“Need to use the bathroom or anything?” Nate asked once he was done filling the car.
“I’m good,” I said.
We drove in silence until we crossed the river and passed the border crossing. When we reached the 401, Nate asked, “You wanna put some music on?”
“Sure, hang on,” I said, and connected my phone to the car’s Bluetooth. Scrolling through my phone’s music library, I tried to make a selection. A memory of last night surfaced. On a whim, I looked up Christopher Cross and played the first song that popped up.
“Oh,” I said in surprise as the piano melody came through the speakers. “I know this song.”
“You do?” Nate asked, glancing over with a surprised look on his face.
“Yeah. My mom used to play it when I was a kid, I think. She liked a lot of this ’80s soft-rock stuff. Billy Joel, Genesis, Toto, all that stuff.”
I began to sing along, bobbing my head as a saxophone kicked in during the chorus. To my shock and absolutedelight,Nate sang the chorus along with me.
“I’ve got such a long way to go,”Nate sang. “To make it to the border of Mexico.”
“Nofuckingway.” I clapped my hands to my mouth, barely able to contain my giggles.
“What?” Nate asked, smiling broadly at me. “I’m not allowed to like this?”
“How on earth do you know the words to this? This is, like, old-people music.”
“How dare you?” Nate said with faux horror. “‘Ride Like the Wind’is a classic.”
Neither of us could keep a straight face, and we dissolved into laughter. Once we’d recovered, I replayed the song, and we both sang along. No one would have ever said Nate or I had angelic voices or could even hold a tune, but it didn’t matter to us. Ifound and put on an ’80s and ’90s oldies playlist. We sang along to the songs we knew, which was a surprising number.
I was having more fun with Nate today than I had in all the months I’d been with Rick combined. It was crazy to think I’d wanted to spend my life with a stuck-up and rigid man like that. Nate, on first glance, appeared to be a bad-boy heartbreaker. Someone who held all his emotions in check under a mask of indifference and cockiness. Now that I’d gotten to know him, I saw there was a lot more underneath, and I wanted to see more of it. Maybe I could be the one to drag out the rest of what he’d kept hidden for all these years.
I spotted a road sign ahead and made a split-second decision.
“Take that exit,” I said, pointing through the window. “Let’s go back via Leamington.”
Recalling the article I’d seen in the old newspaper the night before, I thought this directionmighttake us near the bridge. Maybe, if we found that location, I could bring it up without freaking Nate out too much.
“That will add at least an hour to the trip, Cameron,” Nate pointed out with a frown.
I shrugged. “So? We got the proof. Or at least the only proof we could get. What’s a little extra time before we get home? Do you have anything pressing?”
For a few seconds, he stared at me like I’d lost my mind while Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” blared through the stereo. Finally, he let out a little chuckle and shook his head ruefully.
“All right, then. Let’s have an adventure,” he said, and took the exit.
He didn’t really even argue. Without a second thought, he took my suggestion and ran with it. That kind of trust was difficult to find. He wasn’t doing this to impress me or win me over. He simply trusted that it would all be fine. Hopefully, I could reward that trust with some closure.
“You know,” I said, “most guys would argue about increasing the length of a trip like this.”
“Maybe the guys you’re used to would,” Nate said, responding without hesitation.
That statement gave me pause. I had to wonder if I’d somehow attracted the exact kind of men Ididn’twant. Some reverse, self-fulfilling prophecy or something.
As he drove, I did a bit of self-reflection. Up until a few couple weeks ago, my life had been marked by change and instability. Mom’s many failed relationships. Moving from Mexico to Canada. The financial struggles and everything that entailed. What if, in trying to stabilize my life, I’d actually hurt myself more than I would’ve if I’d simply thrown caution to the wind? At first, the thought was counterintuitive, but upon closer inspection, it gave me the sensation of being right.
I closed my eyes and pondered what other things I’d done wrong in my never-ending quest to have a normal, stable life. Before I got very far, the steady hum of the tires and wind lulled me into a dreamless sleep.
47
Nate
