Page 212 of The Vacation Mix-Up
“Please. Stop. Pull over!”
He swerves the cab to a halt, brakes screeching, car horns blaring.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I explain, wrenching open the door and tossing him a fifty. “Sorry.”
“Wh-what about your change?”
“Keep it.”
Slamming the door, I turn on my heel and… run. I run back along the street, lungs burning a hole in my chest, my bag slipping from my shoulder, my mind unmistakably sound yet filled with utter chaos. But that’s what love is, chaos among clarity. A tornado pirouetting around your heart. Loveisa battlefield… according to Mom and Pat Benatar. It’s when you fight until you can’t breathe, think, or do.
It’s the end, and the beginning.
Clasping my bag, I hoist it back onto my shoulder when a “For Lease” sign in a shop window stops me in my tracks. “This is the one,” I rasp out, stepping back and taking in a much-needed breath.
I shade the sun from my eyes, admiring the Victorian-style façade, the same one I’d seen in my Google search. I was going to show Riley after I filled him in on everything that’s happened in the hopes he’d want me to move here too.
“It’s perfect!” I say, exhaling just as Riley skids around the corner and comes to a stop when he sees me, his chest heaving, sweat dampening his brow.
“Riles, I?—”
I stare at him, shocked. “What are you doing?”
He bends at the waist and rests his hands on his knees. “What areyoudoing?”
I smile. “I asked you first.”
Holding up one finger, he takes a deep breath, then says, “I’m chasing after you. What does it look like?”
“So you were planning to run all the way to Manhattan?”
“If I had to, yes.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why?”
He does the same. “You know why.”
“Do I?”
Standing straight again, he cocks his head, his expression condescending. “Because I love you, Riles Wilson. And I’ll run to the ends of this earth just so we can be together.”
My heart skips a beat. “You love me?”
He takes a step forward. “Yes.”
“And what about Krystal?”
“I was merely giving her the divorce papers. We hugged. We said goodbye. That’s all it was.”
Taking a step closer to him, a flush of remorse warms my cheeks. “I know. It just took me a couple of minutes to realize that.”
He grips his hair, eyes flaring with exasperation, as if those couple of minutes were the longest of his life.
I burst into laughter.
“You think this is funny?” he prompts.
“Yes. Kind of.”
