Driving Me Mad (19 page)

“We can do that.”

“For tonight, how about we
eat this pizza, and then be lazy?”

“Sounds good to me.” So
that’s what we do.

“We’re dumb,” Brittany
laughs.

“Why is that?” I reach across
the hot tub to bring her over to straddle me.

“Because this hot tub is
outside, it’s winter, and we’re in it.” She sinks as far as she can
under the water, getting up to her shoulders covered. “It’s going
to be so freaking cold when we get out. It’ll be like a weather
whiplash.”

“The door is five steps
away,” I remind her as I let my hands glide up and down her
thighs.

“Yeah, five steps away and we
have to be careful when we get out so we don’t slip. That’s a good
ten seconds that we’re going to freeze our asses off.”

“It’ll be worth it.” It
already is if you ask me, because I got to see her in a bikini in
winter.

“I don’t know how you’re
doing it.” She runs her wet hands over the upper half of my
body.

I move to the middle of the
hot tub where there isn’t a ledge to sit on and sink until my
shoulders are covered. “Happy?”

She grins. “Yes.” Her arms
snake around my neck and she leans her forehead against mine.
“Thank you for this weekend.”

“It’s not over yet, you
know.” We went into town earlier today and saw a few sights. She
had a little anxiety this morning, but has otherwise been free of
it. School is her biggest source of anxiety. I’m hoping once she
graduates, a job won’t fill the void school will leave.

Brittany leans forward,
presses her mouth to mine, and kisses me. She pulls away just when
it’s getting good. “You looked like you were thinking too
much.”

“How did I look?”

She takes a deep breath, and
then flattens her lips, pulls her brows together just a little, and
stares at me. Then she laughs. “Like that minus the laugh.”

“You’re cute.” I grin.

“And I’m starting to prune. I
think we should get out. Oh! How about you get out, get our towels,
and come back for me?” When I don’t answer immediately, she
promises, “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Okay, fine, but just so you
know, I was going to do it anyway.” She rolls her eyes as she pulls
away from me. “Holy shit,” I mutter as I get out. My body went from
being warm and toasty to cold as fuck. I snatch a towel off the
nearby table, wrap it around myself, and wrap another around my
shoulders. I turn back to the hot tub, lean in to pick Brittany up,
and hurry like hell to get inside.

Our teeth are chattering as I
place Brittany on her own two feet. I pull the towel from my
shoulders to place it around hers, rubbing her arms to warm her
up.

“Id-i-ots,” she chatters,
causing me to laugh.

“Let’s put some clothes on.”
We walk to the bedroom and Brittany disappears into the bathroom. I
shed the wet swim trunks, dry off, and pull on some bottoms. I go
into the kitchen and grab the Ritz crackers, peanut butter,
marshmallows, a butter knife, and a pan.

“Why are you shirtless?”
Brittany asks from behind me, her arms going around my waist. “And
what are you making?”

“Because I can be, and it’s
sorta like a s’more but with a cracker and peanut butter.”

“Sounds good. What’s it
called?” She peers around me to watch me spread peanut butter on a
cracker before sticking half of a marshmallow on it and setting it
on the pan.

“I don’t know. It’s just
something my—” I falter as memories of my mother making them for me
assault me. Shaking my head, I start again. “It’s just something my
mom used to make. I don’t know what they’re called. I don’t
remember her ever giving it a name.”

“Oh.” She’s quiet as I make a
few more. “I can list what I know about your mom on one hand, and
really, one hand is too much because I only know one thing—that she
died in December. Is there a reason why you don’t talk about
her?”

“I don’t not talk about her;
she hasn’t come up a lot is all. She tried her hardest to be the
best mom, and she was a good one.”

“How did she die?”

I sigh. “There’s a story
there, Britt, and we’re not getting into it this weekend.”

“Okay,” she says softly.

“Turn the broiler on in the
oven, and cut these marshmallows in half.”

She kisses my shoulder blade
before doing as I asked. Once all the crackers are topped with
marshmallows, I stick them in the oven, turning on the oven light.
I stand next to the oven to keep an eye on them while Brittany hops
onto the counter top. She dressed herself in sweatpants and a
hoodie. I bend down to check on our sweet and salty dessert, which
is starting to brown.

I look at Brittany and see
her head tilted down as she stares at the floor. “Brittany, you
okay?” Maybe she’s thinking too much about what I did and didn’t
say about my mom. She doesn’t act as if she heard me. “Brittany,” I
say a little louder.

Her head snaps up.
“What?”

“Did you hear me?”

“No. Sorry, I zoned out, I
guess.” She’s zoned out a few times today.

“You feel okay?”

“Yeah, I feel fine.” She
smiles.

I believe her. However, that
doesn’t stop an uneasy feeling from settling over me. I grab a
potholder and open the oven just in time to pull the pan out before
the marshmallows get too dark. Brittany comes to stand next to
me.

“They look good,” she
says.

“Give them a minute or so to
cool and we can eat a few.” I reach over to turn the oven off. Once
they’ve cooled, we each pick up one. Brittany takes a bite while I
pop the whole thing in my mouth.

“Mmm. That’s good,” she says
once she’s swallowed her bite.

“I know.” I grin, and she
laughs.

We eat a few more before
going to sit in the living room and turning on the TV. Brittany’s
phone dings with a text, and I suspect it’s her mother. I know
Brittany told her she would be gone with her boyfriend over the
weekend. It’s caused her mom to text instead of call. She picks it
up, sends a quick text, and then leans into my side.

“When did it start to feel
different?” she asks.

“What?”

“Us. When we were talking
before. When did it start to feel different?”

I think about it for a
moment. Was there a particular instance when I knew we were veering
in a totally different direction than the one we started on? I
remember being hesitant about texting her. A big level of trust is
involved when handing out your personal phone number to a former
client. Not only that, around the time she asked was when I was in
the middle of a divorce. I didn’t tell her until after it was
finalized, but the realization that I wanted to talk to her more in
whatever way she wanted was what caused me to move to texting.
Things progressed slowly from there.

“If I had to pick one moment,
I’d say when I got the email with your phone number.”

“For me, it was when you told
me you got a divorce. I didn’t ever think about you having a wife,
and I wondered if I should feel guilty for talking to you. That’s
when I knew something about us had changed, but it wasn’t until I
saw you in your office that I realized how much I wanted a chance
for something more. I was so relieved to see you.” She skirts her
fingers over my stomach. “How are you not cold?

“Standing by the oven warmed
me up.” I pull on the hem of her hoodie, letting my own fingers
graze her skin. I smile when she shivers. “Maybe you should take
this off and make us even.”

She lifts her head with a
deadpan expression, and I grin, which makes her smile. “I could go
put on some of that lingerie I bought.”

I dip my head to kiss her
neck. “There’s no time for that.”

She pushes my shoulders.
“That’s what you said last night. I’m wearing one this weekend,
Trace. You can sit here and figure out which one I’ll put on. Give
me five minutes and then you can come find me.” Brittany wiggles
away from me to disappear into the bedroom.

If she wants to put on a sexy
piece of lingerie, then I won’t stop her. I guess since she did buy
them, she should wear them. Even if they will come right back off
her body.

We went into town again this
morning, but have spent our time cleaning up the cabin since we
returned after lunch. That uneasy feeling from yesterday increases
by the second. Brittany has slowly faded away. She was fine this
morning, I thought. She just started spacing out and seemed to go
numb. I couldn’t get her to smile or laugh or show any emotion. She
claims she feels fine every time I ask.

On the way home, she stares
out the window, never saying a word. Something’s not right here.
The drive seems to stretch into eternity as my anxiety continues to
build. When I finally pull into my driveway, I meet Brittany around
the front of my car and drag her inside. We sit on the couch and I
turn toward her, cupping her face to look at her.

“Do you feel okay, Britt? Be
honest with me.”

She blinks. “Feel fine.”

There’s no emotion on her
face. None. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out a lie. “I’m
breaking up with you.”

Brittany blinks again.
“Okay.”

Nothing. No confusion, hurt,
or anything. I release her face, grabbing the back of my neck.
“What are you feeling, Brittany?”

She stares at me.

“Tell me!” I demand.

“I...I feel...” She seems to
search for the word. “Numb. I don’t feel anything really; haven’t
all day.”

My heart hammers in my chest.
Her new medication! Of course. That makes sense. But instead of my
anxiety lessening, it heightens. “Stay right here. I’m going to get
our bags.” She planned on going back to campus tonight, but she
isn’t now. “You’re staying here tonight,” I add.

“I thought you broke up with
me?”

“No, Britt, I was just trying
to get some kind of reaction out of you. I’ll be right back,
okay?”

She nods, and I head outside
where she can’t see me crack. Without thinking, I pull out my phone
to call Dr. Will Gunner. We actually attended the same university.
We’re good friends, but I haven’t talked to him lately.

“Hey, Trace,” he answers.

“She’s a fucking zombie,
Will,” I snap.

“What? Who?”

“Brittany Roberts! That new
shit you prescribed has her feeling nothing!”

There’s a second of silence.
“What is going on, Trace? How in the hell do you know how she’s
reacting to medication that was just prescribed to her?”

“Because,” I take a deep
breath, “she’s my girlfriend.”

“Are you crazy, Trace?” he
asks with disbelief.

“She hasn’t been my client
for three and a half years,” I quickly interrupt.

“But she was.”

“Well, she’s not now,” I
growl.

“You don’t sound so great
yourself, you know.”

I ignore that, not wanting to
admit that I’m panicking. “I’ll have her call you tomorrow, but
she’ll be okay to stop taking it in the meantime, right?”

“Yeah, this hypothetical
person will be okay to miss tonight’s dose and the one in the
morning. Don’t call me again about her unless it’s an absolute
emergency. I’m not going to talk about anything related to her
unless your name is listed in her files as someone I have
permission to discuss these things with. Understand?”

“Got it.” It’s tempting to
tell him to be careful what he puts her on, but he knows her
history as well as I do. He’s a good psychiatrist, and he wouldn’t
put her on something if he thought she’d react badly to it.

“Next time you call, I hope
it’s to catch up.”

“Yeah, me too. Later, Will.”
I hang up and take a deep breath. My body finally begins to calm
down as I start grabbing our luggage. This girl is going to kill me
one way or another.

***