We sat in silence for a long while. Chance looked tense and kept sucking down the Pixy Stix one by one. After about a half-hour, I decided to break the ice. “How do you keep a body like that eating the way you do?”

“Is that your way of saying you like my body? You like what you see?”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“Not exactly, but you implied it.”

“Jackass.”

“Lots and lots of sex, Aubrey. That’s how I do it.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“No. I just wanted to see your face turn that pretty shade of pink it does when you’re embarrassed.” He snickered. “In answer to your question, I work out a lot, and I don’t eat like this every day. But on road trips, all dietary rules go out the window. You need to be able to eat what you want to keep sane.”

“Well, from what I see, you’re pretty insane, so it’s not working.”

He smiled at me, and I returned it. The aftermath of our tense conversation from earlier finally seemed to have faded away. “Give me one of the packages of pretzels, please.”

He took one out of the paper bag and handed it to me then looked behind his shoulder to my packed backseat. “What do you have in all these bags back here, anyway?”

“Don’t touch my stuff.”

“I bet there are some treasures in this junk that would tell me everything I ever needed to know about you.”

He started to blindly grab things out of my bags. “Oh, a book! Happy Bitch: The girlfriend’s straight-up guide to losing the baggage and finding the fun, fabulous you inside.”

“Put that back and don’t touch that bag again!”

“Alright. But what exactly are you hiding in this one that’s so bad?”

Shit.

Chance kept digging. “What’s this now?”

Oh no!

He pulled out my lifelike flesh-toned vibrator. “Princess…is this a silicone cock in a bejeweled case? No wonder why you didn’t mind that Harry couldn’t do it for you. You were taking it into your own hands and into your own—”

“Give me that!”

He took it out of the case. “Oh…this thing is pathetic. We could do a lot better than that.”

“Chance…seriously, I’m not joking. Hand it over…now!”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all pleasure ourselves.”

The events that followed seemed to happen in quick succession. He kept waving the dildo around as I tried to grab it. A truck driver that noticed it honked at us. The car was swerving. Then, I saw it. It was standing in the middle of the road with frightened eyes, frozen like a deer in headlights. I suddenly cut the wheel hard to the right, driving straight into an embankment, not knowing if I had killed him.

Chapter Four

“Is he breathing?” I held my own breath hovering over Chance until I saw the rise and fall of its little stomach. It had shaggy long hair and was spotted like a cow, but its eyes bulged from its head more like a frog. The poor goat was only a baby. One I’d just raced into with my car while fighting over a damn vibrator.

At first, I didn’t actually think I’d hit him. But then I watched in horror as he fell straight over, all four legs standing straight up stiff, like something out of a bad movie. Now we were both standing over him, waiting for something to happen, neither of us quite sure what to do.

Without warning, the goat flipped himself and was suddenly standing on all four feet. Startled, we both jumped back. Chance’s arms spanned wide as if to protect me from a killer beast.

The baby goat took a few cautious steps, and then proceeded to walk directly into my BMW, as if the two-ton mass of steel wasn’t even there. “Oh my God. I must have hurt his head. Look how confused the poor thing is.” I reached out to touch the wounded animal, and Chance grabbed my arm, stopping me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to pick him up. Look at him. He’s hurt. I ran him over.” I skirted around Chance and leaned down on one knee, extending my hand in peace to the sweet little goat. “And it’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Yes, your fault. If you hadn’t been distracting me, I would have been paying more attention to the road, and this would have never happened.” The goat nuzzled into my hand. “Oh my God. Look how cute he is.” I petted the top of his head, and he snuggled even closer.

“It’s not my fault. If you weren’t so uptight about your sexuality, you would have been calm when I found your magic wand.”

I stopped petting the goat’s head. “I am not uptight about my sexuality.”

Chance folded his arms across his chest. “Admit that you pleasure yourself then. I want to hear you say it.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Uptight.”

“Pervert.”

“A pervert is someone who has sexual behavior that is wrong or unacceptable. That’s your problem. You think pleasuring yourself is wrong. I find it perfectly acceptable. In fact, I rather like the thought of you using your little magic wand.”

I was pretty sure my eyes resembled the poor goat’s—bulging from my head. Just then, a truck whizzed by us. One of those double trailers that always made me nervous to drive near. A whoosh of wind in its wake reminded me how close to the road we actually were.

“Come on. It’s dangerous out here,” Chance said.

“What are we going to do with Esmerelda?”

“Who?”

“Him.” I scratched my nails behind the goat’s ear, and he made a low humming noise that sounded like he was saying, “mommmm.”

“Let him go.” Chance waved his arm in the direction of the wooded area behind him. “Back where he came from. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine.”

“Looks fine to me.”

“I think he has a head injury.”

Chance shook his head. “He’s fine. Watch.” He clapped his hands and made kissing sounds as if he were calling a dog. “Come on buddy. This way.”

Esmerelda made no effort to move, quite content with her head pressed against my chest and her body between my legs.

“You need to let go of him.”

“I’m not holding him here.”

“Not physically. But he’s got his head buried between your cleavage and his body between your thighs. No male is going to walk away from that willfully.”

“See. Told you. Pervert.”

Another truck flew past. This time he sat on his horn as he breezed by, and I went from squatting down to tumbling back onto my ass. The goat…well, he took one step and fell over again—all four legs stood straight up in the air. I couldn’t believe I’d damaged such an adorable baby goat.

“See. He’s hurt. We can’t leave him here.”

“What do you expect us to do for him? Belt him into the backseat of the car and take him to a veterinarian for a full work up?”

Two hours later, we were finally pulling off the highway in Sterling, Colorado to take our passenger to the Sterling Animal Hospital. It had taken Chance nearly a half-hour to unpack and repack the back of my car to make room. He wasn’t happy about it.