Page 50 of Grumpy Boss in Love

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Eleanor asked, her eyes cloudy with concern. “It’s been pouring for a few hours.”

Since Elliot was as desperate as I was to get away from here and each other, he’d jumped in. “Positive. How about I call you when we’re back in Chicago?”

He’d given Eleanor a reassuring smile. It seemed the Wilsons had quickly become special to the grumpster, and I thought it was super sweet. Elliot had mellowed out quite a bit, whether he realized it or not. After saying our goodbye to the Wilsons, we’d taken off.

Elliot was in a fairly good mood, minus the bouts of uneasiness between us. He felt as if he'd already won—his words. The car was painfully silent with the exception of the rain beating on the roof. The windshield wiper worked overtime and still, it was getting increasingly difficult to see. But Elliot seemed to be maneuvering just fine, so I sat back and tried to relax.

“You’re in a good mood,” I noted.

Eyes ahead, he grunted. “How can you tell? I haven’t said a word since we left the guesthouse.”

“You’re not scowling as hard as usual.”

As expected, he directed a quick annoyed scowl at me and turned back to watch the road. That made me giggle. “That’s right Elliot. I can gauge your mood by the quantity of the creases between your eyebrows. Mode one, which is the minimal crinkling of the brows, means you’re calm and somewhat happy.”

A muscle ticked on his jaw and he growled, “Hilarious.”

Teasing him was just so much fun because of how serious and uptight he was.

“Ah, you’ve switched to mode three,moderatebrow crinkling. You’re getting pissed.”

Elliot heaved a sigh and shook his head. There was a suspicious twitch at the corner of his mouth. He’d probably learned by now to just roll with my teasing. It would be over sooner if he simply joined in. “And how high does the scowl meter go?” he asked.

“The scowl meter,” I snickered. Helping Elliot tap into his sense of humor was like coaxing sunlight from behind the darkest storm cloud. It took effort, patience, and persistent teasing. “Um… five. However, with you, there’s a possibility of it going haywire to reach ten.”

I received his most annoyed glower yet, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to smother my tittering. This banter between us was much more preferable to the unbearable awkward energy that flowed between us before.

To my dismay, Elliot ruined it. He glanced at me. “Look, Ruby, about that kiss and those vows…”

“Ugh. Why, Elliot? We were doing so well,” I snapped. “If you had followed my lead for the next two hours, we’d be home free.”

His shocked glance was fleeting because he had to sit forward to peer into the pool of water that he maneuvered the car through. Then he asked, “What do you mean?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you had kept your mouth shut about the stupid kiss and just let me continue with my method of using humor to ease us out of the awkwardness…”

“So that’s what you were doing.” His tone rang with laughter.

“Yes,” I huffed. “We’d be back at our separate abodes in no time and go back to avoiding each other because it isn’t like the Wilsons will be over our shoulders watching us in ourwedded bliss.”

Elliot looked at me with a frown. “You thought the kiss was stupid?”

The car made a strange grinding noise. Elliot glanced at the dashboard and pulled off the road just as the car stopped. Still, I turned to him and sputtered, “Well… I mean… It didn’t mean anything…”

“Huh,” was all he grunted.

I gawked at him because blatant hurt clouded his eyes, but it was gone when I blinked. I was sure he didn’t mean for me to see that. Then he faced forward and sighed. “I think we’re screwed.”

My eyebrows snapped together. Because I said the kiss didn’t mean anything? Or…

“The car won’t start.”

Of course, that was what he meant. My face heated up several degrees. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve driven through quite a bit of water. The car shutting off isn’t a good sign. Perhaps we should have listened to Eleanor and Alfred. I’ll go check it out.”

I glanced out the window. Torrents of rain cascaded. The deluge had already flooded the private road just as the Wilsons had said. The car had shut off right after we crossed the bridge. I glanced in the side mirror to see that the river beneath the structure had risen to flood it completely.

“You can’t go out there, it’s pouring,” I said.

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