Page 20 of Cruise Control

“Hey, I got you to do something funky. That’s gotta count for something.”

“I’m always funky, dude.”

“Whatever you say, bro.”

“Don’t call me bro.”

“Okay, homey.”

“Shut up.”

Parker grinned and could tell she was smiling, too. “I’m glad I picked you up, Paige.”

“I’m glad I didn’t ignore you when we were in that police station, Parker,” she replied, treading over to the edge and pulling herself up out of the water again. “Even though I really really, really wanted to.”

“Please, you couldn’t have ignored me if you'd tried,” he joked, following her and getting out as well. He shivered in the night air, hunching over her a little. She smiled up at him.

“Good point. This was really fun, Parker. And I'm really glad I got in the car with you,” she confessed, her voice in a whisper again. He smiled back at her.

“Good. I told you I’m a good guy; I haven’t even tried to take drunken advantage of you yet,” he pointed out.

“God, that really burned you up when I said that, didn’t it? I didn’t think you were gonna take drunken advantage of me, alright? You have been the most perfect of gentlemen,” she assured him, wrapping her arms around her waist.

“Thank you. I told you I was,” he reminded her. She nodded.

“I know. You know, to be honest with you, you've beensogentlemanly during times when I would’ve thought a guy wouldn’t be able to be, I kinda thought you were gay for a little while. You never really, you know, seem to even notice I’m a girl,” she laughed.

Parker’s smile softened and he did the same thing he'd done in the bar when they'd first crossed the border into Mississippi; he let his eyes slowly wander over her entire face. This time, though, he let his gaze drop and travel all the way down her body to her bare feet and back up again. He soaked in the sight of her, letting his gaze linger over every feminine inch. He could look at Paige Davis all day. She shivered, but he didn’t think it was because of the night air.

“Paige, since I first saw you I have never once, in fact, stopped noticing that you are a girl.”

*

PAIGE CHEWED ON A STRANDof hair, glancing at Parker out the corner of her eye. She hoped her sunglasses were hiding her frequent looks. Parker didn’t seem to notice. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while humming along to whatever song was playing in his head. She looked back out her window, watching the trees rush by at seventy-five miles per hour.

Paige had been shocked by Parker’s statement at the pool – he'd been so good at acting like he didn’t care that she was female; hearing him say he hadvery muchnoticed was like hearing him say he'd watched her get naked or something. She knew it wasn’t a big deal, and it wasn’t like he was confessing deep, dark feelings for her or anything – she was just being ridiculous. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she'd learned something she wasn’t sure if she was ready to know. And she certainly wasn’t about to confess to him that she, as well, had noticed that he was very much a boy.

A tall, handsome, funny, hazel eyed boy.

She nearly gagged at her own thoughts and mentally slapped herself.

It wasn’t that Paige didn’t like guys – she liked them very much, but only for very specific purposes. To her, boys were either people that were just friends or just people you slept with, but rarely both. She'd dated guys in the past. Had a semi-serious boyfriend for eighteen months right after high school, but hadn’t dated much since then. Love and emotions were things she didn’t have time for, not right then in her life; she was always on the move. So she kept it light with guys, and if it went to a physical place then it didn’t usually last much longer than a couple nights – for however long she was in their town for, however long the drive lasted, or however long she felt like.

She liked Parker. She liked talking to him and spending time with him. He seemed like a good friend. So she wanted to keep it light. She didn't want him to notice that she was a girl, because knowing he was aware of her girly assets made her even more acutely aware of allhisassets (of which she was already too aware). And as good as those “assets” were, she didn’t want to go there with him. Because then she might have to end their time together.

She didn’t want things to end between them.

But it was very hard to keep her eyeballs to herself and her thoughts clean. Parker was sex on legs, pure and simple; the man turned heads when he entered a room. And forget about his eyes – she could stare into them for hours. Most of the time they were almost a dark, silvery kind of color, but they shifted from brown to green along with his moods. He was goofy and silly, but something about him made her feel safe and protected – which was strange, because Paige had never felt like she needed to be protected. She wasn't sure what it all meant.

After his statement by the pool, they'd walked back to the cabin together. They'd changed out of their clothes in the dark, their backs to each other. When she'd finally climbed under her blanket, she saw that Parker was already tucked into his bed, his back to her. She could hear a faint snore. Guessing that his comment hadn’t affected him as much as it had affected her, Paige decided to follow his lead and act like it meant nothing. So when he woke her up the next morning, she simply yawned and waited for him to leave for his morning cigarette before getting up to change. Then they headed out, laughing about their late night pool escapade but not mentioning what he'd said. She liked it this way.

Or at least she told herself she did ...

“So what’s in Missouri?” Parker interrupted her thoughts. She glanced over at him.

When they had been on the interstate for a while, Parker had asked what direction she wanted to head in; she'd been surprised. Yesterday, Parker had driven them into Mississippi, and Paige had assumed he was just heading to wherever it was he had been going before she got in the car. But this morning he'd asked her to pick – east, north, west or south. She'd encouraged him to just head towards his destination, assuring him she planned to just get out somewhere along the way. But he hadn’t budged on her deciding, so finally she picked north. They'd crossed the Tennessee border a while ago and were now hooking west into Missouri.

“A big arch?” she joked and he laughed.

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