Room 143: A Standalone Romance by Laramie Briscoe

Author:Laramie Briscoe [Briscoe, Laramie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laramie Briscoe Books
Published: 2019-10-04T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Caroline

Nervousness causes my leg to jump up and down as he drives us wherever it is we’re going. There’s no console in the middle of the truck, and I want desperately to move across the bench seat, but I don’t want to do that until he invites me to. We’re driving through downtown Harper Valley in silence, because neither one of us will break this fucking ice.

Until I can’t take it anymore. “So where are we headed?”

He chuckles, running a hand over his face. “I was wondering how long you’d let me keep you in the dark. You don’t strike me as the type of person who doesn’t know where you’re going.”

“No, you’re right about that.” I pull my hair up in the back to keep the strands from blowing all around. We have the windows down, and I love the smell of the upcoming summer. In Atlanta, you don’t drive with the windows down; it’s too noisy, and the concrete keeps the heat in. Even well into the night the temperatures are high. I can hear some of the nighttime bugs starting to make their presence known. “I typically have a plan for how things are going to go.”

“So what, you just packed up your life in Atlanta and moved here?”

“In a nutshell yes, but there was a lot more to it than that.” I put my hand out the window, moving it up and down in the air.

“We’ve got nothin’ but time.”

This is one of those secrets about myself I never wanted to share with other people. Kind of my shame, but I see how me sharing my story might make him want to share his. “I was overworked, overwhelmed, and a hot mess,” I start.

“Aren’t we all?”

“In a way, yeah, but I had been putting in seventy-hour weeks for someone else’s company since I graduated college. I had maybe two friends and I haven’t been out a date since senior year. When I went to work, I knew I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the person everyone else looked up to, but I didn’t realize what that would cost. It started out with me staying late, then I was coming in early. A supervisor remarked how lucky they were to have me on their team, and oh my God, did I think I did something amazing then. Anytime they would ask me to go above and beyond I did. Need someone to work the weekend? Caroline will do it. Someone to take a business trip at the drop of a hat? Caroline’s got it. Eventually I went salary.”

“Aww shit,” he whistles.

“Yeah, so then it was expected of me. I wasn’t the best member of the team anymore. I was doing what was required of me because I got a few more vacation days and a guaranteed one hundred and fifty thousand a year.”

“Fuck, that’s a lot of money,” he says as we come to a stop light.

“It is,” I agree, looking over at him.

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