Somehow we get back into the truck in the morning without incident, but we're both pretending I didn't discover a very full sketchbook of erotic images staring me and her. I thought my imagination was good, but hers is much better. Much, much better. Detailed and sexy and so fucking hot.

If I'd thought I was having a hard time returning to completely platonic before seeing all that, it's damn near impossible now. I have so many questions, but every time I open my mouth to say anything, she tenses. Her body language screams "don't say a single word".

A smarter plan last night would have been to close the sketchbook, leave it on the bed of the hotel room, and never utter a word. Perhaps sneak a peek once in a while to see whether she added to it.

But I was so surprised that I called her name after I looked at a couple, but before I thought through her reaction. She's usually so brazen, as though nothing bothers her. Yesterday, to have her genuinely scared at the haunted house and then absolutely mortified by the book in my hands were new emotions to navigate.

After our conversation about keeping some of the rules, I'd wondered whether this growing attraction was mutual. The sexual awareness that was there between us initially could have disappeared with familiarity—at least for her. Sometimes that happens. Not in this case.

How does someone even broach a conversation about what I saw? So ... those sketches, huh? As an opening, it's not stellar, but I'm also not sure if I should nudge her to explain or discuss them. While I definitely flirted with the idea of pursuing her beyond the platonic relationship we've been nurturing, and those sketches did not help my resolve, now that the initial euphoria of finding her again has worn off, it doesn't seem like a good idea to jump into a deeper relationship with her.

With the exception of Diana, I haven't been a long-term guy. The women I'm with are carefully selected to minimize attachments, and I already have this urge to be around Gwen, to study what makes her happy, to provide those things in abundance. I don't know what I might eventually want with her beyond this trip, but I can't be sure it will be nothing.

After my conversation with Herb, I'm even more determined to go back to the DRC. I broke down and read my work emails, and they need more qualified staff there. While Doctors International forced me into a leave, I can now acknowledge that I needed the break. I have no doubt I'll be ready to return by the end. Any hesitation I had at the start, when I was still overworked and exhausted, is gone.

Starting something with her would be irresponsible when the best I can offer is these few weeks on the road. Long distance with the type of job I have, and the level of commitment that job expects, would never work. Seems silly to risk the comfort level we've established between us for a fling.

As we head toward Toronto, I figure I should say something, anything to diffuse the tension between us.

"If we're going to travel together for the next two and a half months, I don't know if it's a good idea to—"

"The guy in my sketches wasn't you. I don't know what you think you saw."

The joy of a photographic memory is that I know exactly what I saw, in detail. If I had any artistic talent, I could probably draw them again, curve for curve and line for line. I've rarely considered my memory as a negative, but this is one time where I'm not sure it's a positive either. When I closed my eyes last night, those sketches were front and center.

She's so defensive, I decide to take a different tactic. "They were..." I clear my throat. "Very good. Excellent."

"Oh, my god." She brings her T-shirt over her face and eyes. "Stop talking about it."

"I know supply chain management or graphic design aren't your ideal careers. As an alternative, I'd think you could do something with those drawings. Maybe not those specific drawings."

She peers at me over the edge of her shirt and seems to be assessing whether I'm serious. "Like a graphic novel, but erotica?"

"Not necessarily erotica—nothing wrong with that if that's where your passion lies. I'm sure there's a market, and I bet it sells. You're a great storyteller, at least in person. Have you tried translating that onto the page?"

"Like writing a book?" She lowers her shirt, and the dark red tint has left her face.

"Or a graphic novel. Though isn't that just a comic? Drawing the pictures. Writing the storyline."

"I—I don't know. I've never thought about it. My art has always been my outlet. Mostly self-taught." She shoots me a furtive glance. "Scenery, caricatures, still life... a young Keanu Reeves in various states of undress."

I smother a smile. She's trying it on, and I'm going to let her have it. We both know Keanu doesn't have a substantial scar above his right eye, and though I've been told before there's a passing resemblance, that's not who she drew. If it makes her more comfortable to pretend otherwise, maybe we can regain the platonic vibe.

"A fantasy," I say. "Best left on the page." I can feel her staring at me, but I keep focused on the road. The comment can land, but I have no desire for it to land hard.

"Since I don't have a time machine, and I don't know Keanu personally, that's all it'll ever be." Her tone is flippant, but when I sneak a glance, she doesn't seem happy.

We drive in silence for a few more minutes, and I wonder whether I should prod the issue a bit more, so she knows it's not that I wouldn't get involved with her in a less platonic way, it's just that I don't think it's wise. Travel companions with benefits seems straightforward in theory, but so far everything about my time with Gwen has driven me outside my comfort zone.

"While we were on our little vacation from each other," Gwen says, filling the silence, "I invited my friend, Izzy, to the cottage on the St. Lawrence River. I can invite her boyfriend, Jeremy too, or I can rent a place for me and Izzy. Whatever you want."

She's talked about Izzy before, and I'm not sure if I should be surprised that she needed to fill the travel buddy void immediately or not. Gwen is independent with a side of needing people around her constantly, and that trait in particular, is the opposite of me.

"After Quebec City?" That's three weeks from now. "What'd we rent again?"

"A two bedroom with a pull-out couch. There's room, but I don't know if you want my friends crowding your personal space."

I peer at her, even though there's no bitterness or accusation in her tone. "For the whole week?"

"Izzy thought probably just a long weekend. Three or four days?"

"That's fine," I say. "Shouldn't be a problem."

"Really?" Her smile is wide. "You can say no."

Not with that smile on her face I can't. It's so easy to make her happy. "I don't want to."

"I'm burning an international text message to let her know." She tucks her long hair behind her ears, and then her fingers fly over her phone's keyboard. "She'll be glad she can bring Jeremy now."

"She couldn't before?"

"No." Her fingers still, and she doesn't look at me, but I can almost hear her thinking. "It was going to be just us, originally, but no need now."

"Right." Now that I'm not being an asshole.

"I haven't met him before, so this will be fun." She sets her phone aside and gazes out the window. "It'll be nice to have a whole week in one place."

Which is what we thought when we were planning—a chance to catch our breath from the constant unpacking and packing ritual. But after the rocky stretch Gwen and I have just gone through, I don't know how to feel. I'm not sure about the extended time in one place, but at least now we've got a people buffer for a few days.

~ * ~

We sightsee in Toronto, stay at a quaint bed and breakfast in Prince Edward County, and cruise along the Thousand Islands Parkway before landing in Ottawa and then heading to Montreal. We're on the outskirts of the French city when Gwen starts up a now familiar game of twenty questions.

"Place you'd love to visit again?"

"Innsbruck in Austria. You?"

"Carcassonne in the south of France."

I promised I'd let her get to know me, and she's been peppering me with questions. Most of them superficial, kid stuff. She lobs easy questions that don't require too much introspection. After our brief break in Niagara Falls and the discovery of the sex sketchbook, I was grateful she didn't prod beneath the surface like she said she would. I figured we didn't need to get any closer. But as the weeks have passed and the questions remain shallow, I can admit that I'm longing for depth. Something that's meaningful again, rather than tip toeing around each other.

As we're navigating to the hotel, my phone rings, and although it's my sister, and I never talk to her when I'm driving or when Gwen can hear, on impulse I hit the answer button.

"What's up?" I ask Angela by way of greeting.

"Do you know your measurements? Shaun has decided to buy suits instead of renting them."

"I can buy one when I get there."

"Everyone needs to match. I'm not having you go rogue. Not that you would, but I'm not taking any chances."

"You've talked to Dad?" I ask.

There's a heavy silence across the line.

"Ang, who have you told? Do they know I'm coming?"

"It's my wedding," she says, "and I can do it any way I want. No one else gets a say."

"I don't want to walk into a powder keg. It already is, as far as I'm concerned, a volatile situation."

Gwen shoots me a look, and I resist the temptation to end the conversation with my sister early as I follow the GPS instructions.

"Dad and Mom have promised they won't drink."

"It's a fucking wedding with an open bar. They're going to drink, no matter what they tell you." I clench my hands on the steering wheel. And if there wasn't alcohol at the event, they'd bring their own. They might use the wedding as an excuse to drink, but neither of them has ever needed a reason. "If Dad still thinks he's walking you down the aisle when I get there, I'm not doing it, Ang. It won't be me."

"There's lots of time for me to tell him. Weeks."

"It won't be me," I reiterate. Once I'm there, she'll try to finagle me into doing it whether she's told our father or not. She's well aware of the soft spot I have for her.

"Just send me your measurements as soon as you can."

Then she's gone, and silence hangs in the car with only the automated voice of the GPS to guide us.

"Runs in the family, huh?" Gwen says, and for the first time in a long time, she initiates physical contact, running her hand along my knee.

"What does?" Every one of her fingers leaves a trail of heat on my skin. Those drawings pop up, clouding my vision, and I miss a turn.

"Sweeping feelings under the rug."

Maybe her observation should raise my hackles, but it doesn't. "When you grow up in the kind of family I did, you become a brawler or an appeaser. Direct communication is mythical—does more harm than good."

"Were you a brawler? An appeaser?"

"I kept the peace until I couldn't take it anymore. Then I became a brawler, and I hated myself for it. So, I got the hell out. Moved to BC for university. Never looked back."

"That's why you don't drink?"

"I allow myself one, depending on the situation. Never more than that."

"Now I feel bad about tricking you with my wine-filled water bottle."

"I'm not the alcoholic, Gwen."

She doesn't say anything, but she squeezes my knee again before turning to stare out the window. There's a heavy silence in the truck, and I realize that my efforts to let her in a little have actually backfired.

"I didn't mean to be short with you," I say.

"It's okay." She glances in my direction. "Had to stem the emotional bleeding. When you're not used to it, I'm sure a trickle feels like a gusher."

I clench the steering wheel and contemplate her words. To be fair, it does feel like I painted the inside of the truck cab red with my trauma. Guess she heard something different. Not sure what that means.

"You offer me an inch, and I'll push for a mile." She gives me a half-smile. "Extrovert problems."

"I give an inch and it feels like a mile." I return her half-smile. "Introvert problems."

"But are you?" she asks.

"What would you call me, then?"

"Guarded. Cautious. Careful."

"That's not an introvert?"

"I don't know." She laughs. "Maybe it is. I'm not exactly an expert. My point was that I get that I can sometimes be too much for you."

"You're not too much for me," I say with more force than I probably need.

"You don't need to sugarcoat our dynamic for me at this point." She gives another little laugh as the GPS voices the final turn to the hotel.

I originally thought I was just opening up to her a little, and now I feel like I'm tiptoeing around landmines. Her sex sketchbook sits between us like a third person we can't discuss, but I'm certain that's what caused both of us to back off. She didn't want to admit that I'm in it, and I wasn't sure how to feel about staring in her sexual fantasies when we're such different people. Ruining what we've got seemed foolish. Still does, mostly. 

We're at the hotel, and I drive into the underground parking garage, navigating to an empty space before slotting the car into park.

"I meant what I said weeks ago in Niagara Falls. I do want you to know me."

"Even after seeing my Keanu Reeves sketchbook?"

It's hard to believe she can make that claim with a straight face, but since she's giving me an in, I'm taking it. "Even after seeing the sketchbook."

"You can practice opening up to me," she says. "Expand your horizons after this trip is over. Ready for whatever or whoever comes next."

"Yeah," I agree. "Ready for the next thing." But the claim feels hollow.

"I'm not backing down this time." She throws open the car door. "I'm coming for all your secrets." She glances at me over her shoulder and waggles her eyebrows. "You've been warned."

Diana lingers at the edge of my mind, and I hope, despite what I just agreed to, that I can keep just one secret.

Literally finished this chapter in time to post it, so I may end up tweaking things in this one later. 

Update: Friday

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