The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (16 page)

I rock against him, feeling him grow hard against
me. Our bodies have taken over the conversation, the deal closed
between us. I’ve sold my soul for this, and I don’t
regret it for a second.

All I want is him.

He places both hands on my face and turns my head
so that we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes.
We’re both breathing hard, our bodies sweating in the already
humid early morning air.

“Are you sure you know what you’re
getting yourself into here?” he asks. “I don’t want
to break your heart.”

I swallow back tears and breathe out in a
half-laugh. I shake my head slowly back and forth. “You’ve
already broken my heart a thousand times.”

His eyes move back and forth across my face and
his eyes wrinkle with a mix of sadness and worry.

“At least I know this will be the last
time,” I say in a whisper, not fully trusting my voice. “Will
you take me with you, Mason?”

He holds me to him for a long moment, then finally
says the one word I am longing to hear.

“Yes.”

Mason lets me down slowly. He holds me in his arms
a few more seconds, then kisses the top of my head and lets me go.

“You realize how crazy this is right?”
he asks. “If we’re really going to do this, we’ll
need some rules.”

I crinkle my nose. “I thought we were trying
to get away from all the rules.”

He smiles. “We’re making our own
rules,” he says. “First, no whining about where we’re
staying, what we’re eating, or what you’re wearing.”

I roll my eyes and lean back against the truck. “I
already told you I wouldn’t complain.”

“Okay, well just expect me to remind you of
that after a few nights of sleeping in a tent.”

I laugh. “What else?”

“No cell phones or calling back home,”
he says. “What did you tell your parents about where you were
going?”

“I left a note on my bed,” I say. “I
just told them I was going out of town for a little while and that I
was fine, but I needed some time on my own. I told them not to come
looking for me and that I’d try to check in if I wasn’t
back in a month or so.”

He nods. “That’s good. At least they
won’t think I’ve kidnapped you,” he says with a
laugh. “That could get pretty ugly.”

I giggle, picturing a SWAT team outside our tent.

“This isn’t going to be a luxury trip,
so you’ve got to learn to be frugal. I’m sure that’s
a word you’ve never had to deal with, but we’re going to
be on a very tight budget if we’re going to make this last,”
he says. “I’ve got about two grand, which sounds like a
lot, but it’s got to really last. Gas is going to be really
expensive if we’re driving a lot. Plus food. And camping isn’t
free. How much do you have? And I’m asking about cash. No using
credit cards or anything that can be tracked. Part of the whole
adventure of this is no one knowing where we are at any given time.”

I smile big. I’ve never had that. Even when
I was in Europe, I was on a strict itinerary and my parents were
constantly checking in on me to make sure I’d arrived at each
location safely with my friends.

“I don’t have nearly as much as you
do. I have three hundred bucks in cash on me right now, but if we get
to the bank before my parents read that note, I think I can take out
another hundred or so.”

He nods. “That’ll work,” he
says. “We’ll make it work.”

“I have a rule too,” I say, hoping
this isn’t too much to ask of him. And if it is, I’m not
sure I can go.

“Okay, what?”

“No other girls,” I say. “I know
you were originally planning to be alone, so I’m sure you had
some grand dreams about leaving a string of broken hearts from here
to Los Angeles and back, but if I’m going to offer myself to
you like this, I want you to really give it a chance. There can be no
one else as long as we’re together.”

“Done,” he says. “Of course, I
say that fully expecting that you’ll be on the first flight
home after a few nights in a tent.”

He winks and I punch him in the arm.

“You’re going to eat those words,
mister, just you wait.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he
says. “To all of it.”

After a brief stop at the bank, Mason pulls into a
gas station on the edge of town.

“You want anything from inside?” he
asks. “I don’t plan on stopping anywhere for a while
after this.”

I crinkle my nose. “Not even for breakfast?”

He jerks his thumb in the direction of the
convenience store. “You can have anything you want from
inside,” he says.

I start to pout, then remember my promise not to
whine. I can’t very well break that promise before we’ve
even left the Fairhope city limits. “Just get me a bottle of
water and a granola bar or something that doesn’t look too
gross.”

I’m already getting the feeling this trip is
going to kill my diet, which is already a daily struggle.

Oh well, maybe I’ll learn to actually enjoy
food again. Isn’t that supposed to be one of the perks of being
pregnant? Eating whatever you want and not worrying about your
weight?

Too many comments from my mother about my weight
growing up killed my joy for eating. I couldn’t put a cracker
in my mouth without her yelling at me about how many carbs it had and
how it would just end up on my ass a few minutes later.

Mason fills the tank, then disappears into the
store.

I take out my cell phone and compose one quick
email to my brother.

You’re going to think I’m nuts, but
Mason and I have run away together. No, not to get married or
anything, ha! Just to have some fun and get away for a while. I
haven’t told him about the baby, so please keep it just between
us. I need to find out for myself whether there really is something
more between us. I promise I’ll be safe. Don’t miss me
too much. Love, Penny.

I hit send just as Mason opens the door of the
truck. He’s got a bag of chips hanging from his teeth and his
hands are full of junk food.

I laugh and grab the chips. “What did you
do?” I tease. “I thought we were supposed to be on a
budget.”

“We can’t start a road trip without
munchies,” he says with a laugh. His eyes are shiny and happy
and I can’t remember the last time he seemed so light.

He dumps everything onto the seat between us.
Energy drinks. Nuts. Water. Candy. “Take anything you want,”
he says. “But leave me the Junior Mints, I love those things.
Oh, and one more thing.”

Before I can stop him, he snatches my phone from
my hand.

“Radio silence from here on out,” he
says. He pulls the back case off and fishes out the sim card inside.
He holds it up, then ceremoniously tosses it out the window.

I lean over, watching it fall to the pavement.
“Hey, what if I need to make an emergency call?”

“You may have told your parents not to come
after you, but that thing is like easy tracking 101,” he says.
“It takes some of the adventure out of this thing. Besides, if
there’s an emergency, the phone will still work to call 911.”

I sit back, feeling more nervous by the second.
There’s that last flash of panic, knowing this is really it.
I’ve never done anything like this in my life.

“What about your phone, then?”

He lifts an eyebrow at me, then lifts up and pulls
his cell out of his back pocket. He hands it to me with a half smile.
“You want to do the honors?”

I press my lips tight, trying not to smile back,
but I’m kind of glad he’s letting me do this. It takes me
a second, but I finally get the back cover off and find the sim card.
I bite my lip and meet his eyes, then throw it past him through the
window.

As we drive off, two lonely little sim cards
litter the pavement at the Solo on Highway 64 on the way out of
Fairhope. To me, they serve as proof of a commitment the two us just
made to each other.

I turn to him as we approach the county line.
“It’s just you and me now,” I say, which isn’t
exactly true.

“You ready for this?” he asks.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting
for this my whole life.”

With that, I roll down the window on my side of
the truck and stick my head and both arms out into the rushing wind,
watching the Fairhope sign as we blow right past.

“Where are we heading?”

Mason has a small map on the seat between us. He
hands it to me. “Pick a place,” he says.

“Seriously?”

He shrugs, then pops a few Junior Mints into his
mouth. “Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

I smile. This is so crazy. I’m used to
over-planned trips without much room for freedom. After all the drama
and worry of the past week, I feel free and daring and happy.

I spread the map open and start looking.

“What’s the general plan?” I
ask. “Are we camping out tonight? Because we’d need to
stop somewhere early enough that it’s still light outside,
right?”

“Well, we can’t drive all the way to
Mexico today, if that’s what you’re asking,” he
says, laughing.

I roll my eyes. “I know that,” I say.
“I’m just trying to get an idea of how far we should go.
And when we get there, then what? Do we just plant ourselves
somewhere for a week? Or are we going to drive every day?”

“Whatever we want to do,” he says.
“That’s the beauty of this.”

“I’m not used to having so much
choice,” I say.

“You realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“What do you mean?”

He turns the radio down and keeps one hand
casually on the steering wheel. “Think about it. You come from
one of the wealthiest families in the South. You could have just
about anything in the world you want. You could afford to go anywhere
in the world you’ve ever wanted to go. And you just told me
you’re not used to having so much choice?”

I lay the map down across my legs. “Well,
you know what I mean.”

“Yes, but I want you to really think about
it,” he says. “This is the kind of thing that’s
been on my mind a lot lately. Why would a girl who could literally
have anything she wanted be limited on choices?”

I shrug. I’ve never really thought about
this before. “I guess because I don’t always feel like my
choices are my own.”

“Exactly.” He adjusts his weight and
sits up straighter. “See, money doesn’t always open the
world up to you. Money can be a straight-jacket sometimes, too. This
is something people don’t always realize. They think that
because we have money, we’re lucky and free. But sometimes the
money is what ties us down. Let’s say I wanted to work on a
construction site. Say I like working with my hands and working
outdoors, so I want a job where I can be outside in the sun and build
things. If my dad wasn’t Nathan Trent, do you think anyone
would give a shit? No, it would be normal. It would be an honest way
to make a living and that would be that. But because my dad is rich,
I have to consider how it looks for me to have a job like that.
People suddenly judge me, like I’m only working that job to
make a point or stick it to my dad. Or they assume my parents are
going broke. It can’t just be something I wanted to do.”

I lean back. I think about school and how my mom
wanted me to be pre-law because she was. I never really felt like I
had a choice.

“If Penny Wright didn’t want to finish
college, it would be a scandal, right? That’s such bullshit,”
he says. “Our lives are dictated by how things look, and I’m
so tired of it.”

“What brought this on?” I ask. “Why
has this been on your mind so much? I mean, it’s not like you
actually want to work construction, right?”

“No,” he says. “But if I did, I
want to be free to make that choice without being judged for it.”

“So, what then?”

He licks his lips. “Honestly?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I want to know
what made you start thinking about this.”

“My parents have been having some financial
problems,” he says. He glances over at me, watching for a
reaction. “It’s been going on for a while, and all they
ever do is fight about it. Mom keeps trying to convince Dad to put
the house on the market and look for a smaller place. It’s not
like they’d have to move into a studio apartment. She’s
talking about downgrading to a five-bedroom house or something, but
Dad acts like it would be the end of his reputation in the community.
He thinks it will draw all this attention to our family. So instead
of making a change that would take away some of the financial stress,
they put themselves deeper in the hole just to keep up appearances.”

I frown and stare at the map, not knowing what to
say.

“There’s more to it than that,”
he says. “But that’s really what got it started for me.
Then, the more I started looking around at all our friends and the
things people do to one-up each other or show off, the more I started
thinking about just getting away from it all for a while.”

“I didn’t know your parents were
having a hard time,” I say.

“No one does,” he says. “And I
didn’t want to bring it up to you, because your dad’s the
one who pays mine. It’s awkward.”

I shrug. “Still, I’d rather you felt
like you could talk to me instead of keeping it to yourself and
dealing with the stress of it yourself.”

“It’s hard to complain to you or
Preston about money,” he says. “I was afraid if I said
something, you’d want to do something to fix it.”

I bite my lower lip. “It’s my first
instinct,” I say. “I can’t help it. When someone
needs money, I feel like it’s one of the few things I can do
that will really make a difference.”

“I know you don’t mean it as an
insult, but you can’t throw money at every problem and expect
that to be enough,” he says. “Anyway, my point was that
it’s not the money that’s the problem. It’s the
fact that my parents are willing to sacrifice everything we have to
try keep up the appearance of having money.”