The Road to Her by KE Payne Read Free Book Online

her breath.
    “Guess you’ll have to call the breakdown people out,” I offered.
    She flicked a glance to me then away again. “I don’t have breakdown.” She sighed. “Just never got round to it when I came back here.” She looked back towards me sheepishly.
    “You’ll need a tow to the nearest garage then,” I said, fishing my phone out of my bag.
    “Great!” Elise leant into the car and grabbed her bag from the passenger seat. “I have to be in Surrey by six and it’s quarter past five already.” She slammed the car door.
    “How long would the train take?” I asked, looking at my phone to try to find the phone number of the nearest garage.
    “Too long.” Elise started rooting around in her bag for her phone, too. “Guess I’ll have to cancel Surrey, then. That’ll be one very upset boy.” She cursed again.
    “Oh?”
    “My nephew’s fourth birthday party.” Elise shrugged and flicked a finger over the screen of her phone, presumably finding a phone number.
    Elise had a nephew? Why did I find that so sweet?
    “I see.” I paused.
    “Stupid piece of junk.” Elise turned and kicked at her front tyre, then grimaced. “Why today of all days, huh? Why?” She jabbed at her phone and held it to her ear.
    “Wait…” I touched her arm, the physical contact sending a curious but pleasant jolt through my hand. “I can take you to Surrey.”
    Elise pulled the phone slowly from her ear and cut her call. “You’d take me?” she asked.
    “Uh-huh.” I nodded, turning back to my car. “But we’ll have to get a wriggle on if we’re to get there for six.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “’Course.” I started to walk back to my car. “C’mon.”
    As I approached my car, a wry thought came to me. Elise might have irritated me that morning, but I figured it was times like this you had to be adult enough to put your animosity to one side and step up to the plate. I thought about my own niece in Scotland, five years old herself, and of how crestfallen she’d be if her favourite auntie were to miss her party. I glanced back at Elise coming across the car park after me and figured, whatever I thought of her and whatever she thought of me, she was still a little boy’s favourite auntie, too.
    “It’s very good of you,” Elise now said as she approached my car. She looked hesitantly at me, as if she wanted to say something else, but instead she just came round the passenger side of my car as I gesticulated with my head that the door was open and she could get in.
    “Head for the motorway and I’ll tell you which junction to get off at, okay?” Elise said as she buckled herself in and I turned my car around and exited the studio car park.
    We drove on in silence for about the first five minutes or so, me trying to ignore my acute awareness of her presence in the car, of her closeness to me, and of her lean legs kicked out in front of her. We exchanged a few comments about the weather, but other than that, we were quiet. It was that awkward, empty silence when you know that you’re both struggling to think of something to say but can’t manage to come up with a single thing.
    “I’m glad I’ve got a chance to talk to you again today, actually,” Elise suddenly said, finally puncturing the quiet in the car as we approached the motorway.
    “Oh yes?” I glanced up in my rear-view mirror but not at her.
    “Mm,” she said, looking straight ahead out of the windscreen.
    I waited, but all I heard was the droning of my tyres on the road.
    “I just wanted to, well, to say sorry, I s’pose, about being funny with you this morning.” Elise shifted slightly in her seat. “And I wanted to say sorry for saying you’d had a tantrum. That wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say.”
    “Okay,” I said cautiously. “Well, apology accepted.”
    And what about saying again earlier that I looked cute when I was annoyed?
    Elise didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. Instead, she turned her head and