Billionaire Happy After

Six: conti

I typed in the address for the first university we were visiting, Arizona State University, then set it on the center console. Surprisingly, it was one of the universities I had actual considered. They were known for their Global Studies program and I liked the idea of travailing around the world for a job.

"Drive three miles then turn right onto Carincroft Road," the mechanical voice of the GPS sounded.Christian started the RV again and we were off.

Then the silence started.

At first I tried to distract myself by playing games on my phone. Mom and Dad would flip a s**t if I turned on roaming data and I didn't have a bunch of friends to text anymore so I was left with Candy Crush. And when I ran out of lives on that, Tetris. But there were only so many levels you could play on both before your head started to ache and it got boring.

Not to mention the games were draining my battery life fast so I only had about twenty percent left.

Christian didn't seem to have a problem, though that was probably because he was focused on driving.

It was at our second rest stop when I finally broke.

"Can we start over?" I asked.

He turned to me. "What?"

I twisted my hands together. "You asked me to start over and I let you so I should get a turn right?" Yep there goes my plan.

He was silent for such a long moment that I almost took it all back. When he finally opened his mouth, I definitely didn't expect that words that came out of it. I was sure what exactly I had been expecting, possibly something mildly positive or at least maybe a civilized no.

"What the f**k is wrong with you?" he demanded.

Now it was my turn to stare at him.

He gave me an incredulous look. "You want to start over?"

"You hit me with a car then stormed off and asked me to start over," I replied defensively.

"Are you going to go back to hating me tomorrow?" he continued. "I don't want to play your games."

"Fine," I yelled back. "I wanted to make this road trip a little more manageable but if I had known you were just gonna be an asshole about it, I would've never tried in the first place.

What possessed me to even try and make amends with him?

Oh yeah, the thought spending of two weeks alone with him in the same awkward tension as the past hour.

"I don't need people like you in my life," he said.

"People like me?" I repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

His hands clenched on the steering wheel. "People who think it's fun to change their mind to f**k with other people."

"Oh that's rich, coming from you," I snorted. I didn't change my mind to mess with him, I wasn't playing games. I already knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of mind games. I just... Wasn't sure where to stand with Christian Harvey.

He shook his head. "I'm done talking to you."

"You're such a f*****g hypocrite. It's not like you're any bett-"

He turned to me, eyes blazing.

I flinched back, cutting myself off and raising my arms defensively. I quickly lowered them and straightened, but it was too late.

He had already realized what had happened. "You thought I was going to hit you," he said, the words so evenly, cold and indifferent that I almost flinched again.

I opened my mouth. "No-"

He shook his head. "Don't lie to me. That's why you want to start over, isn't it? Because you're all alone with me for two weeks and you think I'm a shitty enough person to hit you."

"No! You just looked so-" I couldn't say that. No way. "Angry," I finished lamely.

"And you think I'm the kind of person who would hit you because of it."

I started to protest again, but he had already turned away, shoving the key into the ignition and pulling out of the gas station. I realized then that there wasn't a single thing I could think of saying that would make it any better. And there was no way I could tell him the truth.

That I had flinched because he had looked so much like Lucas had.

*******

I had no idea where Christian was.

He hadn't spoken a single word to me since our fight yesterday and had gone out of his way to make sure we were together as little as possible. He had even booked a hotel room last night so he didn't have to sleep in the RV with me. I hadn't seen him since the presentation at Arizona State and was desperately hoping he wasn't enough of an asshole to leave without me.

I tapped my fingers against the edge of my laptop, debating whether or not I should try a Google search for his phone number. The last time I had done that in public hadn't warranted good results, but the campus café was pretty much deserted.

There were a couple workers bustling around behind the counter, a guy in the far corner who was playing his music way too loud since I could hear it from him while he had his headphones in and a woman on a TV broadcasting some kind of news story.

The last one didn't even count as a person.

*******

I had no idea where Christian was.

He hadn't spoken a single word to me since our fight yesterday and had gone out of his way to make sure we were together as little as possible. He had even booked a hotel room last night so he didn't have to sleep in the RV with me. I hadn't seen him since the presentation at Arizona State and was desperately hoping he wasn't enough of an asshole to leave without me.

I tapped my fingers against the edge of my laptop, debating whether or not I should try a Google search for his phone number. The last time I had done that in public hadn't warranted good results, but the campus café was pretty much deserted.

There were a couple workers bustling around behind the counter, a guy in the far corner who was playing his music way too loud since I could hear it from him while he had his headphones in and a woman on a TV broadcasting some kind of news story.

The last one didn't even count as a person.