6:45PM: Paige & Nate
“What?” She asked, distracted, glancing to the side only to see him rifling through her glove box. Her stomach dropped suddenly, hoping to God he wouldn’t find the mermaid she usually kept hanging on her rearview mirror. He’d gotten it on one of his deployments and it was far too gaudy for her to actually wear but she’d liked looking at it in her car. She hadn’t taken it down after the divorce. Her siren was her constant road companion and her relationship status wasn’t about to change that. Only when she and Nate had road tripped down to Oklahoma she realized it might look weird that it was still there and hastily had thrown it into the glovebox before he saw it. Seems like her quick fix was backfiring on her, but how was she supposed to know that he might go digging through there?
“Nate, what are you doing? There’s nothing in there. Can you pay attention to the road so you can give me directions? I still get turned around.”
Pulling his hand back, with the mermaid pendant in it, unfortunately, Nathan glanced at it, made a little ‘huh’ sound, then focused on the road, because he didn’t know what to really focus on, and that option seemed easier. Maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t running with his full cognizance just then. Putting the pendant back where he’d found it, he closed up the glove box.
“It’s a left up here,” he instructed with a gesture, leaning back into the passenger seat again. “Then a couple of rights.”
Aside from his instructions it was pretty quiet in the car after that. Nathan only realized he wasn’t that excited to see their place when Paige pulled into the driveway. He hadn’t bothered to ask if Pete was staying over at Savannah’s, and it only registered just then that he wasn’t looking forward to having the house to himself if that was the case.
“Thanks for the ride,” he offered once the car was in park, unclipping his seatbelt. “You comin’ to Sav’s tomorrow for Thanksgiving?” Nathan thought he’d already invited her, but his brain was a jumble.
Pushing through the awkward -- as seemed to be the norm between them -- she glanced over at Nate and gave a nod. “Sure. That sounds nice,” she said, adding a smile. She wished she could be home with her family for Thanksgiving but this was as good as it could get for her here in Austin.
Hitting the button to unlock the car doors, hoping to avoid a situation of Nate fighting to escape her car, she gave Nate an amused smile. “Drink some water tonight, okay? And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing,” Nathan replied, saluting her with a goofy grin. He leaned towards the console, but course redirected pretty quickly to pop the door open instead. Climbing out, he bent back over to look into the car.
“Lemme know y’all got home safe.” He waited only long enough for an affirmative from Paige before he latched the door again and meandered his way up the drive to the house.