Love and Relativity Read Online Free PDF Page A

me and Kayla.
    “Well, looks like you’re stuck with us. Ruben wants to ride in the same car as Kelly.”
    “Oh? Okay, then.” Poor Whitney.
    “Kayla, you ready?” He tugged her sleeve.
    She finally slipped her phone away and looked up, first at him, then at me. “Yeah, um. Sure. So she’s riding with us?”
    “Yes, she is,” I smiled sweetly.
    “Good times,” Jackson mumbled, climbing into his truck.
    I slid into the passenger seat after Kayla and she scooted in the middle, Jackson’s arm loosely draped around her shoulders. I cringed when a pile of garbage crunched beneath my feet, in awe that a human being could consume so much crap and leave it to rot in the car. Food wrappers, pieces of fishing gear, and all sorts of junk were plastered to the truck floor. It gave me a headache just looking at it.
    “Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Jackson said, eyeing my disgusted expression as he turned the ignition. “I know you’re already sizing up how much hand sanitizer you’re going to need to douse everything.”
    “So help me, if something crawls out of one of these bags, I will castrate you.”
    “I bet you’d love that.”
    By the time we jumped on the interstate, I’d collected all the garbage by our feet and shoved it in a plastic bag, and I wiped down the dashboard and door handle with enough hand sanitizer to kill a small army. Jackson’s rock station blared so loud I felt my brain shake in my skull. With my head propped on the side of the window, I worked hard to focus on my Kindle as we made our way north.
    “Could we turn this down a little?” I shouted, leaning over to peer at Jackson.
    “What’s that?”
    “The radio!” I held up my Kindle, knowing full well he knew what I meant.
    “You have a problem with my music?”
    “I have a problem with the volume,” I shouted, reaching over to turn the volume down. The second my fingers grazed the dial, he leaned over Kayla to glare at me.
    “Oh, I’m sorry, is that too loud for your granny ears?”
    “I wish I had granny ears so I didn’t have to hear that crap.”
    “Crap?” his voice shot up an octave and he sat back in his seat, shaking his head. “What would you prefer we listen to, your tree-hugging hippie folk rock?”
    “That would be perfect, thanks for asking.”
    “Jackson, be nice,” Kayla scolded him.
    “What are you reading, Huckleberry Finn or some shit?” He used the fingers that were dangling over Kayla’s shoulder to tap the side of my Kindle.
    “I wouldn’t classify Twain’s literature as ‘some shit,’ and no, Jackson, I’m not reading Huckleberry Finn .”
    “Well what is it?”
    “None of your business.” I flipped my Kindle off and shoved it in my bag. He would have a field day and make the next few hours living hell for me if he found out I was reading a romance novel. Hell, if he discovered my secret, he’d never let me live it down. I was a hardcore romance junkie, and I was damn proud of it...except when it meant admitting that pride to Jackson.
    “Right. It’s too sophisticated for me, I’m sure.”
    “Don’t you read?”
    “No. Who has time to read?”
    “Plenty of people do. You should try it some time.”
    “Well, we can’t all be that special.”
    “Ugh,” Kayla sighed. “Let’s turn the music back up.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Jackson said, flicking the dial up until the windows were rattling again.
    Over the next few hours, I jammed my earbuds into my ears and attempted to listen to humpback whale sounds, while Jackson blasted more rock tunes. I read a few chapters of my book, while Jackson played air guitar over the steering wheel. We bickered over which theme park we would go to, where to stop for lunch, and who would get first dibs on the best hotel room.
    By the time we made it to Orlando, we’d argued more than any seasoned married couple and were contemplating admitting one another into the nearest asylum.
    Whitney’s jaw dropped when she saw me jump out of