Southbound Surrender (17 page)

God, those lips.

Piper’s hips are grinding on me now, and my hands are moving with each dip of her body. And just as it’s getting hot in here, I mean real hot, Damion comes jaunting over. He smiles at Piper first, still dancing, and then gives me a careful one over.

I start thinking that if Damion gets any closer, I’m going to have to punch him with my good hand. I’m not going to let him get any closer to Piper, not with those muscles popping out of his unbuttoned shirt. A tight silver necklace with a cross gleams against his smooth chest. It reminds me of Hudson, and I start wondering why ripped guys with eight-packs are the only ones who can get away with wearing necklaces without looking like complete jerks.

He studies me while he shakes his hips and stamps his boots into the ground. I stare back, looking at his wide eyes that are the slightest hint of blue. They’re focused and intense as he moves to the beat of the music. He leans over to me and shouts, “You’ve got some badass moves.”

“Thanks!” I shout back while keeping my hands on Piper. I’m not letting her out of reach with the one and only Damion breathing down my neck.

“Praise Jesus Almighty, you better lock this one down, if you know what I mean.” He nods his head at Piper and then smirks, rocking away from us in the other direction. He tips his hat down and then saunters off to help a guy in a three piece suit who is falling all over the woman next to him.

Praise Jesus Almighty?

The only other person I’ve ever heard use that phrase is Hudson, except he’s hundreds of miles away in Madison fawning, I am sure, over some girl named Jen. And I suddenly realize that Damion is an extra-crispy, honky-tonk version of Hudson with sweet dance moves.

“Piper, grab your phone. You have to take a picture of Damion,” I say in her ear, “Hudson has to see this.”

Piper stops dancing, and I curse myself momentarily for ruining the moment and the fine movement of those hips. She slips out her phone and snaps a picture of the one and only Damion. She turns it toward me, and we both start laughing.

“He’s all teeth,” she says, pointing to the picture.

But I’m not looking at Damion’s teeth like she is. My gaze is focused on the clear, blue eyes that pierce the picture.

Chapter 11

Nashville provided full stomachs and a set of pictures that Big Dave was going to love. I sent the picture of Damion to Hudson and our texts back and forth went something like this:

Me: Ur doppelganger.

Hudson: WTF. Is that real?

Me: U should get a belt that sparkles.

Hudson: U get her naked yet?

Me: Not yet. Working on it.

Hudson: I bet her breasts are tens.

Me: Screw off.

Piper stole my phone then and said that her breasts were elevens. She texted Hudson back and then deleted the thread. I decided I wouldn’t text Hudson for the rest of the trip.

Nashville also gave me some brownie points with Piper. She was impressed with my dance moves because according to her, she didn’t know I had a little Kevin Bacon in me. Personally, I’d like to think I’m a 2.0 version of Kevin Bacon, but I lapped up the compliment anyway. Getting that close to Piper made it even harder to sit in this cold and incredibly lonely seat.

We’re back on the road again, about an hour south of Atlanta. The clouds are starting to roll in and the spring sky is streaked with a dark charcoal. There’s a clear division in the sky like someone ripped a page from a picture book. The sun is behind us and the clouds are in front of us. There’s no in between. You can see the rain pouring down in a misty sheet from the sky up ahead.

“How far are we going today?” Piper asks, curling her legs up onto the seat.

“I’d like to hit south Georgia or maybe even get into Florida. We went further yesterday than I planned so we have a little bit of time to play with, but it all depends on the weather ahead. Storms and rain will slow us down.” I reply.

“Ooh,” she says. “So, what I just heard is that we have the opportunity to go to Disney World.”

“What?” I laugh. “No, not even close. And who the hell wants to go to Disney World anyway?”

“It’s where dreams come true.”

“I don’t need Disney World for that,” I say. “Plus, I said we have a
little
time. That means like an extra hour because of the time we lost with our rendezvous at Wildhorse Saloon. Like maybe an extra pit stop or something if this weather doesn’t hit us as bad as I think it will.”

“So many options,” she says. “I don’t even know how to choose. I feel like a kid in a candy shop. An extra stop, really?”

“Don’t make me regret bringing you,” I warn. She hits me before she pulls at the transmitter for the CB. “I wouldn’t…”

“Does this thing work? Do drivers actually talk on these things anymore?” Piper asks as she puts it up to her mouth but doesn’t push the button. “Breaker, break, two four nine. We got a situation here. We got a driver here that’s got a stick up his ass. Anybody know how to get it out?”

“Thank you for that,” I say. “In all seriousness though, I wouldn’t recommend hopping on that thing. No one really uses it anymore like they used to. Not like in the movies or like the seventies, according to Viv anyway. It’s all degrading, foul-mouthed prison talk. It’s all stuff that you definitely don’t want to hear. Stuff that will make your ears bleed. Seriously.”

“Have you failed to tell me something, Mr. Rowland? Have you spent some time behind bars in the last five years since you’re so familiar with prison talk?” she asks, holding her thumb over the button like a threat. “I’ll do it. You know I will.”

“Suit yourself. Just don’t come crying to me when those guys -”

But she doesn’t let me finish. Her thumb is already pressed on the button and her mouth is poised over the device. “Hey, Truck Nation. P. Sullivan reporting from –” She releases the button.

“Where are we?” she asks.

“Chattanooga.”

“Chat, Chat, Chattanooga,” she says with the button pressed. “We’re in sunny Chattanooga where the temperature is climbing to a mild yet refreshing sixty degrees.”

She lifts the button and eyes me with a smile.

“Hey, Chattanooga Cub. You sound sexy. Tell me girl, whatchya wearing?” A gruff voice crackles over the radio. “Tell me how big those tits are.”

Piper’s mouth drops open, and she shoots me a look of disgust before bursting into laughter. She holds up the device again. “How big you want ’em to be, you dirty dog?”

She waits and looks at me again. I shake my head and say, “You’re getting in over your head, girl. You have no idea.”

“Hey, Chattanooga Kitten, don’t listen to that dick. He’s got the clap. What’s your pretty little kitten look like?” Another voice cuts in with a thick Southern accent. “I’m in Tennessee myself.”

“Oh, my God,” Piper says to me. She covers the receiver with her hand and the men’s voices turn into a muffled sound of whistles, panting and words so dirty that I need the Urban Dictionary website to look them up. I give her a shoulder shrug before I start laughing.

“I told you,” I say. “You don’t want to mess with those guys.”

Just as Piper is about to turn off the CB, a lighter voice cuts in amid the crude men.

“Hey,” the voice calls. It’s unmistakably a woman’s voice. The rest of the voices crackle and disappear. Her voice is cool and clear. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Piper answers.

“Are you driving by yourself?”

“No, I’m just riding. A –” Piper pauses, “Friend who wants to be my boyfriend is driving.”

“A friend, really? You kiss all your friends?” I accuse her light-heartedly. “You must have a line of guys that want to be your friend.”

“So, he’s not your boyfriend?” the woman asks.

“Not my boyfriend,” Piper confirms.

“Yet,” I whisper.

She shoots a raised eyebrow at me before turning back to the CB. “What’s your name?”

“Jennifer. Yours?”

“Piper. My friend’s name is Cash.”

“Cash and Piper. It sounds good together.”

“Jennifer?” I whisper.

“I suppose it does,” Piper says, ignoring me. “So, I need another girl’s opinion, Jennifer. I’ll tell you a short version of our story, and you can tell me what you think about it all. So, Cash and I met five years ago. We shared a kiss and then went our separate ways. Yesterday, he showed up at my door and asked me to go for a ride with him. Five days, fifty square feet…”

“One last shot at love,” Jennifer finishes.

“Yeah.” Piper gives me an incredulous look. “So, what do you think? Should I fall for this guy or what?”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s hot. Dark hair and blue eyes. Enough muscle but not too much, around six feet tall. He’s got a killer smile, and he’s smart. And, most importantly, I just learned that he has some serious dance moves.”

“But he’s a truck driver?” Jennifer asks. “Why does he drive a truck?”

Piper looks at me, silently questioning.

“Because I love the open road and the smell of diesel,” I answer.

“That’s it?” Piper looks disappointed. “I thought there’d be more.”

“Because I didn’t want to be trapped in a concrete jungle for the rest of my life. I wanted to see what the world has to offer, and I thought maybe I would find you, as crazy as it sounds,” I admit.

“That’s so sweet,” Piper says with a cock of her head. “Except I was only two hours away.”

“Don’t remind me,” I reply as a few sprinkles of rain land on the windshield.

“He likes the open road,” Piper says into the radio. “And his lame ass decided not to go to medical school. The guy’s brilliant and could cruise through school in a heartbeat. He could save lives, but instead, he’s punching cowboys and getting shot at.”

“Hmm,” Jennifer says. “Sounds like a classic case of underachievement.”

“You’re telling me,” Piper replies.

“Or brilliance,” Jennifer offers. “Maybe he’s got this whole thing figured out. He’s living the easy life on the road without the stress and anxiety of keeping up with the Joneses. It doesn’t sound so bad after all.”

“I like Jennifer,” I say. The drops are thicker now and splashing with force against the glass. I switch on the windshield wipers at the lowest level.

“What about his responsibility to society? He’s brilliant, and he should share his knowledge and talents with the world,” Piper says. “He has a duty to become something bigger than this, no offense or anything.”

“None taken. I’m not a truck driver,” Jennifer says.

“You’re not?” Piper asks.

“No, I’m an electrical engineer,” she says. “I’m at work right now, in a cube actually. I get bored every once in a while and turn on the CB for entertainment. I was just about to turn it off when you came on the line. You sounded interesting so I thought I’d stay.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Piper says. “Don’t you think that turning on a CB for entertainment is kind of weird? I mean, there are so many other things that you could be doing at work. You could be buying shoes online, checking Facebook, or Googling useful information like how many Blow Pops are in a bag. The information highway is literally at your fingertips.”

“I tune into the real deal. The actual highway with
actual
people,” Jennifer laughs before she adds. “Some of the dirtiest stuff you’re ever going to hear is on this thing. It’s so disgusting and ridiculous that it’s funny. It pulls me away from diagrams and CAD drawings that bore me to tears.”

“Sounds like a sad job, Jennifer. Where are you from?”

“Wisconsin, just like you.”

Piper looks at me with shock, “How did –”

“The accent. It’s easy to pick out.”

“Oh,” Piper laughs. “Yeah. It’s that bad, huh?”

“Don’t you know,” she emphasizes know, adding a soft ‘a’ sound at the end to make it sound like Noah.

Yeah, we’re from Wisconsin alright. There’s no denying it.

“I have a friend named Jennifer who lives in Madison. What are the odds?” Piper asks.

“Well, considering there are probably about a million Jennifers in the United States alone, pretty good I suppose. How did Cash find you, Piper? How did he know where you lived?”

“I ran into his friend a few days ago. I was with the other Jennifer, who prefers to be called Jen by the way, and bam, Cash shows up at my door three days later. I guess I have Jen to thank or scold, I’m not sure which one yet, for giving my address to him.”

Jennifer’s silent on the other end.

My eyes are fixed on the road ahead of me, watching as the rain sputters against the road in a hazy chaos, when a sudden moment of realization washes over me. Jennifer. I think about the truck stop in Illinois and then the truck stop in Kentucky and then the Wildhorse Saloon. The color was striking, like nothing I’ve seen before, except, I’ve seen it three times now in the last two days. This would mark the fourth, if she responds how I think she will. The euphoria is intriguing and unsettling at the same time, and I have no idea what it means. I pull the transmitter from Piper’s hands.

“What color are your eyes, Jennifer?”

“Well, Cash. It’s nice to meet you. Don’t you think you should avoid hitting on me when your girl is sitting right next to you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Just tell me, Jennifer, what color are your eyes? I’m curious.”

I lift my thumb and hold my breath, unsure if I want her to answer how I expect her to.

“They’re a clear blue, like Cal Ripken’s eyes. Clear as glass someone once told me.”

A shudder curls through my body as I hand the device over to Piper. I move the wipers to the next level, watching as they slide away the water with quick swoops. Down, up. Down, up. The water comes, the wipers remove. It makes sense. The laws of science dictate how the rain reacts to the motion. This is how the world works. But the eyes…

“What was that all about?” Piper asks me.

“Nothing,” I say, gripping the wheel and leaning forward to look through the rain. My right hand throbs from punching the Cowboy as I squeeze tighter. The pattering sound of rain echoes in the cab and fills the space in between us.

“It’s not nothing. Rule number one: no lies,” Piper says before she moves the transmitter back to her mouth, but before she can say anything, Jennifer comes back on.