Page 36 of Here We Go Again

But then Logan pulled away, and the universe inside her chest became a black hole, a vacuum of nothingness. Logan’s Popsicle-red mouth twisted into a strange smile Rosemary would later call a smirk. “Ha!” Logan said smugly. “I knew you liked it during Spin the Bottle!”

She looked triumphant and, in that moment, more than ever before, Rosemary didn’t understand. She barely registered the faint sound of voices approaching.

Logan stood up then. The backs of her bare legs were covered in bark dust as she walked away, leaving Rosemary sitting in the dirt with a plant in her hair, humiliated and alone.

There were three kisses, actually, if you count the one with Jake McCandie right after. Rosemary pulled him into that same garden, pushed her lips against his, and hoped she’d feel an ounce of what she’d felt kissing her best friend.

She hadn’t felt anything at all.

Chapter Eleven

ROSEMARY

She’s dreaming about popsicles and pop bottles when she’s startled awake by an explosion.

She has no idea how long she’s been asleep, but it takes her brain a second to realize the loudpopisn’t part of her dreams. She jerks upright in the passenger seat and sees Logan wrestling the steering wheel like she’s trying to ride a wild bull. The Gay Mobile rattles violently. Logan curses. Joe screams. Odysseus barks.

Rosemary’s heart is in her throat. “What’s going on?”

“We blew a tire!” Logan grits through her teeth as she manages to guide the car onto the shoulder. The van slows down, and the shaking subsides to a gentle sway as they come to a complete stop. They’ve kicked up a storm cloud’s worth of dust that obscures everything around them.

The combination of sleepiness and adrenaline makes her feel disoriented. Rosemary tries to remember where they are. Logan took over driving back in Ogden, where she made them stop to get In-N-Out. Rosemary closed her eyes, only for a minute, but must have fallen asleep.

And now they’re stranded on the side of the road.

Rosemary swivels to face Logan in a panic. “You blew a tire!”

“Yes, Iintentionallyblew out one of our tires,” Logan says dryly. She hits the hazard lights but leaves the keys in the ignition, even though the feeble air-conditioning does little to combat the excruciating heat of the van. Based on the position of the sun overhead, Rosemary slept for quite a while, and the windshield is like a magnified glass burning ants. “I’m the villain you think I am, Hale.”

“It’s because of yourspeeding!” Rosemary screeches, but Logan is already climbing out of the driver’s seat and carefully making her way around the back of the van.

Still half-asleep, Rosemary hesitates, and then opens the passenger-side door.

“Wait!” Joe shouts. “Don’t leave me here by myself! I want to know what’s going on!”

Rosemary opens the sliding door so Joe can hear the unholy sound that escapes her mouth when she sees the rear passenger-side tire sliced into absolute ribbons. Odysseus barks twice and then lunges out of the open door, and Rosemary stumbles to catch his leash before he runs into traffic. “What are we going to do?”

Logan simply puts her hands on her hips. “I guess we’re going to learn how to change a tire,” she says. Her calm sets Rosemary’s teeth on edge. They’re on the side of a freeway. Cars are rushing by at eighty miles per hour, and she’s trying to contain a dog that weighs almost as much as her, and they have aflat tire. On day two.

They’ll have to call a tow truck.

They’ll have to buy a new tire.

They’ll be horribly behind schedule.

Her anxiety twists in on itself like a double helix. “This isn’t funny, Logan!”

Logan cocks her head to the side and studies the remains of the tire. “I promise I’m not laughing. There is a spare tire, right?”

Rosemary tries to take a deep breath, but her lungs are thick with exhaustion and dust, and she chokes on it. “You didn’t make sure we had a spare tire before we left?”

“Chill your bill. I’m like eighty-two-percent sure we have one.” Logan walks around to the back of the car and opens the back of the van. Rosemary fights to keep Odysseus away from the road while Logan rustles around for a minute, taking out their belongings and dumping them on the gravel shoulder for the world to see. “Aha!” she finally declares when she pulls up the floor flap to reveal the secret compartment underneath. “A spare!”

She clumsily pulls the tire out from the trunk and drops it to the ground, rolling it toward Rosemary. “Now. All we have to do is learn how to change a tire.”

“I know how to change a tire!” Joe shouts from inside the van. “You need a jack!”

“Awesome!” Logan maintains that same unflappable calm. “What’s a jack?”