Random on Tour: Los Angeles (Random Series #7) by Julia Kent

life like that. Well, five. The first two years I’d spent simply tying to stop the never-ending images and physical sensations of reliving my attack.
    That took every ounce of energy I had.
    Tyler came walking back to the car, looking a little odd. Pale. Oh, no. Was he getting sick? I couldn’t drive the rest of the way with a puking guy in my car.
    “You okay?” I asked as he buckled up.
    “Sure.”
    “If you’re not, we can—”
    “I’m fine. Drive. You drive the next hour and then I’ll take the next shit—er, shift.”
    I gave him a questioning look that he ignored. I pulled away. As I got back on the interstate, Tyler began to breathe meditatively, his eyes like bullets aimed for the horizon, his nose twitching with each inbreath, holding, then nostrils flaring on the outbreath. After ten breaths I was more relaxed, even though I wasn’t doing the breathing. 
    “You seem—”
    “I’m fine.” He closed his eyes.
    And then a sound like a rusty gate creaking open came out of...him.
    Being a polite midwestern woman, I ignored it. Maybe Tyler had some GI thing he was too embarrassed to talk about. We had more than enough tension between us; I wasn’t about to bring up his digestive issues. He continued his slow breathing and reached for a bottled water and a fistful of gummy bears.
    For the next twenty minutes I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he fed one after the other at regular intervals into his mouth, little bears going to their gustatory deaths.
    I kept eating them too. I couldn’t help myself. Sugar free, guilt free, and they tasted just as good as the real thing. Who knew?
    And then that sound emerged, like a robot being crushed in the gates of hell.
    His eyes flew open.
    “I need a bathroom!” Panic bloomed in those normally closed-off eyes. It was an odd thing of beauty.
    We passed a giant green highway sign. “Twenty-two miles to the next rest area,” I said sweetly.
    “I can read.”
    And then the car filled with the bad breath of Hades. I flinched and very, very slowly moved my hand to the window button. Tyler beat me to his, lowering the window fast but not saying a word, his jaw clenched. 
    I bit my lip to make sure I didn’t laugh. Poor guy. Whatever he was going through was mortifying. I’d be embarrassed if I were him, and we were trapped in a car together. For whatever reason, I felt less self-conscious. It might be petty, but to see him vulnerable and in a predicament made me feel more secure.
    I’m not above admitting that.
    He winced, and a sheen of sweat broke on on his face. A dawning sense that not only was something very wrong with him, but it might be contagious, began to seep in to my bones. 
    “Tyler, I think we need to get you to a doctor.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “But—”
    “Just drive. I’m not missing this concert.”
    Tyler
    I was not going to have my bowels open up like this. Talk about vulnerability. Some kind of evil settled into my gut and was painstakingly turning a firehose against the lining of my intestines. 
    I hadn’t experienced anything like this since I was thirteen and Dad got a bunch of bad canned chicken from the food pantry two blocks over. We’d been wiped out for three days.
    This was worse.
    Pockets of gas moved around inside me like Tetris pieces. Worse: we could both hear them, like groans from the sarlacc pit. 
    Keeping a poker face through this was as hard as controlling the, uh...output.
    If I just breathed in through my nose, and out through my mouth, I’d—
    The sarlacc spoke.
    “God, Tyler, I think you’ve got some kind of stomach bug and—”
    Then Mordor spoke back .
    Maggie looked down at her own belly in disbelief. “What? I don’t—” Her words cut off with a facial expression I knew all too well.
    She pressed down hard on the accelerator.
    How many miles before that next rest stop?
    I didn’t think that anything could make this drive worse. I should have known better. In my life, just when you think