The first few minutes they spend waiting for the car to warm up feels like years.
Whitley's pressing back against the seat, scratching at the hollow of her throat absentmindedly and, for once this entire trip, hasn't said a word. And right now, he's too determined to fill the space with something - anything - because kissing Whitley Gilbert in the backseat of her Mercedes on a frozen bridge in Brooklyn somewhere was never really on a list of things he had planned to do in his life.
It isn't like his first kiss with Denise at all - there aren't any feelings attached to it; it's just - it's Whitley. He sniffs loudly, clapping his hands, rubbing them together in front of the heater, waiting for a snide comment or something about the noise that he's making or his bad manners or ... anything.
She just buckles her seat belt and leans her head against the window. "Can we get this show on the road, please?"
The drive back from New York is incredibly awkward. He keeps trying to find something to talk about, some joke to make that will break the glacier that they've got on their hands, but nothing's working. Every so often, she'll say something or talk about something Kim or Jaleesa said or did, and then - nothing. The highway's empty enough at this hour of night, and the weather hasn't been helping anything. It isn't enough to make him feel any less alone with her.
He keeps sneaking glances at her in the rear-view mirror, and aside from the occasional rustle beneath the blanket or a sigh as she changes positions in the cramped backseat, there's nothing. He almost wishes she could be her usual loud, annoying, self-centered self right now. Maybe she's tired. He figures she's tired. Whitley's never come easy to him, not in any sort of way - friends or acquaintances - but in the last year, he thought they'd managed to get onto some kind of plateau of comfort.
She props her head up on her elbow then, her hair in her eyes. "For god's sake, Dwayne," she drawls. "You're not even trying to be subtle."
He blinks. "Subtle what? I'm not even doing anything. Got my eyes on the road."
She chuckles, shifting to a sitting position, pulling the thin blanket tighter around her shoulders with a soft hum of disbelief. He can't help but roll his eyes. And there it is: the incredible infinite list of reasons why they could never ever be anything other than friends. And to be honest, sometimes even being friends is a stretch. She's frustrating, infuriating, absolutely refuses to admit when she's wrong, judgmental, loud, loud, loud, and she talks too damn much - present scene excluded. And there's also that whole issue of money. Important for her, less of a factor for him. Even with her faults, he can see that she's stepped up to take the place Denise left in his life - one of his better friends at Hillman. But friend is the key word. Friend.
He just seems to end up kissing his friends more than others.
She leans forward to squint out the windshield and he catches a mouthful of her perfume. "Damn, Whitley, you dump the whole bottle on before you left?"
"Shut up." She wrinkles her nose, crossing her arms over her chest. "It was Monica's idea," she says flatly. "Can't wash the cheap stuff off. It's like skunk."
He coughs out a laugh. "How would you know what skunk smells like?"
"Well," she says, crossing her legs at the ankles, "I can imagine."
And that's been the rhythm of the last hour and a half - conversation interspersed with long periods of silence. Too much thinking time and he overthinks. He can't even remember who made the first move in the backseat - he'd like to think that they both moved at the same time, even though part of him feels like it was just him and the other part feels like she never would have let him make the first move. He drums a rhythm against the steering wheel just to keep his thoughts focused on something other than whatever their issue is right now. She clicks her tongue against her teeth, moving to lie down again.
"How is anybody supposed to sleep with you pounding Babalu over there?"
"Well," he says, "you know, you could drive part of the way." She grips the edge of the seat, turning to look outside. "Yeah, I thought so."
"Dwayne," she says, eyes fixed to her nails, "It was only a little kiss. There's no reason we can't be friendly."
He laughs. "I think we proved that we can be a lot more friendly." She punches him in the arm. "You know, it was more than one little kiss." He can already sense her arched eyebrow even without looking.
"Really," she deadpans.
He shrugs, grinning. "It was three little kisses."
"So juvenile," she murmurs, picking at a piece of lint on the sleeve of her coat, her voice low. And then it's those moments when this whole thing clicks for him for the briefest of moments - it's not so hard to believe that they could be more than, that he could - not when she lets her guard down for the tiniest moment, when she lets herself be vulnerable and soft and quiet like a real person. It almost feels like seeing the real Whitley - as if he's in any position to make a judgment about which one is the real Whitley in the first place. It's those moments that he thinks maybe spending time with her in that way wouldn't be so bad.
"How much longer?"
He squints at a highway sign in the distance. "Another hour at least."
She groans, stretching out her legs on the seat, joints cracking. "Another hour," she repeats. Running a hand through her hair, she turns to look out the window. He's not sure why he's surprised that Whitley isn't a nervous talker, but it catches him off-guard. He can't even picture her nervous. Confidence - egotism - has been too much her game for so long that he's having trouble believing that it's her. It's so strange not to hear her thousand-and-one complaints and running commentary on everything.
"Dwayne?" And there it is again, the quiet private Whitley voice.
"Yeah, Whitley?"
She shifts towards the dashboard, setting her hand on his headrest. "What I told you," she begins, haltingly, "about my father. And Monica..." She presses her lips together into a hard line. He tries to give a reassuring smile.
"I wouldn't tell anyone. You know that."
She sets her hand on his arm, squeezing gently. "Thank you." And then she's leaning forward, brushing her lips against his cheek before shifting back into her seat. In the dim light of the car, he can't help but think she looks a little pink. Not that it matters. Not that he cares.
"You really want to thank me, you could take over for a bit."
She grins then, toeing off her shoes and setting her bare feet on the seat.
"I guess that's a no, then?"
"Dwayne," she intones in that particularly Whitley way where his name suddenly seems to have two extra syllables.
He rolls his eyes. "If you're sleeping when we get back to Hillman, I'm just going to leave your ass in the car."
She unbuckles her seat belt, leaning her head back, her eyes closed. "Such a gentleman."
"Damn straight."
"Dwayne?"
"Just - go to sleep so I don't have to keep listening to this - "
She clears her throat softly. "And you're not going to say anything about tonight either, are you?"
He licks his lips. "Saving it for bingo, Whitley. Don't worry."
Her smile is a little uneasy, but she slumps down into the seat and that's that. Conversation over.
The campus is quiet when they get back a little after two a.m. He pulls up outside Gilbert first.
"How are you going to get back?"
"I'll park and then I'll walk."
She frowns, stepping out of the car, her hands jammed tightly into her coat pockets. "Just park it by yours and bring it back tomorrow."
Raising his eyebrows, he heads to the trunk of the car, starting to unload some of her bags. "You sure?"
"It's the least I can do for stranding us for half an hour."
He drops two of her bags on the first step of the porch. "I didn't mind being stranded," he says, voice low. He thinks he sees her shudder a little as she reaches to haul another bag up onto the porch. Pausing, he watches her carry them towards the door. "You cold, Whitley?"
"What?" she says, heaving another suitcase up the porch.
And he admits it right now - this might be a problem for him, probably will be a problem for him because he doesn't stop himself this time either. She's coming back to grab one of the last few bags when he reaches for her wrist, leaning down to brush her lips gently with his. She stills with a soft squeak, her breath hot against his mouth, and he's beginning to pull away when she leans forward, catching his bottom lip between hers with a soft sigh. Her hands scrabble for purchase along the hem of his coat and he resists the urge to bury his in her hair.
She pulls away with a quiet groan, fidgeting with her hands. "Good night," she says. "Good - good night."
"See you later," he says.
(He doesn't watch her go into the building; she looks back at him once.)
In the car, he can't remember enough reasons why not to make a list.
His coat still smells like her perfume.