Saving Grace

Chapter 17: Road Radio

"This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea."

I shift uncomfortably in Alex's car seat. Not that the seat itself is uncomfortable. Oh no, the smooth leather feels really good beneath my exposed legs. But the 'situation' Alex has me in is making me panicky enough to fidget throughout the ride.

"Will you stop moving around? You're distracting." Alex grumbles, shooting me an annoyed look before turning back to watch the road.

I glare at him. "It's your fault I'm even here in the first place. Without my consent. Through coercion." I stab my finger in his direction after every sentence to emphasise how upset I am.

Alex rolls his eyes and gives me a bland look. "Yeah, as if I picked you up and dumped you in the car with a gun pointed at your head. You could've run away or said no, I wouldn't have forced you. So stop being a brat."

I narrow my eyes at him and start imagining ways I could murder him, slowly and painfully, but I stop complaining and shuffling, because the guy has a point. In all honesty, I'm a bit curious as to why everyone is so intent upon me coming to this stupid party. Not that I'll ever admit it, and here I was thinking I'm doing a really good job at hiding it, but apparently Alex sees right through my act.

Might as well change the topic to keep my integrity intact.

"As far as I remember, the party is supposed to start late at night." I raise my brow at Alex.

He raises his brow at me in return, still watching the road. "And?"

I roll my eyes. "So, where are you taking me this early in the morning?"

He flashes a grin at me as the car slows to a stop at a red light. "If I tell you now, it'll ruin all the fun. Patience, my sweet."

Making a face at the cheesy endearment, I reach out to the dashboard to turn on the radio. Might as well enjoy the ride while I'm at it. I switch through the stations till I get on one playing Carly Rae Jepson's Call Me Maybe, a mischievous twinkle in my eye, and turn up the volume till I couldn't even hear myself laughing.

Alex just looks at me, amused, and shakes his head at my antics. What he does next has me in fits of surprised giggles, clutching my sides from the pain and gasping for breath.

"I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me I'll never tell..." Alex belts out the lyrics in perfect synchronisation at the top of his lungs, laughing in between, steering the wheel expertly with one hand.

I turn the volume low and wipe the tears off my face, shaking my head in disbelief. Alex just grins at me and raises his brows in question.

"What?"

"Nothing, just didn't peg you a fan of Carly Rae Jepson." I laugh.

Alex shrugs, the movement supple and graceful. "I am confident enough in my masculinity that I have no qualms about singing girly songs. Besides, I have a younger teenage sister and this song is catchy."

I try picturing him with his sister, and come up with her running away from him in annoyance. I grin at the picture in my head and turn the volume back up, and start singing along with Carly and Alex.

We spend the whole ride singing all kinds of songs at the top of our lungs along with the radio. Alex once tries to sing falsetto and fails miserably, getting out a squeaky voice instead, leaving us gasping for air while laughing our heads off. Apart from the horrible falsetto, his voice is pretty good, deep and smooth, the baritone adding another dimension to my pitch. I catch him giving me an appreciative glance every now and then, especially at the higher notes.

We're so engrossed in the songs and trying to outsing each other that it takes me a while to realize this is the first time I've ever sung a song outside of my bathroom after the accident. It was my sister's and my thing, singing and jamming to songs together, in the car or at home. Doing anything like this after her death just seemed to be an invitation to the pain and depression, so I had stopped doing it at all, apart from the few times in the shower while I was alone at home.

The realization makes me quiet down, contemplating how I ended up in a car with a guy like Alex, singing again and actually enjoying it.

Alex looks at me in confusion, his brow furrowed as if to ask why I stopped. I look at my phone's wallpaper, a picture of me with my family on a beach. I knew it was too clichéd for some, but for me, this picture held so much joy that whenever I looked at it when depression hit me, it helped in lessening the pain somehow.

I now look at my sister's face in the picture, laughing with one hand in the air and the other wrapped around my shoulder. She loved going to the beach and the huge smile on her face was proof of how happy she was that day.

I look up at Alex's face, the perfect cheekbones, the clear eyes framed with long lashes, his dark brows furrowed at my expression which is probably mournful. Then I look at the sky from the car window, pale blue with white tufts of clouds on the horizon.

The day was turning out to be beautiful.

I reach for the dial and switch to a station playing Maroon 5 marathon, and start singing along with Adam Levine. Alex looks at me with a contemplative expression on his face. I smile at him and watch his face relax into a smile as well. I think I see a flicker of affection in his gaze, but couldn't confirm it as he immediately turns to face ahead and starts singing too. I do the same, and together we butcher all of Maroon 5's songs with a grin on our faces.

Who would've thought. I was actually enjoying getting kidnapped.