Love & Luck(35)

Suddenly, a gush of wind blasted Clover, bumping us off the road and into the shoulder. And this time, Rowan’s choice of language was a bit more potent than “feck.”

“Rowan, you got this?” I asked. He cranked frantically at the steering wheel, trying to regain equilibrium, but the hardest gale yet caught us on the opposite side. For a nanosecond, Clover favored her left two wheels. Ian lurched for the cereal box, dry heaving.

I gagged. I could see Ian puke a million times and never get used to it. I patted him clumsily, keeping my face averted. “It’s okay, Ian. It’s okay.”

“Now I’m pulling over.” Rowan pulled over to the foot-wide shoulder, then threw the car into park, collapsing over the steering wheel. Ian rolled his window down, sending in a spray of rain as he stuck his head outside.

“Well, that was traumatizing,” I said, taking a few deep breaths of my own.

Suddenly, the car began vibrating. “What—” Ian started, his eyes wide, but just then a massive tour bus sliced around the corner.

“Hang on,” Rowan warned. I pulled Ian inside, and we all braced for death as we watched the bus narrowly miss our front bumper. A large swell of water slammed into the car. We all screamed, haunted-house style.

“We are all going to die!” I wailed, once we’d all stopped screaming. Water trickled in through Ian’s window, and he quickly rolled it up.

“Death by tour bus.” Rowan sighed.

Suddenly, a terrible non-storm-related thought popped into my head, and I grabbed the back of Ian’s seat. “Ian, there’s no way we’re going to run into the wedding tour, right? Didn’t Aunt Mel say they’re touring western Ireland?”

Ian made a little X with his fingers, which I guess was supposed to mean “no.” “I hacked into Mom’s e-mail and printed out a copy of their itinerary. We aren’t going to be anywhere near them.”

“Hacked?” I said. “By that do you mean you used her password?” Our mom either didn’t know or care that you’re supposed to change your passwords often. Archie had figured it out one December, and we’d been using it to track our Christmas presents ever since. “Can you imagine if we ran into them?”

Ian shook his head. “It’s impossible. I scheduled our trip to make sure there was no possible way for us to run into them. Also, I don’t know if that’s our biggest concern right now,” he said, pointing to the sky. His face was shamrock green.

Suddenly, a shot of ice-cold water trickled down my back, and I catapulted forward. “Cold!” I screamed, water pouring down from my window. The inside of my window. “Rowan! The car is leaking.”

He arched back just as the stream transformed from a trickle to a gush. “No! Max said the new top was fine.”

“What top? Who’s Max?” I asked, like details would solve the fact that it was raining in the back seat.

“The guy who helped me repair—”

“It’s my window too!” Ian yelped, his pitch identical to mine. He grabbed his handle, frantically trying to roll up his already-rolled-up window.

“Ian, that’s not going to help,” I said.

Rowan turned the key and jetted onto the road, and Clover responded by giving up on any attempt at being waterproof. Water flooded in through every possible crevice. We sped over a small bridge, water flowing in at full speed as we pulled into a tiny two-pump gas station.

Ian frantically rolled down his window and stuck his head out, gasping like a beached flounder. I was soaked. Water pooled in the seat of my shorts, and my hair hung in stringy clumps.

“Did that really just happen?” Rowan fell back against his seat.

“Addie, how do we fix it?” Ian asked.

Mechanic Addie to the rescue. I reached up to wiggle the roof, and beads of water tumbled in. “Do we care about pretty?” I asked.

Rowan tapped his hand on the dashboard. “Does it look like we care about pretty?”

“Valid,” I said. “We need tape. Really strong, thick tape.”

Rowan nodded vigorously. “Tape. Got it. I’ll just pop in the shop and ask.” He grabbed a beanie from the cup holder and pulled it on as he sprinted for the gas station.

“We almost just drowned in a Volkswagen,” Ian said, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. “Can you imagine the obituary? Killer car traps trio—”

“Ian.” I reached over to still his restless fingers. I had a theory that Ian had spent a previous life as a hummingbird. Or an athletic coffee bean. “What’s up with Rowan’s mom?”

He glanced back, his eyebrows bent. “What are you talking about?”

“Back at the gas station I overheard him yelling at her. He said something about making a decision before the end of the summer.”

“Really?” Ian tucked a strand of hair into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t know very much about his family. I didn’t even know his parents were divorced until he brought it up back at the Burren.”

“Are you serious?” This was so my brother. All of my brothers. I wanted to know everything about my friends—right down to the name of their first pet and what toppings they liked on their pizza. Lina claimed to remember our first sleepover as more of a police interrogation. My brothers, on the other hand, seemed to need only a few similarities to form a bond. You like football and tacos? Me too.