Page 5 of Truth or More Truth (Throwback RomComs #3)

four

. . .

D id I just tell Melissa I’m going to imagine all the ways she can eat Cheetos? That was a bizarre thing to say. What is wrong with me?

“So, no date for the wedding?” she asks.

It takes me a second to register the abrupt change in subject. “Why would you assume that?”

“Uh, because there’s nobody else here with us?”

She makes a good point, but I say, “Maybe she’s flying in from somewhere else. Or maybe she’s coming tomorrow or Saturday morning.”

Melissa cuts a glance toward me as she pulls back onto the interstate. “Is she?”

“No,” I mutter.

“Hmph.” She taps her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music on the radio. “So no date, then?”

“No.”

“You could’ve just said that in the first place.”

“Maybe I like to irritate you.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Why does that sound right?” I fold my arms over my chest.

“Have you already forgotten our conversation about you being a jerk? ”

No. It was surprisingly hurtful, but I’m not going to admit that. “Yep.”

“Suit yourself.”

She turns up the volume on the radio, transferring Cheeto dust from the knob back to the steering wheel in the process. Then she proceeds to sing along with “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” as if she’s trying to win a beauty pageant.

I grab a tissue from the box on the floor behind her seat and use it to turn the radio back down.

“Didn’t want my Cheeto cooties?” she asks with a smirk.

“Do you have a date?” I say in response, though I’m not sure why I’m asking.

“None of your business.”

“I’m going to find out come Saturday, so you might as well tell me now.”

“There’s no one else here with us, is there?”

“Maybe he’s coming from somewhere else,” I say mockingly. “Maybe he’s coming tomorrow or Saturday morning.”

She shrugs.

“Is he?” I ask.

“You’ll have to wait and find out.”

I turn the music back up and stare out the window. This is going to be a long twelve hours.

When we’re about an hour outside Chicago, Melissa finally turns down the music on the second time through the album and speaks again. “Why couldn’t your girlfriend come to the wedding?”

“What girlfriend?”

“The one you were talking to on the phone.”

My eyebrows raise at her admission she overheard part of my conversation. “Why do you think I was talking to my girlfriend?”

“I just assumed. Who else would you be dying to call from a gas station?”

I briefly hesitate before answering, “Maybe it was a work call. ”

“Was it?”

I sigh. “No.”

“So who was it, then?”

I turn my head to study her profile. “Why are you so curious about who I was talking to?”

“Just making conversation.”

“I can think of a thousand other less personal things we could make conversation about.”

“Ah, I get it.”

“Get what?” I’m unable to keep the frustration out of my voice.

“Trouble in paradise. What did you do to her, Bobby Joe?”

She’s going to make me lose my mind, but she obviously didn’t hear enough of my conversation to know who I was talking to. And she doesn’t need to know. Only people I fully trust get to know about the person I was talking to, and I’m not yet sure if I fully trust Melissa Teague.

“Why are you like this?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“All …,” I wave my hand around, “questiony.”

“Questiony?” She snorts. “Is that a word?”

“It is now.” It’s also now time to change the subject. “You have more tapes in here, or will we continue to listen to Whitney on repeat all the way to Arkansas?”

“Ooo, I’m impressed you know who this is.” She points at the radio, as if that’s where Whitney resides.

“Everybody knows Whitney,” I say. “The woman has some pipes.”

“Huh. Who’da thought you’d be a closet Whitney fan?”

“Not sure I’d say I’m a fan.” I’m totally lying. I’m a fan.

“Agree to disagree. Anyway, I have more tapes in the glove box and even more in a shoebox behind your seat. Help yourself. I mean, you can’t go wrong with any of them, because I chose them.”

I chuckle and rub my hands together before popping open the glove compartment. It’s now Melissa’s turn to laugh, since my knees block it from opening more than an inch. I adjust my legs so I can get my hand into the compartment and pull out a handful of cassettes.

“Paula Abdul, Metallica, Bon Jovi, and the Pet Shop Boys,” I say as I shuffle through them. “I like the variety.”

I shake the Bon Jovi tape out of its case, switch it out with Whitney, and turn up the volume. The chorus of “Livin’ on a Prayer” blasts out, and I decide to surprise Melissa by singing along.

She turns to me with wide eyes before giving me the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her. I give her one right back and start playing air guitar. Her responding laugh is the best thing I’ve heard all day.

“You’re really not going to tell me about your girlfriend?”

We’re sitting at a Steak ’n Shake in Effingham, Illinois, eating lunch. I suggested we get the food to go and eat on the road, but Melissa insisted we’d make a mess of her car. How she thinks burgers are worse than Cheetos, I’ll never know.

I also don’t know why she’s hung up on the girlfriend thing.

“I’m a private person,” I say. “I don’t talk to many people about my relationships.” Not that I’m in one—at least not the type of relationship she’s talking about.

“I see.” She pops a handful of shoestring fries into her mouth and chews it before continuing, “You’re one of those types.”

“One of what types?”

She points another fry at me, and ketchup drips off the end onto the table. “The type of man who can’t talk about his feelings.”

I use a napkin to wipe up the ketchup. “I can talk about my feelings.”

“Prove it.”

The Melissa sitting across from me right now is nowhere in the ballpark of what I thought the Melissa I see in the Chicago Cubs front office was like, based on our limited interactions.

There, at work, she’s the epitome of professionalism and politeness.

Even at the pre-wedding events for Ash and Leslie’s wedding and all the events surrounding Randall and Wendy’s wedding in the fall, she seemed pretty buttoned up.

Here? She’s nosy, snarky, and a little bit rude.

I have to admit I like this Melissa better, even though I have no intention of answering her probing questions.

“Nope.” I take a bite of my burger.

“Then I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t need you to,” I say with my mouth full, wondering if she’ll call me out on it.

She doesn’t, which leaves me a tad disappointed.

Instead, she asks, “Why were you in Chicago today instead of in L.A. with your girlfriend?”

Why won’t she let this girlfriend thing go?

“Maybe that’s none of your business.”

“Here we go again. You can trust me, you know. I’m not going to go blab all your dirty secrets to anybody.”

That’s exactly what I’m afraid she might do, which is why I’m keeping my mouth shut about things she doesn’t need to know.

“What makes you think I have dirty secrets?” I ask.

She flutters her hand toward me. “You have that whole mafia look going on.”

“Mafia look? What mafia look?” I hold my hands out to my sides. “I’m wearing jeans and a sweater, and I’m not even Italian.”

“You don’t have to be Italian to be in the mafia, Bobby Joe. That’s just insulting to the Russian mafia.”

I huff. “Far be it from me to insult the Russian mafia.”

“I’d like to see you try to insult them to their faces. See where that gets you.”

“What is it you want from me?” I ask. “Why are you being like this?”

“All questiony?” She smirks.

“Yeah. That.”

“Maybe it’s simply because I enjoy irritating you.”

“You’re doing an excellent job of it. Gold star for you.”

An hour or so later, Melissa turns down the music and asks, “Truth or dare?”

She has done nothing but sing along with the Pet Shop Boys for almost an entire album, and now she wants to play a game? “Excuse me?”

“We’re playing ‘Truth or Dare.’”

“Oh, no, we’re not.” I shake my head. First of all, it’s a silly child’s game. And second, although she seems to be warming toward me, I’m not ready to share my secrets, so “truth” is out. And goodness only knows what this woman would dare me to do.

“Dare, then. Let’s see …” She rubs her chin as if she’s thinking hard.

“We’ll see nothing.”

“Okay, then, I’ll start. Truth or dare,” she says in a comically low voice.

I bark out a laugh. “Is that supposed to be my voice?”

“Yeah, was it good?”

She gives me a goofy smile, and I can’t help but laugh again.

“It was terrible. And fine. Truth or dare?”

“Dare!” she shouts gleefully.

“You’re driving a car. There’s not much I can dare you to do that won’t put our lives in danger.”

“Guess you’ll have to get creative, then.”

I look around the car, trying to find some inspiration. When my gaze lands on the radio, I get an idea, and I pop the tape out.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Melissa asks with narrowed eyes.

“Setting up my dare.” I wave the Paula Abdul tape in her face before shoving it into the tape player.

“Oooookay.”

I check the album liner and get the tape cued up to where I want it before ejecting it.

“Whatcha doing there, Bobby Joe?”

“I dare you to listen to ‘Straight Up’ and not sing along, bob your head, tap your hand on the steering wheel, nothing. You have to stay perfectly still and mute. ”

Melissa’s eyes go wide. “Noooooooo. I’ll never make it!”

“You have to, because I double dog dare you.”

She gives me a pouty face that is ridiculously adorable, but I keep my face passive.

“Not the double dog dare!” she whines.

“Watch it, or I’ll triple dog dare.”

“Fine. What do I get if I succeed?”

“The satisfaction of knowing you can show a little bit of restraint.”

Melissa shakes her head. “There’s no satisfaction in that.”

I shrug. “Too bad. Those are the ‘Truth or Dare’ rules. I didn’t make them up.”

“It feels like you did, but I’ll play along. I’m gonna nail this.”

“I thought you said you’d never make it.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” She jabs a finger into the air. “I’ll make it if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I hope it’s not the last thing you do, because if so, we’re both in trouble.”

“Facts. Okay, play it.” She pretends to zip her lips and throw away the key before putting both hands on the steering wheel and staring straight ahead.

I push the tape back in, and when the music starts, I begin bobbing my head to the beat while keeping my eyes on her. Her eyes dart over to me for a second, and she smiles. Even though she doesn’t look at me again, her smile gets bigger as I start tapping my hand on my knee.

“No laughing either,” I say right before I start singing along to the chorus with gusto.

It’s all she can do to keep from laughing. Her stomach muscles are contracting so much her entire body is shaking.

“I said you can’t move!” I point at her with a big grin.

Somehow she makes it until the bridge without audibly laughing or moving in any other way, but she finally lets out a giant belly laugh and then sings along to the rest of the song.

“That was amazing!” she says through giggles when the next song starts. “I can’t wait to tell everybody about your singing performance. ”

“You’re not telling anybody about that.” I shake my head.

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Hey, you lost the dare, so you’ll be keeping your mouth shut.”

“That’s not how it works!”

“It is now.”

“All right. If it means that much to you, Bobby Joe, I promise I won’t tell anyone about your excellent singing skills or your intimate knowledge of Paula Abdul lyrics.”

I honestly don’t care if she tells our friends about it, but I’m beginning to think she might keep my secrets.