Just One Kiss - J. Saman Page 0,1

cursing into the phone. “In this weather, that will take you a minimum of two to three hours. Find a motel, London. I don’t like you driving in this.”

“Dad, the day after tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The day after that Christmas. I just want to get there and be with all of you for the holiday. Who knows how long this storm could go on for?”

“That’s why we told you to come up three days ago!”

“Blood pressure,” I remind him. “And now is not the time for the I-told-you-so speech.”

“London, for the sake of my blood pressure and your mother’s, please. I’ll send Fletcher down to fetch you with an all-wheel drive truck, but I hate you driving in that Porsche.”

I look to my left and right out my foggy windows, but there is nothing but evergreens and snow. No towns. No signs. Not even a roadside gas station.

I puff out a resigned sigh. “Okay, I’ll find something,” I tell him, hoping this weather abates a bit so I can just push on and make it up to the house.

“Call or text when you’re somewhere safe. We love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.” I disconnect the call, wiping with my hand against my windshield that is fogging up despite the defroster I have going and the heat I have blasting.

I left New York at eight this morning and the snow started once I hit the Connecticut/Massachusetts border. It’s now noon, which means I’ve been driving in this mess forever, epically slowed down to practically a crawl since the roads are slick and visibility is shit. There are no other cars on the road, and this is what you’d call a major highway. No holiday traffic or ski warriors who are not deterred by the treacherous white stuff.

It makes no sense to me unless they were smart enough to leave early and beat the storm. Obviously, I need to check my weather app more often or (shudder) listen to my parents more than I do.

Instead, I am alone in a car that is not meant for this, going about twenty-five miles per hour and hoping—hell praying—that I don’t miss the exit for I-89 that will lead me up toward Burlington and my parents’ house on Lake Champlain, hovering a solid ten miles from the Canadian border.

This wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have snaked my way up through New York and then over into Vermont, but no, the highway north of the city showed a massive accident this morning and my GPS rerouted me. My stomach growls loudly, choosing this moment to remind me that I haven’t had anything to eat all day since I woke up late and had to run out the door, slurping down a to-go coffee from the deli on the corner by my apartment.

“Don’t start,” I snap at my empty belly. “I can’t feed you. We have to make it through this shit first.”

Turning up the music humming through my speakers, I lean forward, singing aloud to a song I know by heart. It helps to settle my slightly frazzled nerves and I push forward, scanning every snow-covered sign for the one I need. But as the miles stretch and the road grows more and more empty, my heart rate begins to spike with panic.

Did I miss it? Did I miss the exit?

Just as those thoughts hit me hard, my GPS starts in with ‘re-calculating route’ in that annoying, nasal voice it has. I glance over to the map, but it’s like my car is driving out into the middle of nowhere and not on a highway. The gray circle in the center of it just keeps spinning and spinning, and this is the moment that I go from a seven on the panic scale to twenty-eight.

“Balls,” I curse. “You’re supposed to run on a freaking satellite,” I yell at the screen.

I slow down further, glancing out my window first and then the passenger one. But it’s all the same, and I have no idea where I am. In a moment of desperation, I hit the button on my steering wheel to bring up my phone so I can call my father back, but now that’s not even working. All the names and numbers are gray.

What the hell is going on?!

Picking up my phone from my center console, I unlock it with my face only to find that I have no service. As in none. Zero. Not even 3G.

“Dammit!” I scream at the top of