This has not been spellchecked or edited 😛 And this is not a continuation of last week’s prompt. Remember to leave prompts in the comments so I don’t have to spend my time finding my own 😉

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Prompt: “You’re lucky I’m tired because if I was fully awake I would have already shoved you off this roof.”

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Elizabeth Webber clenched her fists around the steering wheel of the minivan as she heard Maxie Jones blow another goddamn bubble. Pop! Snap!

She was going to murder them all.

She would pull this godforsaken rental vehicle over, force these morons out onto the side of the road and then she would beat them to death. Bury them somewhere in the endless desert that served as the only landscape she’d seen in three days.

She hated people. She hated these people. Who the hell decided it would be a good idea to pile themselves into one car and go cross country?

“Turn on 90s on 9!” Maxiechirped from the back of the van, where she and her boyfriend Nathan had spent most of the trip cuddling and being generally the worst people alive.

“Kiss my ass,” Elizabeth muttered, slapping Patrick Drake’s hand as he reached out to obey Maxie’s dictate. “You do it, and you’ll be out the window.”

“Hey.” Patrick slapped her hand back and changed the station—to Today’s Hits! which might be more mildly annoying than Maxie’s suggestion. If she had to listen to that damned Bieber song one more time—

“Just because you got dumped, Elizabeth,” Maxie began, with as much sympathy as she could muster—

“I did not get dumped,” Elizabeth said, her teeth clenched. “I dumped him. I am the dumper.”

“Well, he was screwing someone else,” Patrick added helpfully. “So I mean, in that sense—”

“If you finish thought, Patrick Michael Drake, I will set you on fire and let the coyotes eat your remains.”

“Are you guys bothering Elizabeth again?” Robin Scorpio said, with a yawn. How Patrick’s girlfriend and Maxie’s cousin managed to sleep through the incessant yacking—

“I’m not bothering. I’m simply saying she’s been taking her bad mood out on us for the last two thousand miles,” Maxie said. “And it’s not cool. This is our summer road trip, too.”

“Speaking of road trips,” Patrick murmured, squinting at the GPS. “There’s a town coming up at the next exit. Last one for about an hour. We could stop there for the night.”

Maybe it was near an airport. She’d fly back to Port Charles, make sure that lying slime bag was out of her life and find new friends—new friends without annoying relatives.

“Sounds good. I’m getting tired of the car,” Robin said. “And I’m sure Elizabeth wants a break from driving.”

“She’s so diplomatic,” Maxie giggled to her boyfriend. “We all want a break from Elizabeth’s driving.”

“One more crack about my driving and I’m steering this van into on-coming traffic,” Elizabeth snapped.

“Yeah…” Patrick twisted in his seat to look at the couple in the back. “She’ll do it, too, so shut up, Maxie.”

“We should have flown,” the blonde pouted, but mercifully—she stopped talking.

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The sixth seat in the car was empty—having been meant for the son of a bitch she’d found bouncing on one of his co-workers the day they were supposed to leave. Elizabeth had thought a road trip to California would get her mind off it all.

Until she remembered she was going with two other couples, and while Patrick and Robin were being kind enough to keep their PDAs to a minimum, Maxie could give two shits.

She’d never liked that girl.

After they’d checked into a hotel, the four of them had disappeared to find a diner, while Elizabeth decided a night in with some pizza would be great.

Until the delivery guy brought her ham and pineapple pizza and then blinked at her when told it was the wrong order.

He’d vaguely said something about coming back, but she had her doubts.

And now, standing in front of the ice machine and finding it out of order…

“You know, if I ever needed proof that God was a man and not on my side,” she muttered, “this trip—this is it.”

She gave it one last mighty kick, turned, and smacked right into a broad chest. “Oof—watch where you’re going!” Elizabeth began, stepping back and tilting her head up—and blinking.

“I could say the same about you,” the gorgeous blond man in a pair of blue jeans and a gray uniformed shirt proclaiming his name to be Jason. It hung unbottoned over a dark blue t-shirt.

“Sorry about this machine,” he continued, setting a tool box down. “Owners don’t want to replace it.”

“Oh. Well….” Elizabeth bit her lip, “sorry about kicking it.”

He just shrugged. “It’s not gonna get any more broken.” He—Jason—unscrewed something, and the machine split into two as he opened it. “Did it make you feel better?”

“For a second,” she admitted. “And then…” She looked down the walkway toward the parking lot where the minivan had been parked before the others had left for dinner. “What city am I in, anyway?”

“McLean, Texas,” Jason replied. “I guess we’re not your destination.” He squinted at the machine. “Can you hand me that flash light?”

“What?” She blinked, then handed it to him. “Oh. No, not really. Patrick—my best friend’s boyfriend—he wanted to do a road trip along Route 66 this summer. We’ve been planning it for months.” She looked away, where the lights of the road could still be dimly seen. “I’m ruining it for them.”

“Can you give me that racket wrench?”

She handed it to him. “I’m not a bad friend. Not normally. But at the last minute, Robin wanted to bring her cousin and her boyfriend, and Maxie drives me up the wall. She’s always talking and never has anything to say.”

“So why didn’t you say no?”

His head was all but inside the machine now, his voice muffled as he did—something—to the gears inside.

“Because she’s my best friend. And Maxie’s parents are divorcing—” Elizabeth hesitated. She’d let herself forget that—her own irritation and anger had swallowed everything.

“Can you give me the socket wrench?”

She did so. “Right before we left—I broke up with my boyfriend. He was supposed to come, too.”

“At least it wasn’t a nonrefundable trip.” Jason pulled back, looking at her, his blue eyes with a bit of wicked amusement. “Or you know, after you’d put deposits on caterers. And hotels. You know how difficult it is to get out of those contracts?”

“Guess I hadn’t thought about it that way. The only thing I had to cover was his part of the rental for the van.” She tilted her head. “You speaking from experience?”

Jason shrugged as he reached for a rag to deal with his greasy hands. “My sister. Asshole stood her up two weeks before the wedding. He’s lucky my dad didn’t have a shotgun handy.”

“I’m probably better off. It’s not like we were dating that long,” Elizabeth admitted as she watched Jason close the ice machine back up. “But I should have backed out of the trip.”

“Maybe.” Jason took the bucket she’d had in one of her hands and shoved it under the dispenser. He punched the button with a closed fist. A cascade of ice chips slid into the red plastic. “There you go,” he said, handing her the bucket. ‘

Their hands brushed as she accepted it. His skin was rough, calloused. Elizabeth bit her lip and tilted her head. “You like ham and pineapple pizza?”

“Is that where my order went?” Jason said, grinning. “I guess Bobbie Mack got confused with two orders. You mind sharing?”

“Not even a little.”

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