The Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch by Beth O'Leary (books to read now TXT) ๐

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- Author: Beth O'Leary
Read book online ยซThe Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch by Beth O'Leary (books to read now TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Beth O'Leary
Also by Beth OโLeary
The Flatshare
The Switch
This ebook published in 2021 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright ยฉ 2021 Beth OโLeary Ltd
The moral right of Beth OโLeary to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
HB ISBN 978 1 52940 905 5
TPB ISBN 978 1 52940 906 2
EB ISBN 978 1 52940 908 6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the authorโs imagination
or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
For my bridesmaids
Contents
The Road Trip
Also By
Title
Copyright
Dedication
NOW
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
THEN
Addie
Dylan
NOW
Addie
Dylan
THEN
Addie
Dylan
Addie
NOW
Dylan
Addie
THEN
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
NOW
Dylan
Addie
THEN
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
NOW
Addie
Dylan
THEN
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
NOW
Dylan
THEN
Addie
Dylan
NOW
Addie
Dylan
THEN
Addie
Dylan
NOW
Addie
THEN
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
NOW
Dylan
Addie
THEN
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
NOW
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Addie
Dylan
Acknowledgements
NOW
Dylan
โThe road of friendship never did run smooth, is what Iโm saying,โ Marcus tells me, fidgeting with his seat belt.
This is my first experience of a heartfelt apology from Marcus, and so far it has involved six clichรฉs, two butchered literary references and no eye contact. The word sorry did feature, but it was preceded by Iโm not very good at saying, which somewhat undermined its sincerity.
I shift up a gear. โIsnโt it the course of true love that never runs smooth? A Midsummer Nightโs Dream, I believe.โ
Weโre by the twenty-four-hour Tesco. Itโs half four in the morning, the air thick with duvet-darkness, but the bland yellow light from the shop illuminates the three people in the car in front as if theyโve just moved into a spotlight. Weโre close behind them, both following the slow, rattling path of a lorry ahead.
For a flash of a second I see the driverโs face in the rear-view mirror. She reminds me of Addie โ if you think about someone enough, you start to see them everywhere.
Marcus huffs. โIโm talking about my feelings, Dylan. This is agony. Please get your head out of your arse so that you can actually listen.โ
I smile at that. โAll right. Iโm listening.โ
I drive on, past the bakery. The eyes of the driver in front are lit again in the mirror, her eyebrows slightly raised behind squarish glasses.
โIโm just saying, we hit some bumps, I get that, and I didnโt handle things well, and thatโs โ thatโs really unfortunate that that happened.โ
Astonishing, really, the linguistic knots in which he will tie himself to avoid a simple Iโm sorry. I stay silent. Marcus coughs and fidgets some more, and I almost take pity and tell him itโs all right, he doesnโt have to say it if heโs not ready, but as we idle past the bookieโs another flash of light hits the car in front and Marcus is forgotten. The driver has wound the window down, and sheโs stretched an arm out, gripping the roof of the car. Her wrist is looped with bracelets, glimmering silver-red in the car lightsโ glare. The gesture is so achingly familiar โ the arm, slender and pale, the assertion of it, and those bracelets, the round, childish beads stacked up her wrist. Iโd know them anywhere. My heart jolts like Iโve missed a step because it is her, itโs Addie, her eyes meeting mine in the rear-view mirror.
And then Marcus screams.
Earlier, Marcus gave a similarly horrified scream when we passed a Greggs advertising vegan sausage rolls, so I donโt react as fast as I perhaps otherwise would. As the car in front stops sharply, and I fail to hit the brakes on the seventy-thousand-pound Mercedes that belongs to Marcusโs father, I have just enough time to regret this.
Addie
Bang.
My head whips up so fast my glasses go flying backwards off my ears and over the headrest. Someone screams. Oww, fuck โ a pain shoots up my neck, and all Iโm thinking is God, what did I do? Did I hit something?
โShit the bed,โ Deb says beside me. โAre you all right?โ
I fumble for my glasses. Theyโre not there, obviously.
โWhat the hell just happened?โ I manage.
My shaking hands go to the steering wheel, then the handbrake, then the rear-view mirror. Getting my bearings.
I see him in the mirror. A little blurred without my glasses. A little unreal. Itโs him, though, no question. Heโs so familiar that for a moment I feel as if Iโm looking at my own reflection. Suddenly my heartโs beating like itโs shoving for space.
Debโs getting out of the car. Ahead, the bin lorry moves off and its headlights catch the tail of the fox they braked for. Itโs moving on to the pavement at a saunter. Slowly, the scene pieces itself together: lorry stops for fox, I stop for lorry, and behind me Dylan doesnโt stop at all. Then โ bang.
I look back at Dylan in the mirror; heโs still looking at me. Everything seems to slow or quieten or fade, like someoneโs dialled the world down.
I havenโt seen Dylan for twenty months. He should have changed somehow. Everything else has. But even from here, even in half darkness, I know the exact line of his nose, his long eyelashes, his snakeskin yellow-green eyes. I know those eyes will be as wide and shocked as they were when he left me.
โWell,โ my sister says. โThe Miniโs done us proud.โ
The Mini. The car. Everything comes rushing back in and I unclick my seat belt. It takes three goes. My hands are shaking. When I next glance at the rear-view mirror my eyes focus on the foreground instead of the background and thereโs Rodney, crouched forward on our back seat with his hands over his head and his nose touching his knees.
Shit. I forgot all about Rodney.
โAre you all
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