16 – Wyoming

Felicity drove until they reached a city that had several different motels. "Uh…which one looks good to you?"

"Let's not go for the ones that charge hourly rates," he grimaced, gesturing to one on the seedier end of the scale.

She curled her lip. "Definitely not. What about the movie? It's getting kind of late."

Ben glanced at his watch. "We could make a late showing, if you still want to go." Before she could answer, he pointed through the windshield at a motel as they approached. "There's one. What do you think, looks pretty safe?"

"It's worth a try. I'll check us in." She parked the car, and Ben got out to pull their bags from the trunk.

When she emerged from the hotel office, Ben was waiting with their bags. She pointed him toward the room on the end and came to get her own things from him. "I'm glad we did laundry today. And just for the record, you were right. Laundry is less of a nightmare with you than it is usually."

"Thanks, I think," he deadpanned. He took the keys from her and opened the door, revealing a room that was nicer than their usual accommodations thus far. It was decorated in tasteful neutral tones, and the furniture looked fairly new. Ben raised his eyebrows. "Wow. I bet it's even spiderless."

Felicity grinned as she entered the room behind them. She set her bags down and ran an appreciative hand over the table by the window. "What are we going to do? I got so used to the ugly color schemes."

He turned around with a shrug and made for the door, shaking his head ruefully. "Guess we're going to have to do one of the hourly ones."

She giggled.

He laughed with her, and then set his bags down with a questioning expression. "So, do you want to do it, or what?"

Her smile froze on her face. "Wh-What?"

He paced toward her with a knowing grin spreading across his face. "The movie? You remember the movie? You know, with popcorn and sodas and stuff?"

"Oh," she laughed, feeling ridiculous. She marshaled up her dignity. "Yeah. We could still do…the movie." He laughed that throaty laugh again, and Felicity felt her face grow warm. "I-I thought you meant—"

"I know what you were thinking," he broke in, still wearing that grin. It faded into a more serious look. "Felicity, we've been going out—what—like, a day? Come on. Besides, I thought we already talked about this."

She gave him an embarrassed smile and shoved an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "I know. I know, it's just… It's kind of…" Kind of hard to remember why I said I wasn't ready, she added, looking up at him through her lashes.

He held out his hand. "Come on. Let me take you to a movie."

- - - - -

Because it was so late and it was the middle of the week, they were the only ones in the theater by the time the movie began. Ben looked around. "Hey. Private screening."

"They knew we were coming," Felicity joked. She reached for the popcorn bucket, and he handed it over. She took a handful and crunched on it. "This is loads better than the ballpark stuff."

"Oh, so now it's my stale popcorn. You had a problem with my Twinkies, and now you're insulting my popcorn. Is there anything I eat that you're not going to pick on?"

She lobbed a kernel into his lap with a grin. "Well, you hate anchovies, so you have some taste."

Ben snatched a handful of popcorn and pelted her with a few pieces. "Live with Sean for a while. Compared to his inventions, stale popcorn is nothing."

"I think I'll pass on that." She pitched another handful of popcorn at him.

Ben caught most of it in the bucket. With a teasing glare, he seized the bag of licorice from her lap. "Gimme my Twizzlers, if you're going to be that way."

"Hey! I was eating those!"

He laughed and held the popcorn and candy out of her reach. Giggling, she lunged for the candy, only to have him elbow her hand away. "Nope. They're mine. You gave up your Twizzler rights by picking on my popcorn."

She huffed and took a sip of her lemonade. "I said this popcorn was good."

Ben set the popcorn down in the next chair with a face of mock affront. "Shhhhh The movie's starting."

Felicity gave an inarticulate growl. "You are impossible."

Grinning, he held out the package of Twizzlers, only to yank it out of her reach when she went for it. He leaned across the arm of the chair and snatched a kiss before handing her the licorice.

She dissolved into laughter, shaking her head. Ben took her hand, and with the other, set the popcorn bucket back in his lap.

- - - - -

"That was a great movie. The special effects were amazing, weren't they?" Felicity enthused on their way across town.

"Yeah, that was cool. I hated the ending, though. It kind of left you hanging. Anything you want to see before we head back to the motel?"

"Nope. I think I'm just going to crawl in bed and sleep for a year," she yawned, watching him drowsily as he drove.

Ben started to smile, but it flashed into a look of shock. "Holy crap!" He slammed on the brakes. The car screeched on the road.

Felicity lurched forward with a yelp only to be jerked back by her seatbelt. Ben flung his arm out in a reflexive attempt to hold her back. She looked out the windshield to see another car careening across the intersection they had just entered by right-of-way. It missed them by less than three feet before bulleting onward. Her heart pounded in her ears. The Cadillac came to a pitching halt. "Oh, my God! Ben, are you okay?"

Catching his breath, Ben stared after the fast disappearing car and pulled at his seatbelt as if it were strangling him. He looked her up and down with worry on his face. "Yeah. You?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She gave a nervous laugh. "That could have been really bad."

"No kidding," he agreed. He scraped a hand through his hair and glared in the direction the other car had gone. "He didn't even slow down. I bet he was drunk. What a dick!"

Felicity saw anger blaze across Ben's features. She knew without asking that he was thinking about his father. "Why don't we just get back to the motel?"

A muscle worked in his jaw. She could almost feel him grinding his teeth. He dropped his gaze to the steering wheel, then out the windshield again. He took his foot off the brake with a sigh, and they continued on.

They hadn't gone far when Felicity noticed the car handling strangely.

At the same time, Ben frowned and pulled over. "Something's wrong. Wait just a minute. I'm going to get out and check the car." He cast a look about the car's interior. "Have you got a flashlight on you?"

"I think I have a pen light in my bag," she murmured, picking it up from the floor at her feet and rummaging through it. Finding the pen light, she handed it over.

Ben got out of the car and circled it, checking each side as carefully as possible in the darkness. They had parked in a poorly lit section of the city. Having lived in New York City for a year, Felicity recognized a bad part of town when she saw it. This rivaled anything the Big Apple had to offer. Normally, she would have avoided such a place or brought a large group of friends if she had to be there. There's only me and Ben. I don't like the looks of this.

Growing apprehensive, she watched him circle the car again, and then duck below her line of sight to get underneath the car. She bit her lip and waited.

She only realized she'd been holding her breath when Ben got up again, brushing dirt off his jeans. He came around and opened the driver door. "We've got a flat. Picked up a huge bolt in the tire tread. I hope Mickey has a spare." He glanced around them and took the keys from the ignition. "Stay in the car, okay?"

She nodded wordlessly. Ben locked the driver door and closed it, then went around to the trunk to search for the spare tire. A few minutes later, he slammed the trunk lid down and came around to her door. Felicity opened it. "No spare," he reported. "What kind of guy drives a Cadillac and doesn't keep a spare tire in it? Can you check the glove box and see if he's got any kind of roadside assistance on this thing?"

She did so, but there was nothing in the glove compartment but the car manual and a few of their gas receipts. "He must have forgotten to leave them with us."

Ben threw his hands in the air. "Damn it, we don't even have a cell phone. We're going to have to walk to a pay phone. Staying around here's just going to be like a big 'Kick Me' sign."

"What if something happens to the car?" she asked nervously.

Ben pursed his lips. "What if something happens to us? I'm not leaving you here, and I'm not going to let you walk by yourself."

Felicity gathered up her backpack and grabbed Ben's wallet from the seat. She cast a quick look around the car to make sure that anything else they had was stowed out of sight in the trunk, and got out. She locked her door, cast a last, uncertain glance at the car, and took Ben's hand.