Page 13

THIRTEEN

KIT

“Did you get us lost?” I hunched over the steering wheel, eyes squinted.

The Cougar’s windshield wipers weren’t exactly fast, and coupled with the torrential downpour outside, I couldn’t see more than a car length in front of us. I inched along the highway, the car rattling each time I wandered into the rumble strips. “I’m getting off at this exit.”

“There’s no one coming up behind us,” Trent yelled over fat drops of rain pelting the roof. He sat twisted backwards, watching for headlights coming up behind us.

I hated the interstate on a nice day, but the interstate in a barely running car with zero visibility? I loathed it.

Exhaling, I eased the car onto the exit ramp. A green smudge of a traffic light greeted us, and I took a left, parking under an overpass behind a gaggle of huddled motorcyclists.

“Where are we?” I asked, suppressing the urge to grab the guidebook out of his hands.

The first two stops had taken us nearly two hours to complete. Trent gave me the wrong directions to the first stop. I didn’t spot the sign for the second. We weren’t off to a good start, and a heady mix of frustration and annoyance permeated the car.

“Did that sign say Bat Mountain?” He frowned at the map on his phone, zooming in on the red dot showing our location.

“I didn’t really have time to read the signage while I was trying to keep us on the road.” I held up a finger as another sound caught my attention. A familiar dripping. “Do you hear that?”

Trent cocked his head. “Hear what?”

I unbuckled my seat belt and launched into the back seat. Icy water soaked my pants leg.

“It’s water. There’s water in the car.” My hand came away from the weather stripping dry. “How is it getting in?”

As if to answer my question, a cold droplet splashed on the back of my neck.

“Fuck,” I swore, wiping the water away. “It’s the vinyl top.”

“Wait, this car is a convertible? We can take the top off?” Trent pressed his palm experimentally to the roof, as if opening it in the pouring rain, even under an overpass, was a good idea.

“It’s not a convertible. It’s just vinyl to look like a convertible and someone, probably my dad, added a radio antenna by drilling a hole through it. I thought I patched it.”

Trent leaned back, finding the hole and plugging it with a finger. “You didn’t.”

“Not helpful.”

His eyes traveled down to my pants, now soaked. He pulled his hand away from the roof and touched the backseat. “Wow. It’s like a river back there.”

“How did you not see it leaking? Weren’t you looking behind us?”

“Not for leaks.” His offhand lackadaisical responses would be the death knell of our shaky truce. “Oh, hey, Barbie and Ken said they just saw us on their way back from Bat Mountain. So, we must be at the right exit. That’s good news.”

His relentless optimism chafed at me. The car was a wreck. I was a wreck. Neither of us had any business even attempting the rally. And now, the car was flooding. “We can’t drive like this.”

“Why not?” He placed his palm on my shoulder, kneading out the tension. His voice lowered to a soothing timbre. “The backseat is already soaked. Even if we had something to fix the hole, it’s too wet for a permanent solution. Forget about it for now. We’ll find you a dry pair of pants and worry about the leak when the weather clears up. I’ll get directions from these guys.”

Without waiting for a reply, Trent removed his hand and leapt out of the car. He sauntered up to the group of burly bikers as if he was attending a signing event and these guys were just waiting for him to show up. The tension from the group was palpable, all bunched shoulders and shuttered glares, but within seconds of conversation, all that apprehension was gone, and loud laughter pierced the interior of the car. One man clapped Trent hard on the shoulder.

“I got directions!” he announced, cheeks red and eyes glittering. “And an invitation to a bar if we’re still in town later.”

Judging by the cuts on their backs, I had no interest in the offer, but I shot him a thin smile, anyway. “Is it close?”

“Ten minutes down the road. They said we can’t miss it, even in this weather.”

I returned to the driver’s seat, wringing cold water out of my pants before I turned the key in the ignition. With an audible exhale, I shook my shoulders out. “Thanks.”

Trent clicked his seat belt into place and gave me a suspicious look. “For what?”

“For asking directions. And navigating. And talking me down off a ledge about the leak.”

He glanced back. “That? That’s nothing. We’ll have that patched up tonight. And directions, honestly, we didn’t need them. But…you’re welcome?”

I didn’t blame his apprehension. I hadn’t exactly been my best self. Since I’d agreed to spend five days in a car with Trent, I could at least try to be his friend. Or let him befriend me.

By the time I eased the leaking car out from the overpass, the rain had lessened from a flood into a steady shower. Trent pointed out signs for Bat Mountain, and we pulled up alongside a Mario Kart and a sketchy-looking white van that had “Free Candy” spray painted on the side. Rally cars.

“I guess we’re not that far behind,” Trent said.

Feeling generous, I didn’t point out that we’d probably missed a bunch of stops. It didn’t matter. Winning was off the table the second Trent told the organizers what he did for a living, and winning had never been my goal. I just wanted to finish this rally.

“We must have made up time with the rain.” His grin grew into an infectiously wide smile, and my chest tightened at just having caused it. Which made me sympathize with Derek a bit. I shook off the feeling of finding Trent charming, blaming it on my lack of sleep and the stressful trip.

Without bothering to change out of my soaked pants, I grabbed an umbrella and hopped out of the car before I had any more sympathetic thoughts toward the rich, handsome, charming football player sitting shotgun.

He caught up at the entrance of a cave, having pulled a rain jacket out of his luggage. A surprise, considering how he’d shoved clothing in that morning with no rhyme or reason.

“So, what exactly do we do here?” I ducked into the mouth of the cave to get out of the rain.

“Go into the cave, obviously.” Trent scoffed.

“Yeah, I get that, but what do we do in there? Do we need to take a picture with something or find something?”

He shrugged. “How would I know?”

“You have the guidebook.”

His smarmy smile slipped off his lips with a jolt. “Oh, right.”

While he checked his pockets for the book, I stepped into the entrance of the cave. I didn’t exactly expect to find a kiosk to buy tickets, but here was nothing inside the cave. No maps. No friendly tour guide. Only a single sign pointing ahead that said, “Bat Cave.” I angled my ear toward the barely lit path leading deeper into the cave and heard nothing.

“Find Bat Man,” a deep voice whispered into my ear. I jumped and pushed him away when I caught a smirk. He’d done that on purpose.

“What? Is his secret lair in here?”

“No, Bat Man. Two words.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling out my phone and finding zero bars. “Is that an actual person? An animal? A statue? Please tell me you looked this stop up.”

He shook his head. “Nope. We’re in this for the adventure. And to win, of course.”

“Wouldn’t you have a better chance at winning if you actually planned ahead?” I asked.

Trent ignored my question.

“Let’s walk and I’m sure we’ll find the guy or animal or whatever.” He took off down the marked path, dim lampposts guiding the way.

“Is this how your life goes? You just show up and everything works out?” I asked, trailing behind him.

He shrugged. “Sort of? I mean, I guess.”

I shook my head, fending off a wave of annoyance at the answer. Of course, things worked out for Trent. He was talented and handsome. He floated through the world, unaffected by the problems of the poor and plain.

The path split in front of a deep crevice. Without so much as considering his options, Trent veered left. I paused to read the faint inscriptions carved into the wooden fence, preventing tourists from falling off a ledge.

One of them read “Bat Man” with an arrow pointing to the left. Of course. I kept my eyes on the path as we descended a set of carved steps.

“You don’t think there are actual bats, do you?” Trent asked from up ahead, his head tilted up to the ceiling.

“Are you serious?” Water wept from the wall, and I clutched the wooden railing, taking one stair at a time while Trent bounded down, two at a time. “Of course there are bats. It’s a giant cave.”

“But that’s just a name.” He paused at the bottom of the stairwell, turning around with a goofy grin on his face. “If it was Yeti Mountain, you wouldn’t expect to find a family of Big Foots…Big Feets?”

I craned my head up at the darkness above us. “I’d be shocked if there weren’t a bunch of bats up there.”

He followed my gaze, blond hair amber in the dim light. “Really? Like, here?”

I reached the bottom of the stairs and followed his gaze up. “Probably not here. I think they like alcoves.”

His lips tipped into a grin. “Alcoves, huh?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a bat exper—” My smug retort came to an abrupt stop once I spotted a shadowy figure at the base of the stairs. “What the hell is that?”

At the bottom of the stairs, an absurdly tall man stood – no – menaced, wearing a cloak. I craned my head up, trying to make out the features in the light of the flickering lanterns by the door. Before I could step closer to investigate, Trent wrapped a hand around my elbow, pulling me behind him before stepping into the clearing. He puffed his chest up, back ramrod straight.

And then he let out a laugh. “Bat Man.”

“Bat Man?” I darted out from behind him, squinting to help adjust to the low light. While lifelike from far away, up close, it was obvious that we were looking at a statue. The face was carved out of a black stone, and the billowing cape was actually wings. Bat wings, if Trent was to be believed. “That’s what we’re here for?”

“I remember now. We need to take a picture with the statue.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t act like this is news to you. You had the handbook.”

“I forgot. I’ve been doing a lot of research while you’re just sitting around.”

“You mean driving. The thing we have to do if you want to win this rally.” I posted up by the statue, waving for Trent to join me while I fumbled with my phone. “Which, as I recall, you can’t do.”

“Yet.” He batted down my phone. “Let me take the picture. My camera is better.”

“We don’t get points based on how nice the picture is.” He held out the phone and snapped the picture mid-sentence. I frowned. “Do I get some warning?”

He flipped the phone, angling it so I couldn’t see the screen, and shook his head. “Nope. I look great. No signal, though. I’ll post when we get back to the entrance.”

“Can I look at it, at least?” I called as Trent tromped back up the path.

He didn’t answer, not that it shocked me.

The other cars were long gone by the time we emerged. Trent leaned against the driver’s side door, posting a probably terrible picture of me. Not that I cared. No one besides Derek knew the account we were using, anyway. And if Trent’s fans found it, they were only going to be looking at him, and it didn’t matter what I looked like at all.

“I’m driving this leg,” Trent announced, opening the door and sliding in before I could argue.