“Sorry, I…”
“Fine. She’s going to school. She can make it through a day.”
“Yeah. Listen… Logan, if you want to have her come to our house after school some days so you don’t have to finish at the garage so early, or just…for any reason really, we’d love to have her.”
He stopped walking, and turned to look at her. The sadness in his blue eyes seemed to be buried under a glint of something hard she couldn’t read, and it made her stomach hurt. “Thanks, Sam.”
FIVE
Route 66
1957 Chevy Bel Air
Now
“Be safe,” Elysia said as Sam hefted her travel bag—traveling light as instructed by her very very bossy boss—over her shoulder.
Logan was her boss.
Lord.
Elysia had met Sam at her vacation rental at checkout time—to send her off and to get a key to Sam’s house.
“We’ll be safe,” she said, her stomach getting tight, and she didn’t know why, but she sort of loved it.
She felt excited.
This was unknown.
This was adventure.
She was still angry and hurt and uncertain and a whole lot of other things, but she was going on a damned adventure.
“I still can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“I have nothing else to do,” she said.
“I mean, you could write a piece about…”
She put her hand up. “I’m not writing about this. Not now. Not ever, because I am never letting anyone know this happened to me.”
“You don’t think people have figured it out?”
“No. I haven’t said anything.”
“You kind of did when you changed your social media profile pic to a selfie and put up a quote about strength.”
Sam made an exasperated sound. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does, and trust me, people have guessed. Don’t you ever divorce-stalk people?”
She blinked. “Well. Sure. But when I do it, it’s different, andweare not getting divorced.”
“I know. You’re separated. It’s different. What did you tell your kids, because they’re bound to hear gossip?”
“They’re boys, El. They aren’t going to get small-town gossip.”
“But if they do?”
