“Yup.”
“You guys were fine though, right?” he said. “I heard that you both walked away without a scratch.”
“We did. The metal gods were smiling on us that night. Just wish they’d done more for the other folks involved.”
“This isn’t that,” he said, running his hand up my back. “Sobreathe and let me get those, okay.”
“Thanks.”
He caressed my back for a while longer before collecting my errant O-rings. By then, my breathing was back to normal, even if I couldn’t shake the memories of that night. It was my fault Johnny had been behind the wheel in the first place. It was my car, but I’d pounded so much booze that night that I’d shoved my keys at him and begged him to get me the fuck out of there before I did something stupid.
The something stupid on my list had been blond, about six-foot-five, and a walking advertisement for a good time. Only that night, a drunken fuckfest had been the furthest thing from my mind, despite the way he’d been hanging all over me. Now that I look back on it, that’s the first time I truly remember feeling like I wanted something more, something real with another person, instead of the endless stream of hookups.
“Feel better now?” Kit asked as he placed the last of the O-rings back in the container, closed the lid, and sat so close to me that you couldn’t have slid a piece of paper between us.
“Somewhat.”
Ozzy ruffled my hair, and when I gazed up at him, he passed me a cart. “Let it go, brutha. What happened that night is on the idiot who used the highway like his personal speedway, not the people who got caught up in the chaos. You started turning over a new leaf the night you walked out of that party alone.”
His noticing helped ease the ache in my chest when I thought about that night. Sometimes it was hard to see anything besides the way it had ended, but Ozzy was right; I needed to move on and focus on being better than the guy I’d been back then.
“Okay, guys, here’s the deal,” Pat said when he stepped through to the back. “We’ve got a rear tire blown; it’s an inside one, so we’ve still got one good tire left on that side and one of those big-ass highway rest stations six miles up the road. They’ve got mechanics there and a shop that’s used to dealing with big rigs, so we should be okay. You guys just sit tight, and I’m going to take it nice and slow. As long as we don’t hitanything else, we should get there just fine.”
“Thanks, Pat,” Ozzy said, plopping on the couch beside Dash.
“We might as well stock up on snacks when we get there,” Dash suggested. “And grab something for supper, since we probably won’t be able to stop until we get to Chicago.”
“We, um, might want to grab hoodies, baseball caps, and sunglasses,” I suggested, “just to blend in and all since the only guard we have is Sully. Maybe, um, lose the band t-shirt too, Dash, before someone realizes that you’re walking around with your face on your chest.”
“All good ideas,” Sully said from where he stood in the kitchenette portion of the bus. “I was just coming back here to suggest that and tell you to do your best to blend in for however long it takes them to change a tire.”
“Hopefully not long,” Dash said as he stood and headed to the back.
“From your lips to the goddess’s ears,” Sully said, eyeing me until I squirmed and hurried to tug on a hoodie and a pair of shades.
I tied my distinctive hair back too, swapped the sleep pants I had on for jeans, snagged my wallet, and attached the chain to one of the loops as we pulled into the rest stop.
“Want to help me pick out the chips and popcorn for movie night?” Kit asked as we headed for the door.
“Sure, maybe we can find nerd ropes too,” I said. “And Reese’s Pieces.”
“Just do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Don’t pour them in the popcorn this time.”
“What???” I grumbled as we stepped off the bus behind the garage and headed for the giant convenience store beside it. “Man, I love places like this.”
“Check it out, they’ve got a claw machine,” I said and immediately fished a dollar from my wallet and fed it into the machine.
There was a squirrel holding a nut that looked like the onefromIce Agethat I absolutely had to have, but the claws slipped off instead of gripping when they closed around it. Fine. Another dollar, another try. This time I dislodged it some before the claws slipped free.
Getting closer.
This time the claws lifted the squirrel free of the pile, but the moment it swung, the damned squirrel slipped free and landed on top of the pile. Grumbling, I fished out another dollar, shoved it in, and narrowed my eyes on my prize, determined to land it this time. The way the squirrel was angled made it tricky, but I got the claws around it again, only to lift it and drop it in a worse position than the one before.
“Oh, come on!” I snarled, wishing I could just grab the machine and shake the fuckin’ squirrel out at this point.