Page 53 of Truck You

“You think if you act like an asshole to me, I’ll go away.”

My jaw tenses at her words because she’s not wrong. It’s the only way to get her to leave. If she stays, she’ll end up hurting me just like all the women in my life.

“It won’t work.” She adds. Then she turns back to the front and pulls a tablet out of her bag.

A few minutes later, we merge onto the highway. It’ll take us about an hour to get to the Ohio-West Virginia line, and another two before we reach the cabins we’re renting on the river.

Thankfully, Sophia buries her nose in a book and leaves me alone.

Unfortunately, the silence leaves me with nothing but my thoughts. All I can think about is the way her body felt pinned against that wall while I fucked her. And the smell of her wet panties when I sniffed them. I carried those damn things around with me for two days before I finally stuffed them in a drawer next to my bed.

Flipping on the radio, I tune it to my favorite country music station. An old George Strait song,The Fireman, comes on and I crank up the sound. It’s one of my favorites. Tapping my fingers to the steering wheel, I belt out the lyrics without holding back.

I don’t know if Sophia likes country music and frankly, I don’t care.

This is my truck.

A few more songs I like come and go. It isn’t until a Kenny Chesney song,She thinks My Tractor’s Sexy, that she bothers to look up from her book.

“Hey, I know this one.” She smiles and hums along while I sing the lyrics.

When we hit the Ohio-West Virginia line, I turn the radio off and glance over at her. She kicked her shoes off and is resting her feet on the dashboard. There’s something about the way she looks right now—comfortable and relaxed in my truck—that puts a smile on my face.

“What are you reading?” I ask.

“A book.” Her response is dry and clipped.

I glance over at her, and she’s still looking at her tablet like I didn’t just ask her a question. “No duh. What book is it?”

She huffs and snaps the cover closed on her tablet, then turns to face me. “Why do you care? You’ve made it clear you don’t want me here. So why bother asking me?”

I lift a hand in surrender. “Just trying to make small talk.”

“Really?” She sits up straight, and I don’t have to look at her to know she’s glowering. “Then why did you act like it was such an imposition for me to be here? You made it pretty clear you weren’t interested in talking to me.”

“Forget I asked.” I growl and flip the radio back on.

The music drowns out the silence, but I don’t hear any of it. It’s just background noise that’s doing a piss-poor job at soothing my frustration.

Sophia lets out a loud sigh, then turns the radio off again. “I met a romance author, Alexis Stone, a couple of years ago when I moved to New York City. She’s a good friend of my cousin’s. I’m reading one of her books.”

I quirk a brow. “Romance?”

“Yeah, romance. Something you know absolutely nothing about.”

I scoff. “I know plenty about romance.”

She laughs. “Sure you do.”

“I do!” My voice raises a bit too much in defense.

“Your track record suggests otherwise.”

I glance at her before I turn back to the road. She’s staring at me with a challenging grin, and I don’t fucking like it. Now I have no choice but to prove her wrong.

“What about the Apple Festival? I romanced the hell out of you that night. Almost got you to let me fuck you in a dark alley.”

“Fucking me in a dark alley isnotromantic.” She argues.

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