After doing my business, I kicked the toilet handle to flush and washed my hands until my fingers pruned. Agent Reyes was slouched against the wall waiting, a pose so casual it looked completely out of place for someone in the FBI.
I jerked my chin up at him. “Your turn.”
He flattened his lips together, shaking his head. “I’m good.”
“What?” I paused right in front of him. “You have to go to the bathroom.”
He crossed his arms over his wide chest, his gaze bemused. “I don’t believe I do, actually.”
“We’re gonna be on the road for hours, and you don’t think you’ll need to take a leak at some point during that time?”
“No, I don’t. I didn’t chug a Monster on the way here like you.”
My shoulders slugged together. “The vending machine was right there at the station. What did you expect me to do?”
“Not chug a Monster before settling in for a nearly six hour drive before our first stop.”
Frustration stretched my fingers out, my thumbs coming down on top of each and pressing until there was a pop. “Okay, so that means we have at least four hours left. You’re telling me that you won’t need to go that entire time?”
I couldn’t very well make my grave in the throng of back lot woods if this man refused the basic function of peeing. There was no way he could make it four more hours without going. No freaking way.
“I don’t know why you seem so concerned with my bathroom needs.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes peculiar. And there again on his mouth was that ghost of a smirk. The one that made my muscles spasm with the need to backhand it right off his face.
“Because that shit is dangerous to hold in for men. Haven’t you ever seen Liar Liar?”
He arched his browline. “No?”
I knew I didn’t like this guy.
“Well, first off, big mistake right there. It's brilliant. Second, they talk about how men can get erectile dysfunction if they hold it in too long. Don’t wanna have an incompetent cock the rest of your life just because you refused to take a whiz, do you?”
Shoulder still to the wall,Agent Reyes' stare got caught on my mouth. It stayed there for only a moment, rigid and so suddenly serious.
“That’s one vile mouth.”
Eyes rolling, I scoffed. “So I’ve been told.”
After a dragged out moment, Reyes untied his focus from my lips and pushed himself off of the wall, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets. “Your concern about me is flattering, really. But I’ll be fine. Now pick out some snacks and let’s go. No drinks.”
I bristled back. “You can’t tell me what to get.”
“I assume I’m paying?” he tossed back, tone stiff.
My pockets were hollow and my purse was back at Mom’s since I thought where I was going, I wouldn’t have a need for money.
I gave him a hard-bitten look, and he clicked his tongue.
“Then no drinks. We’re not stopping again.”
Hot air steamed through my nostrils as they flared wide and furious.
He would not take this opportunity away from me. I needed this. I was done. I was beyond exhausted. I’d been walking around with a half-empty chest for five years now, and my deflated heart was completely spent from trying to make it work.
Life just didn’t work without Jonathan in it.
Along the aisles, I snatched up a bag of pretzels, a bag of sour gummy worms, and a box of Buncha Crunch. Then I tripled the load. Agent Reyes was paying after all…
Setting my arm full of snacks on the check-out counter, it all clattered with that crinkling sound plastic makes, and my third bag of gummy worms knocked over a row of chapsticks. Both the checkout clerk and Agent Reyes handed me vexing glares, and I showed them all of my teeth in a shit-eating grin.