Carpool Read online

  “Fine,” I grit out. “If you’re willing to give me a ride for a few weeks, you can mock me to your heart’s content. But don’t expect me to just sit there and take it.”

  “I’d never dream of you just taking it. Where would be the fun in that?”

  I stare at him, trying to figure out what he means by that last drawled question.

  Then he drops a twenty on the counter and stands up. “I’ll see you Monday morning. I leave at seven. Don’t be late.”

  I’ve barely processed what he says before he’s reached the door of the diner.

  “Thank you!” I call out to his back. He might be obnoxious, but he is doing me a big favor, and thanking him is only polite.

  He gives me a wave without turning around, and his tall, lean body disappears outside, leaving only the jangling of the bell on the door and the memory of his amused smirk.

  I turn to look at Beck, who’s grinning at me from our booth. She claps her hands with an uninhibited vibrancy that characterizes her.

  I’m not as thrilled as she is by this development, but I am relieved.

  And maybe a little excited.

  After all, my commute for the next few weeks is going to be anything but boring.

  ON MONDAY MORNING, I walk the half mile over to the Greenes’ farm and make my way to Marcus’s cottage.

  He walks out the door as I approach and waves as he heads for his five-year-old pickup truck. He’s wearing a pair of khakis and a green-checked shirt that’s only halfway tucked in. He’s been promoted to a high enough position that he’s not supposed to wear torn jeans and faded T-shirts like he used to, but Milford College has a fairly relaxed culture, and the only men who wear suits regularly are the president and one of the business professors.

  I’m wearing my favorite work trousers—they’re black with cuffs on the ends and a tailored style that makes my butt look good. I’ve paired them with a rose pink scoop-neck sweater and silver jewelry.

  I might have spent a little more time than normal on my appearance this morning, but who can blame me. Part of making it through this embarrassing situation is knowing I look good.

  He waits at the driver’s door, eyeing me from my shiny hair to my heels as I approach the truck. “Did you walk all this way in those shoes?”

  “It’s not that far, and they’re not that uncomfortable. It’s not like they’re stilettos.”

  “Still. There’s no reason for you to do that. I’ll pick you up at your house from now on.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I’m going to pick you up. No arguments.”

  I climb into the passenger seat and make a face at his terse tone. I start to let out a sharp retort, but I hold it back.

  He’s doing me a favor, after all. Being as agreeable as possible seems like a reasonable strategy here.

  He’s watching me as I settle myself in the seat and close the door. He stopped smoking years ago, so the truck doesn’t smell like cigarettes. It smells faintly of dirt and something like fabric softener—maybe from Marcus’s clothes. It’s not a bad smell at all.

  I turn toward him with a smile. “Thank you for doing this.”

  His mouth tightens. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m making the drive anyway. Having you in the passenger seat doesn’t change anything for me.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s still polite to thank someone who’s doing you a favor.”

  “Okay. You can thank me once each ride. But no more than that. Being thanked over and over again is going to get old really fast.”

  I narrow my eyes and breathe heavily, trying to hold back the wave of annoyance. Is it possible for any man to be more obnoxious than this one? I was being nice, and he responds snidely.

  He’s backed out of his driveway and is turning onto the farm road. He turns toward me with his twitch of a smile. “This isn’t starting well. Less than a minute and you already want to strangle me.”

  “I don’t want to strangle you. But since we’re stuck together for forty-five minutes, we could both maybe make an effort to be less annoying.”

  “Both of us? What exactly do you do that’s annoying?”

  “You’ll have to tell me.”

  “But I bet you have no trouble telling me what I do that’s annoying.”

  “No. I can list that out without any effort at all.”

  He chuckles, and it’s impossible not to enjoy the sound. It’s not his mocking laugh. It sounds like a real one. Like he really thinks that what I just said was funny.

  “It’s possible,” I add, “that you can’t really control those things, however. Annoying might be your core character.”

  “You’re probably right. Just one of the joys of this particular carpool for you.”

  I shake my head and pull out my phone when it buzzes with a text. I chat with Beck over text for a minute—she’s mostly just asking how things are going with Marcus—and then I put down the phone.

  “Good,” he murmurs, picking up his speed on one of the two-lane county roads that take us to Milford.

  “What’s good?”

  “You’re not going to play on your phone the whole way.”

  “I wasn’t playing on my phone. I was talking to my friend.”

  “The history professor?”

  “Yes. Beck.”

  “I like her.”

  My chest tightens. “You do?”

  He glances over from the road, laughter on his face. “Yeah. She’s funny. And real. And doesn’t treat me like the help. But you don’t have to look so defensive. I’m not going to hit on your friend.”

  “I’m not being defensive.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I don’t care if you want to ask her out.”

  “Yes, you do. That would put me in far too close proximity to you, and you would hate that.”

  It’s a relief to realize that he misunderstood my instinctive reaction. I’m not actually worried about his being too close to me in dating Beck.

  I just don’t want Beck to have him.

  It’s an entirely unworthy response, and I don’t like that about myself. But it’s there.

  At least he didn’t see it.

  “How’s your grandma doing?” Marcus asks in a different tone.

  I sigh. “She’s okay. She has good days and bad days.”

  My grandmother had a major stroke two years ago. She’s made some improvements in functionality since then, but she still needs full-time care—far more than I could provide at home.

  “You visit her a lot?” Marcus asks.

  “Yeah. Every day if I can.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.”

  Since his tone sounds serious, I don’t feel prickly in response to his comment. “Maybe. But I’m luckier to have her. She was basically a mother and a father to me.”

  My mother is still alive. I see her a couple of times a year, whenever her wandering leads her back here. She gave birth to me when she was just sixteen, and she wasn’t ready to be a mother. She didn’t even want it. So she left me with my grandmother and took off.

  I never knew my dad. She did know who he was, but he’d just been passing through, and she never tried to track him down to tell him about me.

  Sometimes I wonder about him, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.

  My grandmother was the one who raised me. Who loved me. Who took care of me. All my family affection and commitment belongs with her.

  I glance over, but Marcus is watching the road and not me. I’m relieved that he didn’t catch my momentary emotional vulnerability.

  He’s the last person I want to see that.

  “Are you dating anyone?” he asks without transition or warning.

  I stiffen in my seat. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Why are you asking that?”

  “Just making conversation. Would you rather we not talk as we drive?” He’s putting on a pose of innocent questioning, but he’s amused underneath it.


  He’s teasing me, as normal.

  “Yes, we can talk. But I didn’t realize that would mean prying into my private business.”

  “So you’re dating someone in secret?”

  “No, I’m not dating someone in secret!”

  “So you can tell me.”

  I make an exasperated sound, but I try to control it. If I get too upset, he’ll have scored a victory. That’s exactly what he’s trying to do. I take a deep breath and say in an overly patient voice, “I’m not dating anyone seriously right now. I’ve been out with George Franks a few times.”

  “Franks? The baseball coach?”

  “Yes.” I’m pleased to be able to share this piece of information. George Franks is a very nice, very handsome, very laid-back guy. I’ve known him casually for a couple of years, and last month he asked me out to dinner and a movie. He followed that up two weeks ago with going to a football game together. I like him a lot, and I’m excited about possibilities.

  Marcus will have no reason to sneer about George.

  “You like him?” Marcus asks, sounding far too skeptical.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I didn’t say you shouldn’t. I was just asking.”

  “I like him fine. We’ve only been out a couple of times.”

  “Okay.”

  I peer at him suspiciously. “If you have something to say...”

  “I don’t. I don’t know him very well. If you like him, you like him.”

  “I told you, it’s nothing serious.”

  “Okay then.”

  I make a face but hold back further retort.

  It would be really stupid to argue with him the whole drive. He might get tired of putting up with me and not want to give me a ride anymore.

  The rest of the trip to campus follows in a similar manner. Marcus asks a random, rather inappropriate question. I answer as the question deserves. We snip back and forth until I remember I’m supposed to be nice to him, and then we sit in silence for several minutes until he asks another question.

  It’s a weird and uncomfortable drive, and there’s no reason for me to be so riled up about it, as if every nerve ending in my body is attuned to what might happen next.

  I try to talk myself down to a normal level of interest, and I’m still trying as we reach Milford. The town is a lot bigger than Sterling. It boasts a population of three thousand, four fast-food restaurants, and a Walmart. There are also a few coffee shops and a bookstore because of the college.

  Campus is right in the middle of town, and Marcus parks his truck in the staff parking lot that both of us use. We’re fifteen minutes earlier than I normally arrive, so there are plenty of close places.

  “Thank you,” I say as he puts the pickup in park.

  He arches his eyebrows. “That’s twice in one trip. You’ve used up your thank-you for the ride home.”

  I smother a snarl. “You’re really going to keep track?”

  “Yes, I’m going to keep track. You get one thank-you a ride, so you’ve now used up both of them for the day. If you thank me this evening, you’ll be using them up for tomorrow.”

  I groan and slide out of the seat, taking a minute to smooth down my clothes and hair. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of obnoxious?”

  “Many people,” he says with a grin, “but none as often as you.”

  Maybe Johnny will be able to get my transmission fixed faster than he thinks.

  Otherwise, this is going to be a very long month.

  Two

  MONDAY PASSES IN LONG and tedious hours—with one student after another coming in to the office with their financial aid woes (most of them caused by missing deadlines). I’m tired and in a bad mood at five o’clock, and now I have a long car ride back home with Marcus Greene.

  I’m not sure if I’m glad the day is almost over or if I’m dreading the moment when I have to see him again.

  We didn’t discuss whether we’d meet at his car or in his office, so at exactly five o’clock, I gather up my stuff, say goodbye to my coworkers, and walk downstairs to the basement of the main administration building where Marcus’s office is.

  I’ve got a cubbyhole office with a minuscule window and sterile off-white paint, but it’s better than having to work in the basement like Marcus.

  His office is big, but he doesn’t have any windows at all. He also hasn’t hung anything on the walls or done a thing to make the place more habitable.

  I scowl as I look around at the drab, messy space.

  “Well, hello to you too,” he says dryly, looking up from his computer and seeing me standing in his open doorway.

  “Why don’t you try to fix your office up? This is depressing.”

  He glances around in surprise and shrugs. “Who cares? I’m not in here a lot anyway. I just have to try to catch up on email at the end of the day. Why does everyone insist on sending me so many messages?”

  “You’re at the director level now. You’re going to get emails.”

  He’s typing as he talks. “They told me when they offered me this job that I could only have it if I answer my emails, so I make myself come in here at four thirty every afternoon and get through all the annoyance.”

  “Why don’t you do it first thing in the morning and get it over with?”

  “This way, I can say I answer my emails on the same day they come in. If someone emails me after five, they’re out of luck.”

  I chuckle at his ironic tone.

  His eyes still on his computer monitor, he goes on, “Here I have someone complaining that the paint in one corner of their office has gotten messed up, so I’ve got to send someone over there to touch it up. We have a whole system set up where they can submit maintenance requests, but people still send emails directly to me.”

  I chuckle. “Is that Gloria in Admissions? She mentioned it to me the other day.”

  “Does the paint look bad?”

  “It’s not very noticeable. And it’s only messed up because she had a corner cabinet there that rubbed against the wall and she moved it last week.”

  Marcus makes a face as he finishes typing. “This is what I have to put up with.”

  “Try dealing with students who are desperately trying to afford college but can’t seem to follow the most basic of instructions, and then we’ll talk.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus says with a sigh, turning off his computer and rolling his chair back from the desk. His clothes are even more wrinkled and disarrayed now than they were this morning, and that’s saying something. “I wouldn’t do your job for all the money in the world.”

  “It has its moments. It is nice when I’m able to help students. I know what it feels like to try to get through college with no resources at all.” I pause as I see an expression flicker across his face. “I know you know what that feels like too.”

  “Yeah.” His mouth turns up in his typical half smile. “But we’ve both done pretty well for ourselves.”

  “If you call not being able to afford a new transmission doing well for myself.” My words are light. I’m mostly making a joke.

  He takes it seriously. His face is sober as he grabs the beat-up backpack he brings to work and says, “I call that life.”

  I’m surprised by the seriousness of his response, and strangely it makes me feel better. About myself. About my situation. I give him a little smile as we head for the parking lot.

  “How was your day?” he asks when we reach his pickup.

  I look at him in surprise. “You really want to know?”

  “Would I have asked otherwise?”

  “A lot of people ask that question and don’t give a damn about the answer.”

  “That’s true, but I never ask questions just to be polite. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, I know that. That’s why I’m surprised you’re being so...”

  “So what?” He turns on the ignition and gives me a teasing smile that makes my breath hitch. It’s quite unjust that he can look
so sexy and still be so obnoxious. When God handed out characteristics, he should have rethought giving both those traits to the same man.

  He could have spared a moment of pity for the female population.

  “You’re being so nice,” I say, completing my thought. “I’m not used to you being a nice guy.”

  “I’m always a nice guy.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Okay, fine. But I am trying to be good. I don’t actually want you to wring my neck on one of our drives home.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. The man is incorrigible.

  But if he keeps acting like this, maybe I’ll actually survive the next few weeks.

  The Marcus I’ve known all my life is different, but this guy isn’t bad at all.

  A WEEK LATER, MARCUS and I have fallen into a pattern. On the morning drives, we make some small talk with occasional banter. In the evenings, we talk about our days, and then I try to get a little work done when the conversation slows.

  I’ve never gotten carsick from reading or working in the car, and there’s no reason to waste the commute time by trying to think of things to talk about.

  I offer to take my turn driving, but he refuses, so I work on email on my phone or occasionally another easy task as we’re making our way back to Sterling.

  On Tuesday of the second week, I’m going through the PowerPoint slides of a presentation on the way home from work. I’ve printed them out and am making a few revisions and highlighting items I plan to say more about.

  Marcus hasn’t spoken in about ten minutes when he says out of the blue, “What are you working on?”

  I look over and see that he’s slanting me a look that’s half-curious and half-annoyed.

  “I’m reviewing this presentation we give to parents about financial aid.”

  “What presentation is that?”

  “It gives them the information they need for their kids applying for financial aid. Outlining the steps, the deadlines, the policies, that sort of thing. We give it at preview weekends and things like that. Another lady in the office used to do the presentation, but it’s getting handed over to me now.”

  “And you don’t have time to prepare for the presentation at work?”