EIGHT
Now
“Your turn to drive, sunshine.”
Logan tossed the keys her way, and she watched them hit the ground. Then looked back up at him. “I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“I know.” He smiled and her, and she wanted to punch it off his face. “Because breakfast doesn’t start till 6:30 a.m. This was poorly planned.”
She rolled her eyes and bent down to pick the keys up. “I’m driving us through Starbucks.”
“I can’t stop you.”
“No, you can’t. I’ve taken women’s self-defense courses, and I am well-versed on how to attack a man’s fleshy parts viciously with nothing but a set of car keys.”
“I don’t want a demonstration.”
She slid into the driver’s seat and, without thought, ran her hand over the dash. It was a beautiful car. She could honestly say she’d never felt the urge to pet a car before. But this one was…well, it was a hot car.
She put the keys into the ignition—a novelty since her car had a push-button start—and turned the engine over.
She closed her eyes and just savored the moment. This sounded like freedom.
She was a little crabby because it was so early, but in general, she was still riding on the euphoria that had overtaken her last night. The first moment she’d felt…happy since all of this started. She could keep on feeling happy.
This was freedom.
She was going to enjoy it.
“Head out of the parking lot and turn left,” he said.
“Map me to coffee,” she said.
With a lot of grumbling, he acquiesced. In under five minutes—five minutes; he was a drama queen—they were back on the road.
And he had also gotten a coffee.
She was glad they’d gotten coffee, because it was clear the drive was going to involve quite a few hours of nothing but dust and scrub brush.
The rolling hills soon turned into bigger mountains, the short, scraggly plants giving way to twisted clusters of Joshua trees that looked like they belonged on an alien planet rather than in the eastern part of California.
Desert towns, Sam quickly decided, were like dry coastal towns. A tacky, quirky sensibility seemed like a prerequisite for living there. Sam loved it. The landscape was monochromatic—various shades of tan beneath a sun-bleached sky—but the buildings were bright pink and teal. One had a giant roadrunner painted onto the side of it. They passed caravans selling tacos and a vintage thrift store called Funky and Darn Near New.
She looked down and saw the gas gauge was migrating towardE, and she wasn’t sure how plentiful gas stations would be the rest of the drive to Flagstaff.
She pulled into one of the smaller stations just off the highway, and Logan opened the passenger door. “I’m going to grab some snacks.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Um. Okay, I hate to admit this, but I haven’t ever actually pumped my own gas.”
He tilted his head to the side. “What?”
“Well, we were never allowed to in Oregon, and I still don’t go to the self-serve pumps! I’ve never not been on a road trip with Will, and he just does it.”
“Oh, well, there is a first time for everything, Sam. Consider this an education.”
“Do you have to say it like that?” she groused.
“I do.”
