Page 7 of Truth or More Truth (Throwback RomComs #3)

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. . .

“ W eren’t you charming back there?” Melissa says as she eats Cheetos on her bed and watches me dig through my suitcase.

“What do you mean?”

“It was weird seeing you be nice to a woman—to anybody, actually.” She licks her fingers. I wonder if she usually does that, or if she’s only doing it now because she knows it drives me crazy. “I think Wanda has a crush on you.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Does she? I’m terrible at determining if a woman is interested in me, though I’m typically an expert at reading people.

“She definitely thinks you have a crush on me, though.” Melissa grins at me as she sticks another Cheeto in her mouth.

“You’re a hard one to figure out, you know that?” I ask her as I pull a pair of gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt out of my suitcase.

“Why do you say that?”

“At work, you’re all prim and proper in your skirt suits and will barely even look at or speak to me when I’m there.

And here you are, eating Cheetos on a trucker motel bed in your Columbia University sweatshirt and happy-face socks with no makeup, teasing me like I’m your brother or something. The two don’t exactly jive. ”

“Wow. There’s a lot to unpack there, Sport.”

“Sport?”

“Seemed appropriate, considering your job.”

“Don’t call me Sport.” The nickname makes me sound like I’m six.

“Okay … Sport. You know I’m switching from Bobby Joe to that now, right?”

“See? This is what I’m talking about.” I stalk to the bathroom with my clothes and close the door none too softly behind me.

“What’s what you’re talking about?” she calls out.

I ignore her as I quickly change my clothes. When I emerge from the bathroom, she stares at me. I stop and look down at myself. “What? What are you looking at? Is there a stain on my clothes or something?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something unrelated to the non-stains on your clothes.”

She’s lying, but I drop it.

“Want to watch TV?” she asks.

“Sure. Nothing else to do.” I turn it on and twirl the knob and adjust the antenna on the ancient set until I land on a channel that actually comes in. It’s an old western movie, and Melissa seems inordinately excited about watching it.

“Want some Cheetos?” She holds the bag across the small gap between our beds.

“No, thanks.” As she would say, I don’t want her Cheeto cooties. “What else do you have in your bag of snacks over there?”

She flings it over to my bed. “See for yourself. Don’t go too crazy.”

After John Wayne beats the bad guys, yet another western comes on. I get up to try and find another channel, to no avail.

“Want to play cards?” Melissa asks.

“You brought cards? ”

“Yep. You never know when you might have an entertainment emergency and need a deck of cards.”

“Have a lot of entertainment emergencies, do you?”

“More than you’d think. Hey, is it still snowing?”

I peek through the gap in the curtains. “Yep. Looks like maybe seven or eight inches out there.”

“Yikes.” She jumps off her bed to join me at the window. “I hope we’re able to get out of here tomorrow.”

She places a hand on my arm, and I stare down at it, wondering if she realizes she’s touching me.

“You think they’re worried about us? Leslie and Ash?” she asks. “I wish we could call them.”

“They’re probably not worried yet, because we weren’t supposed to arrive until late tonight.”

“But when we don’t show up …”

“I don’t think they’ll be worried then, either. They’ll just assume we didn’t want to bother them and are all tucked up in our hotel beds.”

She plops down on the edge of my bed. “Instead we’ll be here, tucked up in our slightly scary trucker beds. I don’t think they’ve updated the bedspreads in here since the 50s. At least they seem clean.”

“Hopefully the storm will be over soon, and by morning the phone lines will be back up and the roads will be cleared.”

Melissa cocks her head at me. “Look at you, being all Positive Polly on me. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What can I say? I’m an enigma.”

I round my bed and lie down on it, and she turns to sit cross-legged facing me.

“No, you’re not.”

I roll onto my side and prop myself up on my elbow facing her. “Have my actions not confused you today?”

“I guess they have.”

“Enigma.”

“You think I’m an enigma, too.”

“I do.” I seriously can’t figure her out. “You truly seem like two different people—one person at work and another outside of work.”

“Aren’t most people like that?” she asks.

I roll onto my back and clasp my hands behind my head. “I’m not.”

“True. You’re a jerk no matter where you are.” She smiles, but her words pierce me.

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Am I really always a jerk?”

“At work? Yes. To the Hamilton brothers and their ladies? Not that I’ve noticed, and I can’t imagine Ash and Randall would put up with you being a jerk to Leslie and Wendy.

Were you a jerk today? Not really. Well, you were a little jerkish with the lady at the airport, and maybe every once in a while since then. But mostly no.”

I look away from her. “I’m trying to do better.

” I don’t know why I told her that, but it’s true.

And little does she know it was all instigated by my desire for her to like me, and not just in a romantic way, but as a friend.

Last summer, Ash pointed out my tendency to act like a grumpy jerk—even outside of work and specifically in relation to Melissa—and I’ve been trying to change. It’s been a slow process, though.

When she doesn’t respond, I look back over at her, and her gaze has noticeably softened. She opens her mouth to say something when the room plunges into darkness.

After a few seconds of silence, Melissa says, “I guess we’re not going to be playing cards.”

Much to my surprise, I laugh, and she joins in.

“You have a flashlight or candles in any of your twelve bags?” I ask.

“I have some matches,” she says, “but it’s going to be a chore to find them.”

“Why do you have matches? Are you a secret smoker?” I really hope she’s not.

“Nope. I have them for … uh … well, they help remove smells … in the bathroom.”

I smile into the darkness. “Ah.”

“Uh-huh. ”

I bet if I could see her, her cheeks would be red.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced complete darkness like this before,” she says. Since it’s now nighttime, and snow is still falling, there’s not even any light filtering through the small gap in the curtains. “It’s disconcerting.”

“That’s an understatement,” I say. “Do you know which bag the matches are in and where that bag is?”

“They’re in one of my toiletry bags. I think in the one that’s in the bathroom. Let me see if I can make my way in there.”

I move my hand over until it brushes up against her leg. “Be careful.”

She grasps my hand for a second. “I will.”

The bedcovers rustle as she gets up and feels her way across the room to the bathroom.

“This is so weird,” she says as items rattle around in the bathroom. “Okay, got them. But now what? What do we need to do that requires light? There’s only about eight matches here, and I don’t want to waste them if we don’t need to.”

“Do you need to do anything to get ready for bed?” I ask.

“Brush my teeth and, you know, use the facilities.”

“Same here. Get your toothbrush and toothpaste out and ready. I’ll find mine, too, and I’ll join you, and we’ll light up when we think we need to.”

I carefully get off my bed and move toward my suitcase.

“Maybe we won’t need to.”

“I’d prefer you to not spit toothpaste onto my feet.”

She laughs. “Same.”

I find my toothbrush and toothpaste and make my way to the bathroom.

“I need you to say something,” I say, “so I know where you are. I’d rather not knock you over or grab your chest or anything.”

She giggles. “I’m here, and I’m putting my hand out in front of me to try to find you. Above waist level.”

I laugh and slowly move toward her voice, and soon her fingertips brush my chest, sending goosebumps over my body, which I’m glad she can’t see.