I parked outside Ellie and Emmett’s and honked the horn, my windshield wipers were at full blast as well as the heater and defrosters, but I still couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of me.
“Think it’s a good idea for me to be driving in this?” I asked Jonah, who had leaned up and almost over the console to check out the dash and the radio.
“Yeah, this is pretty standard this time of year.”
Kill me if I’m in Montana this time next year, I thought.
Just then two dark figures appeared in the foggy headlights. One immediately went to the back to sit next to Bridge and the other toward the passenger door. Please be Cricket. Please be Cricket, I thought, staring at the figure at the passenger side window.
The car door opened and my stomach sank. Ethan. He climbed in and shut the door. The door behind me opened and in popped Cricket. I couldn’t see her because she was so small and her head was hidden by the headrest. She kept fiddling with her coat and cursing the thing for being too long. I was desperate to see what she looked like but when she finally sat back, the cabin lights had gone dull and only the dash lights lit the interior, leaving Cricket in the dark, only the shadow of her face visible to me. Damn!
I meandered the long drive from the Hunt Ranch to the main road but barely. I kept stopping short thinking there was something in front of me. The truck was quiet except for the occasional snort from Ethan’s side, which really angered me. I was making everyone uneasy and that pissed me off because I was a flipping awesome driver when snow wasn’t involved. I looked over at Ethan, who was eyeing me. Not everyone can grow up in Montana, ass**le!
“Do you want me to drive?” he offered, emasculating me in front of his unbelievably wonderful girlfriend.
“No,” I said, staring him down. “I’m a fast learner.”
He nodded his head but looked unsure, pissing me off further.
The highway was easier to navigate as there were lamps lighting up the way as well as a clearer path. The tension in the car eased to a tolerable level eventually and a conversation started between the three in the back. Ethan and I hadn’t even glanced each other’s direction since his stupid offer, and I could tell from his body language, rigid spine, crossed arms, that he did not like me.
“...and that!” Bridge said. I’d missed their entire start of conversation. Bridge whined a little. “I wish I had dressed up now too!”
“I am not dressed up, Bridget,” she laughed. “You’re just so used to seeing me in dingy ranch clothing, you now think it’s the norm, but it’s really not. I’m actually kind of a clotheshorse. I just have no occasion to wear them,” Cricket replied.
“How do you even get pieces like this around here?” Bridge asked, genuinely curious.
I glanced back in my rearview and couldn’t see anything, frustrating me to no end.
“I order them online, baby. There is no better invention than the Internet.”
I kept glancing back in my rearview at Cricket, hoping somehow her face would magically light up and I could stare at her.
“Do you have any hobbies?” Ethan asked me suddenly and I jumped. He sat coolly in his seat. No movement, not a single twitch or shift. “Nervous?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at me.
I swallowed. “What?”
“I said, do you have any hobbies?”
I collect money. Lots of it. “Not really. I was on the row team at Brown, but I wouldn’t call that a hobby,” I told him truthfully. “How about you?”
“Cricket’s my hobby,” he said possessively under his breath.
I looked over at him as he stared me down with a fierceness I had rarely seen in another man. I stared back as savagely as he eyed me, my jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. We stayed locked like that until he broke the contact, satisfied I understood what he meant, and I turned my attention back to the road. What he didn’t understand is that I wasn’t afraid to bruise his face or my knuckles. I’d never shied away from a fight. Ever.
I was notorious in high school as the guy you didn’t mess with because if you talked shit and acted like you wanted to fight, I’d give you the fight. It was easy to separate the talkers from the doers. And there were always more talkers than doers. I didn’t know Ethan well enough to know if he was one or the other, but it didn’t mean shit to me. I would throw down without a second thought. I wouldn’t hesitate. Because if there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was people who tried to threaten bigger than they were willing to carry out. The only thing is, I thought Ethan was exactly the type of guy to follow through, not that I cared, like I said, I was willing, but I did care what Cricket would think. Very much.
The remaining drive to Kalispell consisted of Ethan and me seething at one another, Jonah riveted by Bridget, paying attention to nothing else, and the girls chatting, oblivious.
We parked in a gravel lot and my stomach fluttered thinking on Cricket, imagining her in something else other than jeans and chaps.
I turned off the engine and began to get out when Ethan stopped me. “I’ll get Cricket’s side.”
I nodded my answer and I rounded the back of the truck, passing Ethan and trying not to feel too disappointed that I wasn’t able to open her door for her. What are you doing? I asked myself. She’s not yours. She’s not yours! I felt so stupid and, frankly, I was appalled at myself. I’d kept trying to convince myself that I needed to be her friend and only her friend, but I wasn’t acting like it.