I Think We Missed Our Turn - L.A. Witt Page 0,36

sighed and turned to him again. “Kinda feels like if we were going to do this, we should’ve done it back then.”

“So, what?” Armin’s brow pinched. “We just… We missed our shot?”

“I guess?” I shrugged tightly. “I don’t know, man. And maybe if we did it back then, we’d have fucked it all up and things would be messed up between us. But who’s to say we won’t fuck it up this time and things won’t get messed up?”

He dropped his gaze. “I don’t know.”

Silence hung between us for a painfully long time. I felt like a dick. I wanted him, and I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to lose him completely. Things might be awkward for a week or two after this, but it wouldn’t be like an actual breakup.

Right?

“I’m not going to tell you I’m not attracted to you,” I whispered. “You know I am. But we’re both just coming out of relationships, and I don’t know about yours, but mine ended pretty shitty. I’m looking forward to getting home and Chad being gone, especially when he’s gone enough that I don’t have to see him or deal with him anymore.” I swallowed. “I don’t want that to be us.”

Armin’s lips tightened, but he nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want that to be us either.” Sighing, he met my gaze. “You’re probably right. It’s just… It’s tough. I wish we could…” He bit his lip, and after a moment, he just said, “You’re right.”

Admittedly, I had kind of hoped he’d argue. That he had some logic that I couldn’t shut down, and he’d have a reason why giving this a try was a better idea than walking away from it for the second time.

But he didn’t. And I didn’t.

Without looking at me, he quietly said, “We should probably get on the road soon.”

“Yeah. Probably.” I swallowed. “Let me get a shower, and… I mean, we’ve got the sandwiches from Zoe.”

Armin nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”

It didn’t sound good. None of it did. Even the sandwiches my artist idol had lovingly packed for us didn’t make me smile.

And I had no doubt the long drive ahead of us was going to be fucking miserable.

Had we really only been on the road for an hour? Fuck me. We’d just passed Bangor, and we still had… Hell, who knew? We hadn’t decided where we were stopping tonight. We were going to go as far as we could, then find a place to sleep.

I kind of wanted us to switch off and just get back to Virginia Beach as soon as possible. With enough energy drinks and catnaps, we could totally be there by… I don’t know. Noon tomorrow? Tomorrow night? Sooner than if we stopped along the way, that was for sure.

Sure glad I called things off with him so things don’t get weird between us. Wait…

Damn it. No, this was temporary. It wasn’t like a breakup. We did still have to work together. What if we ended up like we were with our exes right now? Where we wanted to be as far apart as possible? Armin didn’t work at the gallery all the time, but he was there a lot, so there was really no avoiding him.

I didn’t want to avoid him. I didn’t want to want to avoid him.

Except…we were avoiding each other. Right now. Neither of us was talking. How was this any better than the alternative?

Ugh. What the hell was I supposed to do? Was this a sign that I’d been stupid to pull the plug? Or that last night really was a mistake and we were idiots for going as far as we had? Why wasn’t there a tutorial for this shit?

What I did know was that we had miles and miles ahead of us. At least two days of driving. So much time for silence. I couldn’t decide if that was plenty of time and distance for us to lose our minds, or if it was enough for us to figure this out and do something about it. Probably both. Just depended on whether I found the spine to say something.

Pressing my elbow under the window, I stared out at the road ahead, the silence ringing in my ears as I rested my head on my fist. Damn it. What the hell was I thinking this morning? The whole point of not dating to avoid becoming exes had been so things wouldn’t be uncomfortable and awkward between us.

And now…things were uncomfortable and