I’m excited for this trip. Sure, it’s not a tropical beach, but the change of scenery will do us good, and I’m looking forward to escaping my obligations for two whole days. No morning skates, no backbreaking games and sore ribs. Just me and Grace for forty-eight stress-free hours, without anyone or anything getting in the way.
When I was in college, I drove a beat-up truck that I fixed up myself. Hell, I rebuilt the entire engine on that old thing—twice. Nowadays I’m driving a brand-new Mercedes. My rookie salary isn’t even that much compared to what other players are raking in, and yet it’s still more money than most people make in a decade.
But this new vehicle lacks the charm of my old one. The engine barely makes a sound, and when we’re off the highway and driving on an uneven, unpaved road, the suspension proves just as efficient. The SUV barely moves as it coasts over various potholes.
Despite the peak performance of my new ride, I let out a wistful sigh. “I miss my pickup.”
Grace looks over. “Aww, really?”
“I really do.” I couldn’t even bear to sell it, so it’s currently sitting in my older brother’s garage. We both know I’ll have to get rid of it eventually because it’s just taking up space, but I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.
“Your truck didn’t have butt warmers,” Grace points out. “Butt warmers are the best.”
“They are the best,” I agree.
A notification appears on the screen at my dashboard. Since my phone’s hooked up to the car, my text messages are synced to it. “Text from Dean,” Grace tells me.
“Ignore it.” I make a grumbling noise. “He and Tuck are terrorizing me and G in the group chat about the blog post.”
“And you expect me to ignore that?” Her eager hand snaps forward. After she taps a button on the screen, Siri begins reciting Dean’s words.
“I just don’t get it. We were all roommates in college. I never even suspected you two were boning!”
Grace chortles happily. “It’s even better hearing it from Siri. Ooh. There’s one from Tucker.” She taps “next message.”
“I always had a feeling. They kept trying so hard to act like they were platonic.”
“Because we were platonic!” I growl.
“Were?” my girlfriend says sweetly.
“Are,” I correct. “We were and are platonic.”
Another message from Dean comes in.
“Sneaky bastards.”
I hit a button on the screen. “Siri, send text to Best Buds Forever chat.”
“Best Buds Forever?” Grace howls. “That’s the name of your group chat?”
“Yeah, got a problem with that?” To Siri, I dictate, “Hey dipshit, at least I wasn’t sneaking around taking baths with pink dildos.” With a smug nod, I press send. “There. That’ll shut him up for a while.”
Up ahead, the road gets narrower and windier, summoning a worried frown from Grace. “Where is this place?”
“I told you, it’s rustic.”
“Rustic.”
“Oh, come on, don’t give me that look. It’s not like we’re gonna be sleeping outside in a tent. I told you, we’ll have a huge bed, a roaring fireplace…” I waggle my eyebrows enticingly.
“You’re really trying to sell me on this fireplace.”
“Because it’s fucking awesome and I wish we had one in the apartment.”
“No, you don’t. They’re a fire hazard.”
“You’re a fire hazard.” I wink at her. “Because you’re so hot.”
Grace sighs.
For the next five miles, we chat about nothing in particular, until Grace becomes apprehensive again.
“The snow is picking up,” she says.
It is. What started off as light flurries is now falling harder and sticking to the road. The sun has completely set and the sky is pitch-black, the Mercedes’ top-of-the-line headlights the only thing illuminating our way. Maybe it’s good I don’t have my truck anymore—the right headlight was always flickering, and the left one was too pale. We’d be driving blind right now if we were in that pickup. It was a piece of shit, but I loved it.
“Do you think we should turn around?” Grace asks.
I glance at her. “And go where?”
Her teeth worry her bottom lip. “Back to the highway maybe?”
“The highway’s an hour away.”
“Yeah, but according to the GPS, it’s still another hour and a half to the B&B. Technically we’re closer to the interstate.”
“We can’t just bail,” I chide. “We’re not quitters, babe.”
“But it’s…” She trails off.
“It’s what?”
“It’s dark and scary!” she wails. “Look out the window, Logan. I feel like we’re in a horror movie.”
She’s not entirely wrong. Save for the two yellow stripes from the headlights, the road is dark and the snow isn’t letting up. If anything, the weather’s only getting worse. The wind has picked up, a deafening gust beyond my window. It’s troublesome that I can’t hear the damn engine and yet I can clearly hear the wind.
“All right, hold on, let’s figure this out,” I finally say.
I click the emergency blinkers and pull onto the shoulder of the narrow road. Though I probably don’t need the emergency lights, considering we haven’t seen another car in ages.
I grab my phone from the cup holder. I only have two bars, but it’s enough to load the weather app.
“Shit,” I say a moment later.
“What is it?” Grace leans toward me to peer at the screen.
“Apparently there’s a blizzard tonight. What the hell. It said nothing about a blizzard when I checked the weather earlier.”
“Did you…” She stops.
“Did I what?” I demand.
Grace exhales ruefully. “Did you check the weather for Boston or did you check the weather for northern Vermont?”
I pause.
“Boston,” I grumble.
“Babe.”
“I’m sorry. That was dumb of me.” I lick my lips in an overly lewd way. “Want to spank me for being a bad boy?”
A glint of lust lights her eyes. I chuckle softly. We both know she loves how dirty I am. I’m not shy about what I want and what I like, and Grace has gotten pretty good at voicing her desires too. That’s why our sex life is so phenomenal.
“Maybe later,” she says, her face growing serious. “Let’s focus. It looks like this area is expecting more than a foot of snow tonight.”
“They always say that, and it’s never that much,” I argue.
Stricken, she peers out the dark window. “I don’t know… It’s really piling up out there.”
“So what do you want to do? You want to turn around? Because I think we can beat the snow and get there before the worst of the storm hits.”
She chews on her lower lip. It’s so goddamn adorable. I’m tempted to lean over and kiss the hell out of her.
“Fine, let’s do it,” she decides. “Just don’t speed, okay? I want to get there alive.”
“Deal. I’ll spare our lives.”
She snickers.
I steer back onto the road, and despite its stupidly expensive winter tires, the SUV actually skids.
Grace yelps. “Logan!”
“Sorry. I’m not speeding, I swear. It’s just slippery.” I ease up on the gas, proceeding to drive with more caution.
For the next twenty minutes, we don’t speak. We’re too focused on the drive and the worsening weather. A wall of white has appeared in front of our car. All the snow accumulating on the ground and on the hood of the Mercedes tells me a foot of it isn’t a far-fetched estimate. To make matters worse, this area is so isolated, I doubt any snowplows or salt trucks pay it many visits. Eventually the road becomes treacherous, and it isn’t long before I’m driving at a crawl.
“John,” Grace says in concern.
“I know,” I say grimly.
But it’s too late to turn back now. The interstate is too far behind us. The GPS says we’re about forty minutes from the B&B, but at the pace we’re traveling, we won’t reach it for several hours.
“Shit,” I curse. “Okay. Keep an eye out. Maybe we’ll see somewhere we can stop.”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know. A motel? An inn?”
A note of panic creeps into her voice. “Babe, there’s nothing here. We’re literally in the middle of nowhere—” She jumps when the SUV skids again.
“Sorry.” My hands are curled tightly around the steering wheel. I lean forward and intently stare out the windshield like an elderly lady who forgot her glasses at home.
“Should we pull over and wait it out?” Grace frets.
I think it over. “Probably not a good idea. What if we get snowed in at the side of the road? I say we keep going.”
“Sure, let’s keep going at this brisk pace of zero miles an hour,” she says sarcastically. “We’ll get there at dawn.”
“It won’t take that long—” Something suddenly flies past the windshield.
A gust of blowing snow, I realize half a second later, but it’s too late. I’d already instinctively tapped the brakes. Just lightly, yet even that soft touch sends the car into a fishtail.
“Fuck.” I attempt to steer out of the skid, but the tires swing sharply, and this time I can’t control it. The next thing I know the Mercedes is barreling toward the slope at the shoulder.
“Hang on!” I shout, white-knuckling the wheel as we fly off the road.
