My efforts with the radio thwarted, I opt for rolling down the window instead.

Reece gives me a look. “Hot?”

I don’t respond. I’m not hot. Well maybe a little. Mostly it’s that freaking cologne he’s taken to wearing since that night in Miami. I don’t know what the hell it’s called, but they should rename it: Lucy Hawkins’s Cooter Kryptonite.

It makes me want to jump him every time he gets near.

To be fair, I’d probably want to do that anyway. But the fact that he smells like pepper and Christmas and bourbon doesn’t help.

We drive in silence for a few more minutes, and I distract myself by watching eagerly for a rest stop so we can switch drivers. At least with my hands on the steering wheel, I’m not tempted to put them on him.

Well, less tempted anyway.

I get excited when I see the telltale blue sign, then wrinkle my nose when I see the big orange notification that it’s temporarily closed and the next rest stop isn’t for forty-eight miles.

My pissy mood’s interrupted when the car makes a quick and unexpected swerve, and I hear a stream of curses from Reece.

I sit up in my seat and roll up the window to keep out the dirt that’s flying up as he pulls over to the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Flat,” he says grimly as Horny rolls to a stop on the mostly deserted highway in the middle of nowhere.

For a moment there’s only silence, then a whoosh as a semitruck whizzes by.

Reece checks over his shoulders to make sure no other cars are coming up on us before opening the driver’s side and climbing out, giving the door an angry slam.

I watch as he puts his hands on his hips, chomping on the mint gum he stole from my purse at our last gas stop, coming around to glare at the passenger-side tire.

Then he glares at me, as though it’s my fault just by being closest.

I give him my biggest shit-eating grin, and even through the dark lens of his aviator sunglasses, I know his eyes are narrowing.

He marches toward the door, and after glancing once more at the oncoming traffic (spoiler alert, there’s none), he jerks open the door handle. “Get out.”

“Why? It’s hot.”

He doesn’t answer. He goes around to the trunk, and I reluctantly follow him, mostly because he turned off the car, and without the AC, it’s sweltering.

Hmm. Not much better outside. And it’s humid as all heck.

By the time I make it around to the trunk, I’m already sweating. Reece tosses a bag at my chest before dumping others on the dirt beside my feet.

“Hey! You’re getting my stuff all dirty!”

He grumbles something I can’t understand and probably don’t want to. He finally reaches the bottom of the trunk, tugging up on the nasty-looking fabric that separates the stuff in the trunk from, I dunno…car stuff.

Car stuff, as it turns out, that includes a spare tire.

He moves slightly to the side so I can see it better. I glance down at it, then at him.

Reece gestures, as though I’m supposed to pull it out of the trunk.

I blink. “You can’t be serious. You’ve forgotten how to change a flat tire?”

His expression is completely emotionless. “Yes, that’s right. I took this car from being a pile of rusty metal into a running automobile to get your ass from Virginia to California, but nope…no idea how to change a flat.”

I ignore his sarcasm and make a hand gesture of my own, as though to say Have at it.

He doesn’t move. “Do you know how to change a flat?”

I purse my lips. “Um.”

Reece uses his free hand to shove the sunglasses on top of his head, fixing me with an icy blue stare. “You should learn.”

“Why? My dad gave you a Triple A card. I may not know how to change a tire, but I’m super good at making phone calls.”

I give him what I know to be my prettiest smile, but he only snorts and uses a finger to flick his glasses back onto his nose. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“I hope by ‘show you,’ you mean do it yourself,” I mutter.

Still, he has a point. I’m hardly a tomboy, but neither do I want to be labeled as one of those princesses scared of breaking a nail.

(Real truth: if I’d had a manicure in the past two weeks, my stance right now would be different. But as it is, my nails are bare and cut short as a nod to the casual road-trip vibe, so…why the hell not?)

I drop the bag I’m holding on to the ground along with the others, wrap both hands around the spare tire, and tug.

It moves, but only a little. I struggle with it. Reece isn’t known for patience, and after about forty-five seconds he reaches down and hoists it out easily with one arm, giving me a waft of that hideously wonderful cologne in the process.

Crap. Now I’m distracted.

I’m also really sweating now, and pluck at my blouse where it sticks to my back.

Reece, for his part, looks only a little bit shiny, and the look is really good on him.

I want to lick.

He stares at me. “Grab it, Lucy.”

“Grab what?”

My eyes are locked somewhere in the vicinity of his crotch, and I hear him grunt before he points toward the front of the car. “Roll the damn tire up there. I’ll bring the jack.”

I giggle, because the word jack combined with the fact that I was just thinking about his…

I clear my throat. Anyway.

I do as he says, awkwardly straddling the tire between my legs and rolling it forward until I reach the totally deflated passenger tire.