Page 18 of My Holiday Hookup Road Trip

“God, I’m an idiot,” I mutter, dropping my face into my hands. “I’m sorry.”

He releases me to give my shoulder a brisk squeeze. “It’s okay. It was scary.”

“What happened?” I lean forward to touch the windshield, which is a mess of cracks and splinters right down the middle

“A rock hit us. And for it to be this bad, there must’ve been an existing crack or something.” His jaw clenches. “Fucking rental company.”

He looks frustrated enough to shatter himself, so I make myself useful and open the glove box.

“What are you doing?”

I grab the rental paperwork. “This isn’t drivable, right?”

“No.” He gives a tight shake of his head. “Not all the way to Chicago.”

“Right,” I say as briskly as I can. “So I’m calling customer service to see what we need to do.” Maybe if I make myself incredibly useful, it’ll wipe away all the screaming I just did.

But twenty minutes later, neither of us is happy.

“Tomorrow at 2? That’s the earliest you’ve got?”

Although Sebastian’s tone is authoritative, it doesn’t magically change the appointments the guy on the other end of the line already has scheduled, and Sebastian snaps that he’ll call back to confirm our location for the repair and stabs the ENDbutton with a strangled groan. When the rental company told us to replace the windshield and send them the bill, we didn’t count on there being only one repair place that services this stretch of Ohio or that most of their staff would be out for the holidays.

“Goddammit,” Sebastian grits out before letting his head fall back against the seat.

As frustrated as I am by what’s clearly going to be a pain-in-the-ass delay, I can’t imagine how upset he must be. I’m going back home to my houseplants. He has nieces and a nephew counting on him.

Besides, we both know what needs to happen now. There are no other rental cars available nearby. There’s no way to safely travel any reasonable distance with this windshield. There’s nothing to do but wait until tomorrow afternoon.

Sebastian rolls his head to look at me, defeat in the sag of his shoulders. “How close did you say the next town is?”

“The exit’s in twelve miles.”

With a sigh, he fires up the engine and pulls into traffic. I don’t know how he manages to see through the web of cracks to get us safely to the exit, but he does, craning his neck to catch slivers of unobstructed view as we travel.

He laughs in disbelief when the road sign with the name of the town pops into view.

“Bermuda? For real?”

“For real,” I reply. “Let’s hope we don’t disappear forever.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” he grumbles as we exit the interstate.

At least there’s two beds this time.

“Which do you want?” I ask.

Sebastian responds by rolling his suitcase to the one closest to the door. “In case someone tries to break in,” he explains, and I can’t help but laugh.

“What, you’ll wake up from a dead sleep to confront the intruder and keep me safe?”

I wrinkle my nose at him, and he frowns back. “Yeah, exactly. I’m sleeping between you and the door.”

I set my own suitcase on the bed closest to the window. Miss Gouda stayed in the car this time. “You do know how threatening that sounds, right? Like to me?” I unzip my bag and flip it open, rooting around for my travel kit, where I’m hoping I packed some painkillers. After screaming like the final girl in a horror movie, I feel a headache coming on.

When there’s silence from the other side of the room, I glance over my shoulder to see Sebastian standing rigid at the foot of the bed, fingers of both hands spread wide.

“Birdy, I—”

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