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“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Lucy watches another exit roll by, another mile of LA county sitting behind them.
“No,” Tim flicks his gaze over to her, then back out the windshield. “Stop asking.”
They’ve only been on the road for 20 minutes, but Lucy can’t think of any reason they’d have to go further south than Anaheim, and there’s no way Tim would go to Disneyland in June.
“You know how this sounds, right?” Lucy chuckles, waving her hand between them. “I mean, call me paranoid, but I’ve been kidnapped before. I don’t care to do it again.”
“I’m not kidnapping you, stop being dramatic.” But he reaches for her hand as he turns the blinker on and changes lanes.
“Then where are we going?”
“Somewhere,” he steers them onto the ramp for CA-91, and Lucy sighs impatiently. “You really want to know?”
“Yes,” Lucy says, even though now she’s maybe not so sure. She trusts Tim; should she let him keep the surprise?
But she’s incredibly curious, dying to know where they’re headed, and she’d like to be able to enjoy the ride instead of trying to solve the mystery the whole time. It’s her weekend off; she doesn’t want to spend it building a case against her own boyfriend.
“I’m not telling you exactly where we’re going,” Tim starts, and Lucy rolls her eyes. Of course he’s not. “But I’ll give you a hint. Remember I spent those months in New York? Then I drove all the way back here?”
“Back to me, yes,” Lucy laughs and squeezes his fingers.
“Yeah, yeah, something like that.” But Tim glances at her again, and he’s smiling broadly. “Anyway, I didn’t stop much on the way back, but there was this one place in Nebraska. I just needed lunch, something right off the highway. And there was this sign out front about their award-winning pie. I was stopped anyway, so I ordered a slice.”
“And?” Lucy keeps her voice low, like Tim might stop telling the story if she interrupts. “Was it good?”
“I can’t speak for every pie in the world, but it was up there for the best I’ve ever had. I buy that it was probably the best in the county too.”
He’s smiling fondly at the memory. It’s a good look on him, Lucy can’t help but notice. She’s loved getting to know this side of Tim over the last year, laid back and casual, lightweight hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows and reminiscing about pie as they roll away from LA.
Still, the story doesn’t quite line up.
“So we’re going to … Nebraska?” Lucy asks, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “Isn’t it the other direction?”
“It’s a three day drive, honey,” Tim pulls her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “The pie was good, but not that good. But as I left, I started thinking about you and me, taking a scenic drive somewhere and stopping for pie.”
“Yeah?” Lucy smiles, tucking one foot onto the edge of her seat, drawing her knee up to her chest. She rests their joined hands on her bare thigh. The fingers of her other hand play with the fringed hem of her jean shorts. “How clear?”
“Clear enough that I about lost my mind the first time I saw you in those shorts,” Tim nods toward her legs and brushes his thumbnail across her warm skin before he slips it up underneath the edge of the pants. Or, what was left of them after Lucy cut the legs off in a fit of DIY-motivation two summers ago.
They’re one of the few projects she still has from that phase, but honestly, she likes them better without the baggy ankles. And clearly, Tim does too.
The muscle in her thigh twitches when Tim strokes up a little higher. She drags her gaze away from his hand to see the way he’s smirking at her, trying to pretend he’s watching the road.
“OK,” Lucy draws the word into long syllables, sliding their hands back toward her knee, while she’s still got the self-control to keep Tim focused on driving. There will be plenty of time for that later, she’s sure, but not while they’re flying down the interstate. “What were we talking about?”
“I was telling you about the pie I ate in Nebraska, but you’ve heard the whole story,” Tim shrugs and tries to move his hand up Lucy’s leg again, but she squeezes his fingers and holds them in place against her knee.
“So tell me a different story. One that won’t run us off the road when you try to watch me and traffic at the same time.” Lucy laughs as Tim tries to hide his pout. He almost wins her over, but she knows how … attentive … he can be, and really doesn’t want to have to explain that traffic accident to the highway patrol.
“Fine,” he thinks for a moment. “You’ve heard pretty much everything from the trip back from New York. But … have I ever told you about the summer I spent reading romance novels?”
“You what?” Lucy’s jaw falls open and her head whirls around so she can stare at Tim’s profile.
“Well it’s not like there was a Barnes and Noble in Iraq,” he teases. “But there was a lot of downtime, hanging around and waiting in case something happened. We had to do something with ourselves.”
“Sure, but romance novels? Like ‘girl-meets-guy, swears they won’t fall in love, and then they do anyway’?”
“Pretty much,” he nods. “Some public library in … I think Connecticut? Anyway, they sent us a big box of discarded books. We all started with the action stuff and mysteries, but they only lasted so long before everyone had read them all. So we … moved on to what was left.”
He tells her how they’d started out trying to hide it, no one wanting to be the first to admit that he’d picked up a girly love story. But eventually, it had become an open secret that turned into a group of guys sitting around the barracks most nights, taking turns reading out loud to each other.
“Less quiet that way, something to fill the silence,” he finished.
“Tim, that’s …" Lucy tries to come up with something heartfelt to say, but she gives up after a moment and giggles instead. “I just can’t picture you reading a romance novel.”
“You read them,” he points out.
“Sure, but you’ve never picked one up when I’ve left it lying around.”
“Maybe I’ll have to change that,” he shrugs. “Some of them weren’t half bad.”
“Really?” He nods. “Are you offering to read to me?”
“If you want me to,” he replies. He would, Lucy is sure of it, if she asked. Probably even if she doesn’t, now that the offer is on the table. Still, she might take him up on it, if only for another excuse to listen to his voice.
Since he’s stopped yelling at her day in and day out, like he had the first few months they’d known each other, Lucy has come to realize how much she loves Tim’s voice. She thinks about it as he turns down the next exit ramp, how it’s the first thing she hears most mornings, low and gravelly, asking how she slept even though he always knows the answer because he was right next to her all night. It’s the last thing she hears every night too, wishing her sweet dreams, even if it’s through the crackly static of the phone.
And she’d love for it to stay that way for the rest of her life.
“Hey,” Tim says, jostling their hands when Lucy hasn’t said anything for a couple of minutes. “What are you thinking about? I can hear the gears grinding all the way over here.”
“Would you believe that I’m thinking about pie?” she asks quietly, then bites her lip, glancing over at him.
“Not with that tone,” Tim chuckles, then sobers. “Everything good?”
It makes Lucy smile, how quick he is to worry about her. She knows that if she were even the slightest bit uncomfortable, Tim would turn around, or pull over, or whatever she needed to feel better.
“Yeah, everything’s good. Just thinking about how …” Much I love you. “There’s no one I’d rather eat pie with than you.”
She’s not sure why she doesn’t say it. They’ve both said it before, more times than she can count. He’s probably more surprised now that she didn’t say it. But somehow, in this moment, “love” doesn’t feel like enough. There’s not a word Lucy can think of that sums up the beginning and end of everything she feels for Tim, the man who’s driving her three hours to eat a slice of pie just because he thought about it one time over a year ago.
“Yeah,” Tim looks over at her again, but from the smile on his face, she can tell that he knows exactly what she’s trying to say. “Me too.”
They settle into a comfortable silence, the radio playing almost too softly to hear over the rumble of the road beneath them. Lucy thinks about reaching for the volume, but she’d have to drop Tim’s hand to do that, and she doesn’t want to shatter the moment. So they sit together, in the quiet, for almost 45 minutes before Lucy breaks the spell.
“Hey, can we pull off somewhere with a gas station? I could use a bathroom.”
When Tim parks the truck in front of the seediest gas station Lucy’s ever seen, cardboard over two windows and a layer of grime so thick across the front that she doesn’t even unfasten her seatbelt, she narrows her eyes at him.
“Really? Here?”
“You asked me to find a gas station.”
“The pump doesn’t even work!” She points to the rain-wrinkled, handwritten sign that reads “GAS BROKEN, FOOD INSIDE.”
“So? We don’t need gas.”
“I’m not going in there to … go!” Lucy throws her hands up in exasperation.
“Luce, it’s a bathroom. It’s not like you’re eating dinner in there.”
“Exactly! It’s probably the least clean part of the place. Look at the rest of this!”
There’s no way she’s getting out of the truck here. Sure, she needs to pee, but not that badly. She can wait. Forever, probably, if the only other option is going here. Anything would be better than this. She hasn’t even opened the door yet, and she’s pretty sure she’s at risk of catching hepatitis, just from thinking about the possibility of walking inside.
“You’ve used gas station bathrooms before. I was with you. Remember, I had the cashier steal your belt over the door?”
“Yeah, and I haven’t gone back there since! I’ll use gas station bathrooms, but I still have standards, Tim!”
“It’s a bathroom. The standard is ‘does it have a toilet?’”
“Does it have a toilet? Is that toilet clean? Is there toilet paper? Does the sink look disgusting?” Lucy counts the questions off on her fingers. “Need I go on?”
“No need,” Tim sighs and puts the truck in reverse. “You know, I think you got spoiled when I let you adjust the air conditioning in here.”
He rolls his eyes, but Lucy is pretty sure he’s amused with her. And regardless, he’s turning back onto the highway.
“Thank you,” she leans back into her seat. “You’ll appreciate this when I don’t catch something disgusting from the toilet seat.”
“You won’t catch anyth-” Tim cuts himself off “You know what? Never mind. Next exit, we’ll try again.”
By a stroke of luck, the next exit is big enough that there are two or three gas station chains Lucy can pick from. She makes her selection, and Tim pulls up out front.
“Better?”
“Much, thank you,” Lucy smiles at him and reaches for the door handle. “You coming in?”
“I’m not the one who has to pee,” he shrugs. “Besides, this way I can keep the air going.”
So the truck will stay cool.
Lucy beams, waving at him as she slams the door and hops up onto the sidewalk. She makes quick work of the bathroom, flicking her hands dry and wiping them on her jeans after the air dryer fails to do its job.
But she’s halfway to the door when a bright LED sign catches her eye. And Tim doesn’t need gas, and it’s rude not to make a purchase if she uses the bathroom, so …
Two minutes later, she’s climbing back into the truck, balancing a giant Styrofoam cup in one hand.
“Hey,” Tim greets her, rebuckling his seatbelt before he looks up. “All goo- Lucy.”
“What?” She takes a sip from the flimsy plastic straw.
“We stopped for you to go to the bathroom, and you came back with a drink?”
“After I used the bathroom,” she mutters. “They had horchata.”
“That thing is huge!”
“44 ounces, but it was the best value. Want a sip?” She holds it out, and Tim waves her off.
“I don’t want a – we’re not stopping again, I’ll tell you that.” He rolls his eyes and puts the truck back into gear.
They make idle chatter as they cruise down the road, how surprising it was for them to get the same weekend off work, how beautiful the weather is, the bright blue sky free of smoggy haze, pollution left behind in the rearview mirror. The air is crisper too, when Tim rolls the windows down.
Lucy pretends not to notice when Tim pulls the drink out of the cupholder, and hides an eye roll when he does it again. They’re only a few miles back onto the highway when he steals the first sip, and by the time he’s watching the exit signs again, Tim has probably drank close to half of it. Lucy doesn’t mind, really; she’d known when she bought the big drink that she was buying it for them both. But she can’t tell if Tim even realizes he’s doing it. It amuses her to no end, the thought that Tim is accidentally drinking her horchata.
Then they’re turning into a parking lot. But when Lucy looks out the window, it’s not a pie shop in front of them. It’s a hotel, three or four stories high, with a shuttle parked out front.
“We’re here,” he announces, as Lucy slurps the last dregs from the cup.
“This is a hotel?”
“Very astute.” Tim chuckles.
“I thought we were getting pie?”
“We are. But I wanted to check in and put the bags down first.”
“Bags?” Lucy slides out of the truck, watching as Tim pushes the seat forward and pulls two duffel bags from behind it.
“Don’t worry,” he swings the straps over his shoulder and closes the door. “Harper and Angela helped make sure I didn’t leave anything out.”
Right, because that’s the part that surprised her. Not that Tim managed to pull off an entire surprise trip without her catching on.
She stops, staring at him over the hood of the truck. Her eyes are wide, and she can feel the awestricken smile on her face.
“What?” Tim turns to look back at her.
“Nothing. Just … you’re sweet, you know that?”
“I’ve been told I have my moments.” He smiles and holds out a hand. “Come on.”
He leads her through the lobby, stopping briefly to pick up keys and listen to a spiel about breakfast options. When the elevator doors slide closed, Lucy reaches for the strap of one duffel bag and uses it to pull Tim toward her. As soon as he’s close enough for her to reach, she rolls up onto her toes and presses a kiss against his mouth.
“What was that for?” Tim asks when they break apart. He stays close, pressing his forehead against Lucy’s.
“I’m just excited for the weekend.”
“Good,” he takes her hand as the doors open, unlocks their room and holds the door for her there too. Lucy admires the space as Tim drops the bags on the countertop. She stares out the window while he uses the restroom, then freshens up while he unpacks.
But before she knows it, they’re back outside, the sun painting the sky with rich oranges and pinks as it drops toward the horizon. He holds her hand as they walk through the downtown district, past streets of tiny local shops. Lucy points a few of them out, places she doesn’t want to leave without seeing, and Tim reminds her that they have all of tomorrow ahead of them. But they’re both hungry, so they don’t stop anywhere until they're standing out front of a little building at an intersection.
It used to be a house, Lucy thinks, with white siding and red shutters. There are a couple of patio tables out front, umbrellas shading them from the last rays of sunlight. It’s a quaint, homey feeling, and Lucy is drawn to it before they’ve even reached the front door.
As soon as they step inside, she’s sure the shop is in a repurposed home. The rooms are shaped right, laid out so that they’re clearly standing in a living room. It looks like they’ve taken out a couple of walls, but Lucy can picture where the bedrooms once stood, now filled with a handful of closely packed tables, and there’s a clawfoot tub peeking out from behind the bathroom door.
They’re not even up to the menu yet, but Lucy already loves it here.
The line moves forward, and Tim’s hand settles on the small of her back as they look at the chalkboard menu hanging above the counter.
“I’m getting cherry,” Tim says, leaning down so he can keep his voice quiet. “You? What looks good?”
Lucy scans the menu, eye catching on a doodly yellow star next to “The Original” caramel apple pie.
“Probably the caramel apple. It sounds yummy, and there’s a star, so it’s gotta be good.”
When they get to the front of the line, Tim orders for them both, shoves a $5 bill in the tip jar as he scribbles his signature at the bottom of the receipt. They look around the seating area, but all of the booths are taken. In fact, there’s only one table available, so they take their seats across from each other in wobbly metal chairs. The table between them is almost too small, leaving them close enough that their knees bump together and their ankles are intertwined. Lucy’s chair digs into the backs of her thighs, just this side of uncomfortable, but cool enough to the touch that she doesn’t really mind.
Then the pie arrives, and Lucy forgets all about the lackluster seating. It would make a good slogan: “pie so delicious the chairs don’t matter.” The thick, wide slices are served warm, and Lucy’s has fresh vanilla ice cream melting down the sides.
She and Tim share both slices, without having to ask each other. Every bite is perfect, flaky crust and juicy filling flooding Lucy’s senses. They’re too busy eating for much conversation, but Tim looks to be enjoying his pie as much as she is, right down to the last bite. They don’t linger, as the after-dinner crowd is turning out and the little shop is getting more and more crowded, but they take their time walking back to the hotel, wandering up and down the side streets and making more plans for the morning.
It can’t last forever, though. Night has fallen completely around them, and the streetlights can only let them see so much of the little historical district. So they meander back to the hotel, stopping just outside the front door to look up together and admire the stars.
“Well?” Lucy squeezes Tim’s hand after a couple of minutes. “Was it as good as Nebraska?”
“The pie?” She nods. “It was good, but no.”
Before Lucy can ask anything else, Tim is cradling her face in his hands and leaning down to draw her into a long, gentle kiss. When they stop to breathe, he runs his thumb along her cheekbone and murmurs against her lips.
“But the company was better.”