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just…the level of expectations is different. Plus, Lacey is super famous and I’m guessing used to getting the finer things in life,” I state and then immediately regret my words. I’m making her sound horrible.

“I mean…” I trail off as I search for the right words.

“You aren’t wrong. She is all of those things,” Tate pipes up as he turns to me.

“Let’s take the extra day. We can make some calls tomorrow morning and see what we can do. I’m sure between the five of us, we’ll come up with something,” he says softly as he searches my eyes. I feel like he’s trying to tell me something, but if this is a real game of charades, I’m definitely losing this round.

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