Page 33 of The Gift
Koda does what those obnoxious men did, he confuses me. Though the big difference between them and him is that I don’t feel scared. In fact, being around Koda has never made me freak out for a split second. What happened at the cottage wasn’t due to him, it was due to the others. Waking up after I was sick, I wasn’t freaked out the first time I realised I’d been unconscious in his presence, and it’s a sobering realisation. A good one. In some ways, it feels like a small win.
“Like what?”
“Trust me. You’ll like it,” he says, staying behind me but pointing out where his car is.
“Trust you? Seems a bit deep.” I laugh it off, glad I crushed the little pill to subdue his scent, because being with him is more than enough.
“I’d never…”
“Koda, please,” I say, shutting him down as gently as I can. “Do I get snacks and drinks on the way?”
“Not a coffee?”
I recoil immediately, getting a little lost in the word because it brings up some of those repressed memories I was talking about. How sad is that. People talk that coffee is the elixir of life, yet when I smell it, my stomach flops as I search for reasons in my hole filled memory.
“I was thinking cherry cola and pretzels.”
And the need to talk disappears. But he says a lot in everything he does. He steps in front of me slightly as we go to cross the road. He waits quietly to open my door first, then shuts it once I’m safely inside. Koda fiddles with the temperature in his monster truck, giving me his phone to choose the music. I click my seat belt and then he reaches under my legs to draw my seat forward. Once I’m in the right position he passes another seat belt from behind helping me put it on properly.
I look at him, waiting for an explanation, but he sucks on one side of his lip almost coyly. And then he starts grandpa driving, like super carefully, overly aware of everyone else on the road. I swear a tribe of snails pass us on the outside lane.
“Really? I did not take you for a slow driver.” I mock glare at him, and I don’t miss the way his eyebrows lift up and he smiles the smallest smile in the world.
The next second, all the air is pushed out of my lungs, the second harness stopping me from being flung into yesterday. A deep chuckle is the only noise, aside from the grunt of his truck as he seriously leaves a long and black burnout behind us. I checked, after Koda slammed on the brakes of course, after I demanded to see it through a fit of shocked giggles.
He sticks to the backroads, getting us out of the middle of the city like the zombie apocalypse is dawning behind us. And he does it without us being caught. I seriously have to hold the bitch bar for most of the drive out, but I turn up the music to carnival level and get lost in the moment. Happily fucking lost, the wine and pills adding to the high, but mostly it’s him.
I haven’t laughed so hard for so long. And the whole time he barely speaks a dozen words to me. When he wants my attention, he tugs on the steering wheel, rocking the car to one side suddenly, leaving me glaring at him, open mouth, and then he points to something outside or offers me another pretzel.
Within an hour, we’re out in the middle of nowhere with about thirty other truckers. The booming thud of that many based out stereos hits in the middle of my chest and right now we’re caught in a complex game of cat and mouse with everyone trying to chase down a truck that left fifteen minutes ago. It’s exhilarating and liberating, his sense of disregard for the rules, although if push comes to shove, I somehow know that Koda won’t do anything that reckless or dangerous.
I lost my shoes even before we left the city lights in our dust. Between one cherry cola and our arrival out in the middle of nowhere, I ended up with his cap on my head and a Koda infused hoodie over my dress. He even introduced me to his friends as some chick he picked up, that only adds to the thrill of the night and anonymity.
Koda slows the car and the others rush past us amid a flurry of horns and flashing lights, but he keeps rolling forward, his eyes looking at me, with something that very much looks like challenge. Flicking his head up, he asks, “You good? You’re looking a little wound up.”
We’ve been laughing a lot.
I squint at him, but he follows up his strange statement by talking again.
“You know around here, there’s a gravel dipped road long enough to make a woman come.”
I splutter, like seriously, the spit of my abrupt laughter hits the window, and I go to apologise and his eyes are fucking black. Dilated, shot to hell, obsidian black and the inside of his car plumes with his scent. The first tease of him, I get lost. Black silky sheets and images as vivid as the tattoos on his skin, the one circling his throat coats my lungs whispering promises in my ear.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, opening all the windows in his truck to let the smell of him out.
Taking one of those loud, cartoon gulps, I look out the front windscreen barely able to believe I find the courage to actually voice the words in my head. “Put the windows up, Koda, and start driving. You don’t touch me. No matter what happens. You don’t touch me unless I ask you to.”
The quiet stretches out, but his foot drops on the accelerator, making the engine purr until he does it more, making the truck roar. The vibrations under me tease as much as his words do.
“I won’t touch.”
Bailey
Iwatch with bated breath as my window rises. The whole night has been odd in a sense, first dinner with them and now me spending time with Koda, yet it also feels more than okay.
The quiet whirring noise of the other windows going up follows, bringing a rush of anticipation over my skin. Tempting luck or riding the high, I slide my finger under his palm to lock the windows.
He holds his foot down, revving the engine while the car refills with his scent. The instant Koda’s hits—and this time, it’s even headier and stronger than before, cutting through the suppressant even—I whine in my throat. But I have all my wits about me, and while Koda sits there staring out the windscreen, waiting for a sign, I need one more thing from him. Because as much as I want to deny what tomorrow’s conversation with the A-team is going to be about, I’m not ready to face the truths nor do I want to ignore his offer. Or the challenge of surviving the damn road.
