Page 10 of Truth or More Truth (Throwback RomComs #3)

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. . .

W hy does it feel so right to be curled up against Bobby Jacobs?

I’m not supposed to like this man, much less enjoy being held by him—in a bed, no less.

But somehow I do. And I don’t want him to get up and break the spell that began even before the lights went out last night.

I want to stay here in this seedy motel with him.

I want him to go back to sleep so I can trace his abs with my fingers like I was tempted to do before he woke up.

The man might be thirty-six years old, but he has a body of steel.

It was all I could do to not slip my hand up under his multiple shirts and explore his torso skin-on-skin.

What is wrong with me? Bobby’s a player.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure of it, though I’m now also eighty percent sure he’s not a cheater.

And yeah, maybe he’s not as much of a jerk as I thought, but that doesn’t mean I want to be his next conquest. Even so, it takes more strength than it ought to for me to scoot away from him in the bed.

As he slides out from under the covers, he says, “Stay there until I get back. No reason for you to get cold until I know what we’re doing.”

“Try the phone first,” I say as I shift over into the warmth he left behind in the bed. “If it’s working, you can call the front desk.”

“Great idea.” He flings the curtains open, flooding the room with blinding light, before picking up the phone from the table between the beds. “No dial tone.”

He heads into the bathroom for a minute, and when he comes back out, I watch as he pulls a pair of tennis shoes out of his bag and puts them on.

“Does your suitcase double as a clown car?” I ask. “How is there so much stuff in such a tiny space?”

“When you’re on the road half the time, you learn how to pack efficiently,” he says.

“I guess so.”

He stands and slips on his coat. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” I smile at him.

Bobby shoots me a grin before heading out the door, sending a gust of cold air into the room as he does. I’d figured it was as cold in here as it was outside, but I was wrong.

While I wait for him to come back, I give myself a stern talking to.

While it’s important for me to be able to get along with Bobby, I can’t let myself fall for him.

Much as it pains me, I force myself to remember what it was like when I discovered my ex-fiancé in bed with another woman.

Jeremy’s betrayal nearly crushed me, regardless of the part I played in the whole situation.

While I do believe Bobby’s claim that he doesn’t have a girlfriend, there’s something about women he’s hiding.

I didn’t imagine him calling someone “baby” on the phone yesterday.

Maybe he’s dating her but they’re not exclusive and don’t put a label on it? Whatever it is, I want no part in it.

Instead, I shift my thoughts to Shannon Beckett, Leslie’s twin brother.

Now there’s a man I could date with no reservations, and fortunately for me, he and his girlfriend broke up recently.

I spent a little time with him when he was in Chicago for Ash’s bachelor party a few weeks ago, and we flirted shamelessly with each other.

I’ve been looking forward to spending more time with him at the wedding and seeing where things might go.

Of course, he lives in Little Rock and I live in Chicago, but if he’s interested in doing more than flirting with me, I’m not going to let a little distance stop me.

And surely it wouldn’t take much persuading to get him to visit and potentially move to Chicago, since his sister lives there.

Within minutes, Bobby’s back, snow shovel in hand.

“Wanda says the interstate has been plowed, so we’re good to go.”

“What’s the shovel for?”

“To clear out around your car and back to where the snowplow cleared. I’ll take care of that while you get ready. I’ll also start the car to get it warmed up.” He grabs my keys off the top of the TV and is back outside before I can respond.

“What’s our route?” I ask Bobby, with the Illinois map and road atlas both open on my lap.

He offered to drive today, and after yesterday’s adventure, I gladly accepted. But that means I’m now the navigator, which is not my strongest suit.

“I-57 to I-55 to I-40,” he says. “We’ll hit I-55 soon after we cross into Missouri.”

“Missouri?” I ask. “Didn’t the guy on the radio yesterday say they got like a foot of snow, even before the storm passed? That’s more than here.” I estimate we got nine or ten inches. “Shouldn’t we avoid Missouri if we can?”

“Wanda said we should be fine. She had a radio going in the office, so I’m guessing that’s how she knew. Anyway, it should take us six or seven hours to get there if the roads continue to be as clear as they are here.”

Bobby motions out the windshield, where the interstate is mostly clear of snow but not entirely. I glance at the speedometer to see he’s driving a little below the speed limit.

“In an hour or so, we’ll stop somewhere to see if we can find a working phone so we can update Ash and Leslie.”

“I bet Leslie is frantic.”

“Wendy, too,” Bobby adds.

His knowledge of my two best friends is yet another reminder that the two of us need to get along. Not that we’re having any trouble with that this morning.

“Hey,” I say, “what about your cellular phone? Could we use that to call them?” Why didn’t I think about that last night?

“I tried yesterday right after we arrived at the hotel—while you were changing clothes in the bathroom—but the call wouldn’t go through. We’re out in the middle of nowhere here, so the phone doesn’t have service.”

“Maybe the problem wasn’t with our location but the storm,” I say.

He shrugs. “Could be. You want to try?”

“Yeah, I want to talk to them as soon as possible. But we’ll have to stop to get it out of your bag in the trunk.”

“No, we won’t. I put my bag in the backseat so we could get to the phone in an emergency. You should be able to reach it. The phone is just inside the zipper.”

I twist around to see if I can get to it without taking off my seatbelt, which I refuse to remove with the roads the way they are. I stretch to reach the bag and am able to pull it close enough to get the phone out.

“Now what?” I say with the phone in my hands.

“You need a tutorial on how to use a phone?” Bobby asks, a smile hovering on his lips but not fully appearing.

I smack his arm. “I’ve never used one of these before. Give me a break.”

“It’s the same as a regular phone, except you type in the number first and then hit the ‘send’ button. There’s no dial tone. You won’t know if it’s going to work until you hit send.”

“Gotcha.”

“There’s one problem, though.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“When I called yesterday, I had to call information to get the number, and I didn’t write it down. I just had them connect me.”

“I’ve got the number,” I say, grabbing my purse from the floorboard. “Leslie gave it to me last week.”

I punch in the number and then hit send. After a few seconds, it begins to ring .

“It’s ringing!” I say in the same tone I’d announce a miracle, and Bobby chuckles.

“Hello?” a man’s voice says. The line is staticky, but at least the call went through.

“Mr. Beckett?”

“I’m sorry. It’s hard to understand you,” the man says, still staticky.

“This is Melissa Teague,” I say loudly.

“You don’t have to yell,” Bobby whispers. “That won’t help.”

I shoot him a glare.

“Melissa?” the man says. “Is that what you said?”

“Yes, Bobby and I got stuck in the snowstorm in Illinois. We’re on the road now, and we should arrive this afternoon.”

“What? Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Can you hear me?” I ask.

“Hello?”

The line goes dead.

I look over at Bobby. “That didn’t go well.”

“Did he at least catch your name?”

“Yes.”

“That should be good enough. At least they know we’re alive.”

“They know I’m alive.” I jab my thumb into my chest. “You, not so much.”

“Eh, I’m tough. A little snowstorm isn’t enough to take me down.”

I roll my eyes. “Sure.”

“We’ll stop soon to try to find a real phone, if you’re afraid they think I’m dead in a ditch somewhere.”

I scoff. “If you died in a ditch, I wouldn’t leave you there. I’d at least drag you up to the side of the road.”