Work Text:
Angie looks down at the suitcase beside the trunk of Will's car. A fully-respectable carry-on-sized red one, with only one wobbly wheel, packed completely herself, no meddling Poppy-fingers touching their squishy insides. Squishy because she stuffed everything from her cold-weather clothes pile from the bottom of her closet (there's not much, she lives in LA) into one side and dumped everything with one swipe of her arm from the sink counter into the other and then zipped it up before she could think about what she was doing.
"Ready?" Will calls, coming from the driver's seat to glance approvingly at her very-not-a-trash-bag luggage. He lifts it and places it into the trunk, right next to his and Sophie's bags before she can protest that she can do it herself.
And no point in pulling it back out just to make a point, because Graham is loading his overstuffed backpack in beside hers. Oh well, they're really doing this now, aren't they? "Yep," she says with a nod that her whole body doesn't feel.
You are the world's biggest coward, D'Amato, she tells herself. You've been doing the chicken dance, and not the fun-but-dorky wedding one, around Will for 5 months now, ever since the big Barstow flameout. She remembered that Will said he was in love with her and went to Barstow anyway. But she couldn't throw that stupid snowman candle away and she couldn't stop pulling it out of its hiding place in the rusted spaghetti colander in the junk cabinet and she basically snuffed out her relationship with Derek because of that thing.
So she suggested a holiday road trip up to a cute little town in Northern California, just the two of them (or the four of them really). And after Will got past his surprise that she wanted to road trip with him, he was extremely into the idea. Does that mean he still feels, like—stuff—for her? When she's been avoiding the subject anytime the group even veers toward it? He hasn't dated anyone, but he also hasn't changed his behavior in any way. Just best buds, Will and Angie-style.
She wrote a little speech, which she's been saving for the right moment. It's been folded and unfolded so many times that the edges are brown and the paper is wrinkly. She unfolds it again and takes a deep breath. If this trip isn't the right moment, then she might as well give up.
"Coming, D'Amato?" Will asks, popping his head out of the window. She starts, she's been staring at the paper in her hands like a dork. "They're gonna run out of hot cocoa if you don't get in here!"
"They better not!" She crumples the paper hastily into one fist and walks around to the passenger side and so she doesn't blow it before they even get on the road. Slapping the dashboard twice with the other hand, she shouts, "Corning, here we come!"
"Woo hoo!" Graham shouts in unison with Will, and after the most careful backing out of the driveway known to modern man, they are off.
"I Spy something...silver," Graham says.
Graham forgot to charge his iPad and Will's car doesn't have the right kind of cable and who remembers to pack those things? Certainly not Angie. She's lucky if she can remember her own charging cable most days. Will just shrugged and said, "We can play road trip games! My family used to play them all the time when I was a kid. Or we can sing! Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells—"
Even Graham started to join in.
"Games! Yeah!" Angie wasn't sure why that came out so loudly. More quietly, she added, "It's an American tradition or whatever."
Sophie, who Angie was sure had a full charge and hours of video downloaded to her tablet, looked like she was about to say Graham could share with her, but after a weird look between her and Graham, said, "Fine."
So they're playing I Spy. Angie scans the countryside for a water tower or a billboard.
"That car up there," Sophie says without hesitation.
Graham frowns. "How'd you know?"
"Because you picked cars the last three times."
Graham harrumphs in the way only a nine year old can do.
"I Spy..." Sophie says. "Something brown."
The hills along I-5 are pretty dang brown, but Sophie is always trickier than that. She wouldn't pick a car either, not after the diss she gave Graham.
"Uh..." Angie starts.
But Graham pipes up. "Is it the paper Mom has in her hand?"
Angie's gaze darts down from the windows to her hand. The paper is visibly poking out, crap. She blushes and stuffs it in her jacket pocket. Why hadn't she done that in the first place? Did she think she was going to read her love confession in the middle of this highway? No! That's why Corning! It was supposed to be all magical and—
"Now I spy something red," Graham says and she and Sophie start giggling.
Angie whips her head back to look at them, narrowing her eyes. What the butts is up with these weirdos today?
"C'mon, guys," Will says suddenly. He hasn't really been playing even though he suggested the game. "Let me have a turn."
"That's not how it works, Dad," Sophie complains. "The guesser gets to be the next one."
"I'm the one who taught you how it works! Just let me have a turn, okay?" Will insists. He's been driving for four hours already but doesn't seem tired at all. Neither is she, really. It's hard to sleep when you're nervous.
Sophie rolls her eyes but Graham shrugs.
"I Spy..." Will looks around wildly, trying to throw them all off, Angie thinks. "...something spinny."
"Huh?" Angie says. Like wheels? Or maybe there's a tumbleweed blowing across a field? It's dry enough for that.
Suddenly the turn signal goes on, and Will heads for the next exit. "Why don't we get some lunch?"
She looks at Will with the same narrowed eyes. He's acting super weird now, too. First he cuts his turn in the game and now he's stopping at some random exit to eat?
"Oh, I know!" Sophie cries out, pointing. "The windmill!"
Angie starts to say Huh? again but then she sees it. A windmill on a sign for a restaurant, Scandinavian or some such. "Pea Soup Andersen's?"
"You've never been here?" Will asks with excitement. "Oh, man, you are in for a treat! My family used to stop here every time we drove to the Bay Area."
"For..." she says, disbelieving, "...pea soup."
"Pea soup, pea soup, pea soup," Sophie starts chanting and Graham picks it up too, though she's pretty sure he's never tried it before in his life.
"The stuff that's like...puke green. Pea soup."
"A lovely appetizing green, but yes. And you can add stuff to it. Cheese, croutons, bacon, scallions..."
"Can I order extra bacon and cheese, cut the peas?" The kids are still chanting like psychos from the back seat as they pull up to the place.
Will shakes his head fondly. "They have other things on the menu. But no one comes to Pea Soup Andersen's for the burgers, Angie."
They did have other things on the menu but she still got a burger. You could get a side of pea soup with every entree, like it was an order of fries or something. Will got a bread bowl of pea soup and a salad. So did Graham and Sophie, who both attacked the soup with gusto. It probably should have made her proud that her little boy's taste buds were maturing. But it didn't. It made her suspicious.
Did they plan thi—?
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She takes it out surreptitiously to see a notification from Poppy and frowns. "Gotta pee," she says, shoving it back in and jumping up from the table. Will just waves her off and adds more cheese to his soup. Weirdo.
She hurries down the rows of 1970s brown booths toward the gift shop and hides behind a Christmas tree. Did you do it yet? the text says.
We had a promise, she fires back. I update YOU
Yeah, but you've been stopped for 30 minutes now. Douglas writes. Is this a friggin' group chat?
Poppy adds, What's in Santa Nella anyway?
YOU'RE TRACKING ME, Angie lets out a growl so loud the cashier gives her a strange look.
The girls say it's Pea Soup Andersen's. Douglas confirms. Quaint. Will's phone is there, too, so she hasn't run away yet.
YOU'RE TRACKING BOTH OF US?!
I had 20 on her not making it over the Grapevine, Emma writes, and Amy adds, 100 for not even making it into the car.
With a vicious smash of the side buttons, Angie turns off her phone. Let them try to keep their nosy noses in her business now.
She grabs a fistful of candy from a shelf and starts opening a pack of Red Vines, then throws, "Add it to the bill!" over her shoulder at the cashier before stomping back to the table. "You guys about done? Let's get back on the road."
Will looks up, concerned. "You hardly touched your burger, are you sure?"
"I got these, I'll be fine." She shoves a Red Vine into her mouth as proof. Protein is for wimps, only sugar for the strong!
The kids happily bounce out to the car with her while Will is paying, not even begging for one of the overpriced souvenir toys. Her suspicion meter clicks higher.
She whirls on them. "Okay, what's up, you little sneaks?"
Graham's eyes go wide and innocent and Sophie's dart toward the restaurant door.
"You know it's going to take him at least ten more minutes to pay because he's making small talk with the cashier and choosing between the five most perfect magnets."
"Oo, magnets! I'll go help," Sophie says, trying to get around her to go back inside.
But Angie's not gonna let her squirm out of this. She puts her arms out wide to block Sophie's path. "Oh, no. Fess up, Cooper. D'Amato."
"There's nothing going on, I swear, Mom!" Graham pleads.
"We just wanna go see the Christmas lights, too!"
Angie gives both of them the narrow-iest glare she can manage. "And the twins are placing bets on the outcome of this trip for no reason, then? A hundred bucks that I wouldn't get in the car?"
Sophie looks aghast at her. "Hey, that's not fair, we promised to stay under 50!"
Graham looks aghast at Sophie. "You guys were betting on things?"
Suddenly she feels a presence behind her and a full-body shiver runs through her to feel him so close without warning. "Who wants hard candies!" She can hear Will shaking plastic bags above her head. Where was that sound when he was coming up behind her like a phantom?
"Me!" both kids shout and then they're tumbling into the car and away from her interrogation. Behind Will's back she makes an 'I'm watching you' gesture with two fingers at both of them. They pretend not to see her.
Fine. She'll get them to confess later. There's still a long way left until Corning.
Angie pushes down on her knee, which is bouncing crazily up and down unless she keeps hold of it. Maybe the Red Vines weren't such a good idea. Or the large blue Slurpee an hour ago. The kids are completely zonked out in the backseat, the sugar sending them into a very convenient coma.
What was she thinking? That with enough energy she could grow her courage enough to touch the sun? The sun being reading her speech to Will, maybe. She glances over at him and the actual afternoon sun coming in the driver-side window rudely spears her directly in the eye.
"Ow!" she complains, covering the side of her eyes with a hand. With her other she frantically motions for him to move the sun visor.
With a quiet chuckle, he does. "Sunglasses help," he whispers.
She whispers back, annoyed, "Why would I bring those? It's winter."
"In California."
"We're going to Northern California, duh."
He opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything for a long minute. Then he nods back toward the kids. "You can go to sleep, too, if you want. I'm okay."
"I'm okay, too. I mean, there's so much to see." She gestures out at the rolling hills of dead brown grass that stretch ahead of them on the left and the fields of stuff she doesn't recognize but doesn't look like much on the right.
"We'll be in Sacramento, soon, so don't get used to it," he jokes.
Sacramento. After that only a few hours to their Airbnb a couple blocks from downtown. Where she's going to walk with him under the Christmas lights and—she shivers again, pulling her jacket tighter.
"You want me to put on the heater?" he asks.
It's not going to help, but she says, "Sure." She leans her head against the window and watches the lack-of-scenery pass.
A few minutes later she feels a hand on her shoulder, warm and gentle. She wants to wriggle into it. "Angie..." a voice murmurs near her ear.
"Mmph?" she responds, her mouth somehow full of fleece. She lifts her head and looks around. A blanket tucked under her head falls to her lap. It's almost sunset and they're on a street full of houses she doesn't recognize, all decorated up for the holidays. "Where are we?"
"Corning," Will says. "You were really out of it. We didn't want to wake you."
"Yeah, you didn't even wake up when we got gas," Graham says.
Sophie adds, "You were mumbling something about snowmen."
"Too bad it doesn't snow here much." Will opens the car door. "I'll go get the key out of the lock box."
Her head feels like it's filled with melting wax. That stupid disappointing Christmas snowman candle won't leave her alone! As soon as he's gone, Angie rounds on the kids. "You two better tell me what is going on. I swear, if you mess this up, I will—"
"Mess what up?" Will has opened her car door like some sort of gentleman.
"Uh—" she doesn't know what she's gonna say, but it doesn't matter. Graham and Sophie are out of the car, racing each other for the front door of the house, which is ringed in green garland. "Letting me sleep. Aren't we going to miss the parade?"
Will checks his watch. "We still have an hour. We can drop off the bags inside and—"
"But there's hot cocoa to buy and finding a good spot and making sure we're close enough to the Christmas Tree at City Hall, but not too close..."
"Okay, okay," he says, lifting his hands in surrender. "I didn't realize it was so important."
"Of course it is!" She isn't sure why her voice is so loud. "It has to be perfect!"
Will just looks at her. Even the kids stop shouting about who is going to get which bedroom.
"I mean, the perfect Christmas..." she says more intensely than she wants to, but at least more quietly, "...town. I want to see a perfect Christmas town. You know, not LA and fake. Something cozy and real." She knows it sounds like nonsense.
Will's smile is somehow cozy. "I want that, too." He holds out his hand, standing there in red and green plaid flannel (has he been wearing that all day?), like the hometown love interest in a cheesy Christmas TV romcom.
She takes it.
Then he's pulling her into a run, yelling, "Last one to the corner has to buy the first round of cocoa!"
"Dad!" Sophie shouts behind them in frustration, but that just makes Angie cackle and run faster.
If Sophie's got betting money, she's got cocoa money.
Angie can't believe how crowded it is on the street. "Did a million people come to this thing?" she complains. She can't really even see the Christmas tree unless she hops back and forth to see around the heads of giants and dads carrying their kids on their shoulders.
"Considering the town only has about 8,000 people, it's—" Off her look, he corrects to, "—more like 2 million. Think about the Airbnb racket they must run."
Graham and Sophie seem okay, they pushed through to sit on the curb beside the street with other kids. They're filling their jacket pockets with the wrapped candies that every float seems to be throwing toward the crowd.
Will looks her up and down. "Do you want me to put you on my shoulders, too? I bet I could just about manage it." His grin just escapes his mock-considering expression.
She swats his arm. "I changed my mind. Let's get closer to the tree." She bets the candy haul is better there anyway.
She's right, the floats throw everything they have left at the end of the route and so far most of the other kids haven't figured that out yet. Graham and Sophie are running out of room in their pockets. Graham is starting to stuff candy down the front of his shirt instead.
"It's like rain made of sugar," Will says, more worried than impressed like Angie is.
"C'mere," Angie tells him. "They'll be okay without us for a minute. I want a photo beside the tree."
He nods, and her heart starts to beat faster as they walk. This is it. She's going to do this, finally. She feels around for the crumpled speech in her pocket and pulls it out.
"Where do you want the photo?" he asks, pulling out his phone. "I think we'd better take it quick, because it looks like—"
"Wait—" she says.
"Are you sure?" He looks up toward the sky, concerned.
"I have to do this now or I never will." The paper is in her hands now and she tries to smooth it out. The lights from the tree are just bright enough to make out the words. "Will..."
He's gone silent, blinking at her.
She swallows. She has to be brave. "When I smelled that candle on the way to Barstow, I knew—"
"Candle?" He breaks the silence, confused.
She ignores him. A fat drop of rain lands in the middle of the next word.
No matter, she pushes on. "Um, that you felt—" More drops spatter onto the page. The ink is starting to run in places, especially where she wrote and crossed out her thoughts too many times. "—the same—" She can barely read it anymore. The rain is getting in her face and hair and starting to drip off her nose. "Butts!"
There's a click and suddenly there's an umbrella over her head, Will under its protective arch as well. Of course the weatherman is prepared. "The same as what?" he asks in a low voice.
She can hear a little bit of a tremble in his voice, or maybe it's the rain spattering on the umbrella making it sound like that. He's closer than he's been in a long time, maybe since that night when he told her how he felt when they were both in a drunken wine stupor.
She looks down at the speech again, flustered. "I can't read it anymore."
Will reaches up to wipe the drops of rain off her forehead, pushing back the hair getting into her eyes. "Do you need it?"
She shakes her head. She knows what it said. She's read it and reread it a thousand times just waiting for the right moment. She whispers out, "That you felt the same as me." Even quieter, she murmurs, "Are you still in love with me?"
"Aw, who told?" he asks, leaning closer if it was possible.
"Um, you did?"
"Silly me." And then he's kissing her and she's kissing him back, and she has this sensation of lifting onto her toes or maybe she's actually floating, there's a loud roar in her ears like she's being transported and it's not disappointing, not disappointing at all.
They break apart to take a breath and she realizes the roar is the sound of heavy rain on the umbrella, but also applause from beside them. Graham is clapping, and Sophie's holding up a phone, both huddled under their own umbrella. The weatherman's daughter is just as prepared. Tinny shouts are coming from the phone's speaker. "Finally!" from Douglas, and "You did it!" from Poppy and "Yeah, dog!" from Miggy.
"I told you I'd get proof," Sophie says with a smug smirk.
"You guys are the worst!" she shouts back at them. "You never stop meddling!" But she's not mad.
Will grabs for the phone but Sophie dodges and then he's chasing her around the tree laughing madly. The umbrella goes flying but she doesn't care.
A couple hours later the kids are sacked out on the couch. They almost made it to the end of the movie, but she guesses a long day of driving and sugar finally caught up to them. She's surprised Will hasn't passed out himself. "Aren't you tired?"
Will shakes his head, pointing the remote at the TV to turn it off. Then he threads his fingers through hers. "No."
She squeezes them. "Me either."
He leans down and gives her a kiss. First slow, then growing in intensity. Enough that she's worried they're going to wake up the kids—
He cuts it off. "No, I'm lying. I'm exhausted."
With a relieved sigh, she says, "Oh my gaa, me too. About to collapse."
He snuggles into her neck, giving her a small kiss that sets her nerves alight. "But you know, after the kids claimed their bedrooms...there's only one left."
"Oh, really?" she murmurs back as he exposes more skin at her collar and kisses at the crook of her neck. "Poor planning?"
"Perfect planning."
As they stumble to the bedroom, she says, "The door better have a lock."