Bestfriend or Best Lover

FOURTEEN

Belle's POV

The silence was excruciating! Arden had said all but three words to me in the time it had taken for us to wake up and secure ourselves in his car. As if that wasn't bad enough, the radio was broken.

Fan-fucking-tastic!

We are now passing through pensylvannia and entering new jersey, meaning there was at least another three and a half hours to go, and I had needed to use the restroom since pretty much half an hour ago. Normally, I would've just said something, but I felt too scared to suggest stopping, fearful of pissing him off even further. It was obvious he regretted last night's actions, but why he felt the need to take his foul mood out on me still remained a mystery. Sure, I kissed him back, but he started it. And if he'd only hear me out, he'd realise that while I was the one who prohibited our relationship from exceeding friendship territory to begin with, I had since changed my mind.

"Do you need the toilet or anything?" he asked; voice strained from his lack of talking.

"Yes please. Do you mind stopping?" I replied, planning on grabbing a packet of Starbursts with the hopes it perked him up a little.

"No, I don't mind. The next service station is in two miles. We'll stop there for a bit."

Perfect.

~~~

It was a little after two when we arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, the weather is warm and humid at this month. Scenery couldn't have been more gorgeous. Cleveland is actually a pretty cool place. They've got a revitalized downtown, a beautiful lakefront park, and a food and drink scene and after suffering through the most awkward seven hours of my life, I was finally excited to be at our destination. We made it to the hotel in no time and my God, I was impressed. The Ritz-Carlton, simply looked to its surroundings.

"This looks nice," I stated, to which Arden simply nodded.

We parked up and set about unloading our luggage, which mainly consisted of me watching as Arden manoeuvred my suitcase and his holdall from the boot, too useless to partake in any kind of help.

"Arden! You made it!" declared a young woman sporting a fashionable pixie cut and bright brown eyes. "How long did it take you both to get up here?" she asked, shooting me a friendly smile.

"About seven hours. That was with a stop, though," he replied, gifting the girl and her plus one his eyes.

"That's not bad then. This is Mark, by the way, my other half. Mark, this is Arden, my main competition," she laughed, certainly lightening the mood.

"Nice to meet you."

"Likewise, this is Belle, my...friend. Belle, this is Katlyn, another Hotel Manager from our other branch." he introduced, rather painfully passing comment on the two of us being just friends.

"Oh, so you're Belle. I feel like you're a celebrity in our monthly hotel manager branch meeting. He never shuts up talking about you," claimed Katlyn, unknowingly causing Arden to blush.

He shuffled from one foot to another and rather than acknowledging her comment, simply moved forwards to express our need to check-in. Well, at least it wasn't just me he was being rude to.

"Ignore him; he's been in a crapy mood all morning," I stated, quietly so he didn't hear.

"Is he stressed about this weekend too?" she questioned, with nothing but understanding towards the situation.

"Yeah, that among other things," I admitted, figuring our current circumstance was probably factoring into it as well.

Katlyn offered my shoulder a friendly squeeze, and with a look that undeniably screamed sympathy, left Arden and me to check-in, with the promise of catching up with us later. Her welcoming smile and friendly nature had settled me down slightly. I made a mental note to cling to her tonight should Arden choose to remain a grumpy for the entire evening. I understood he was under a lot of pressure, but that didn't give him the right to act so childishly.