Page 30 of A Love So Wrong
Moving the truck forward once more, they could see that they were second in line now to the scale. Cutting his eyes to hers, she froze in her chair at the severity of his stare. "I am too," he replied calmly.
"Well, fine then," she said a little breathlessly. "Then I won't let you get a wife either," she said determinedly.
Shrugging, Gideon didn't seem fazed by that in the least. "Fine by me."
~*~
Stifling a yawn, Gideon pressed the radio button on his steering wheel, changing it from the quiet droning sounds of the sports radio to a station playing an unrecognizable hip-hop song. Driving down the freeway out of Charleston, West Virginia, the lights lining the highway strobed across the dark interior of the cab, lighting the darkness in consistent flashes. Looking over to his right, Gideon let his eyes linger on the curled-up figure in the seat for a couple of seconds longer before turning his focus back onto the empty freeway ahead of him. At least her hair finally dried, he told himself.
Earlier that day, they had spent their final off-day actually taking in the sights they normally only passed. For the past three days, they had been free. No forty-eight-inch trailer being hauled behind them, no deadlines to meet, just pure freedom to do as they pleased. Packing two backpacks with food, blankets, laptops, and books, they had parked the rig at each state park's designated parking lot and spent each day submerged in the beauty of West Virginia. Sitting under a tree, they had sat on their blankets eating sandwiches while he worked on two weeks' worth of homework for college, and she drifted in and out of sleep at his side. That day had been wonderful, but to his surprise, it somehow managed to manifest into something perfect.
They had been lying in the sun talking when they heard the approaching children. Pulled in by their exuberant laughter, he and Jade had watched as the four boys played in a high-spirited water-gun battle. Even now, as he recalled the events, Gideon wasn't quite sure how they got involved, but with two spare guns the boys let them use, they had entered the battle, which turned from vigorous to downright vicious. Leaning an elbow onto his seat's armrest, Gideon covered his smile with one hand as he recalled Jade's unexpected bloodlust. After eating water for nearly two minutes, Gideon had to step up his game. By the end of it, they were all exhausted, wet, and laughing. Handing the guns back to the kids and escorting the boys back to their parents at the campground, Jade had sagged tiredly against him as she explained to the older couple how they got roped into their children's game. Without even thinking, Gideon had slid his hand around Jade's waist to keep her steady against him as she talked, and when the mother of the boys thanked them and remarked on what a cute couple they were, neither one of them said anything to correct her.
It was nothing, he knew that. He was reading too much into something that didn't mean anything. But he took it, took it and held onto it as any sort of sign.
~*~
"Ok, so we have a little over forty-five thousand in our account, and that is not counting the three pending deposits from American Transit, Gazelle, and Speedies Shipping," Jade listed as she sat cross-legged in her seat.
With both armrests up on her seat, she balanced her laptop between her folded legs, nearly bouncing in bottled up joy. Last night they had laid side by side in Gideon's bunk, using the lever that allowed his mattress to sit up at an incline, and looked up properties in Stardust Cove using the small flat-screen TV mounted on the opposite wall as a larger screen they could both see. After two hours of debating and scratching out numbers on a notebook, they were finally on the same page for what they wanted. A house, preferably on the east or west side of town that had three bedrooms and two baths, and no less than five acres of land.
"So," she let the word drag out as she went through her hundreds of open tabs on her browser, locating the right one. Finding it, she smiled and turned the laptop towards him, ignoring his stony expression. "Once we get up to where we have enough to put down at least sixty thousand, we can get a small loan for about two-hundred and eighty-five a month, that is with county taxes factored in."
They were currently in Illinois stuck in traffic. For the past twenty minutes, they had crept along the two-lane interstate, barely making any progress whatsoever. Suffice it to say Gideon was not in the best of moods.
"Yes, and we would need at least twenty to thirty thousand for the repairs since those are the only ones we can afford," he reminded her briskly.
She scowled at the side of his face. Technically they could do it for less, but Gideon staunchly refused. He wanted their monthly payments to be as low as possible. His plan was for them to both work part-time while they both attended college full time. If they couldn't make the bills work under part-time jobs, then they had to keep looking. For nearly an hour, she had argued with him last night that she could just put college on hold or take it slow and get a full-time job, but he wasn't hearing it.
Staring back down at the picture of the old Victorian they both had looked at last night, her hopes ebbed a bit. The property did need a lot of work, just like all the other properties they looked at in their price range. They would need every penny they could get to get the place in perfect working order.
Shutting her laptop, she placed it on the stack of books piled around her chair and leaned back in her chair with a huff. She would offer to switch places with him, but she knew it was useless. He would just grumble that she didn't know how to drive in traffic and that she let too many cars in front of her, and that would only make her upset and want to argue with him.
She was reaching down and sorting through her books for an unread one when he spoke.
"Remember when we were stuck in traffic like this back in Ohio?"
Jade's back went rigid as she looked up to Gideon's evil smile. Barely keeping a laugh restrained, he rested one arm on the top of the steering wheel and gave her an evil, knowing smile.
"Don’t you dare," she growled, pointing a commanding finger at him.
Chuckling, he glanced back at the road and shook his head at the horrid memory. "All I have to say is thank God Beans gave you that end-of-the-world kit, right?"
Grabbing the empty paper cup in her cup holder, Jade threw the cup at the side of Gideon's laughing face. "You said we would never bring that up again!" she yelled.
Embarrassed beyond mortal belief, she recalled that terrible day. That morning they had gone to a crappy truck stop, the bathrooms were too disgusting to even consider using. While Gideon braved it, Jade had decided to use a bottle of water to brush her teeth and use the next stop they encountered to pee. What she did not account for was the forty-minute traffic backup. Desperate, she had opened the zombie survival kit Taylor had given her the year before pulling out the one thing she told herself she would never have to use—the portable toilet container. Gideon had laughed about it for two days straight.
"I should stop talking to you," she shifted in her seat angrily and stared out the window.
Gideon laughed harshly as he maneuvered into an open gap in the left-hand lane. "You couldn’t do that even if you tried."
She should've resisted his baiting, but like a fool, she fell into it. "Oh, can't I?" she crossed her arms and shot his strong profile a challenging look. "Just watch me."
Slowing the truck back down behind a line of cars, Gideon turned his face only a fraction away from the road, just enough to cut his knife-edge gleaming eyes her way in warning. "If you think I am going to let you go silent on me again, Jade, you have another thing coming."
Anger simmered to life inside of her making her hands shake as she gripped her armrests on either side of her. "Well, if you think I am going to just roll over and do as you say, then you have another thing coming," she threw his words back at him.
"Ok, just try it, I want you to," he gave her a nonchalant nod as his threatening words sliced through the space between them like blades of ice. "Because I promise I have a remedy for that."
