Junkie(19)

“Behave,” I told everyone within earshot.

They all saluted me with their SOLO cups.

I grimaced and pulled Jack along with me toward the door and my duffle. “You got a problem with me leaving?” I asked directly.

“Should I?” he countered.

“Nope.”

“Good enough for me.” He shrugged.

“You cool with keeping an eye on things?” I wanted him to know I was serious about that.

“Did you really just give me your support as the next president?”

I grinned. “Yep. So don’t fuck up this weekend.”

He nodded seriously. “I won’t.”

I suppressed a laugh and picked up my bag. “See ya Sunday.”

I didn’t wait for him to reply. I was too anxious to get outside.

The Fastback was running and the headlights cut across the grass and asphalt. My stomach fluttered with excitement as I jogged toward it.

Road trips were fun.

Road trips with Drew.

Soon as I opened the door, he started riding my ass. “You color coordinate all your outfits? Bring along four pairs of shoes?”

I threw the bag into the backseat and slid into the dark interior of the Mustang.

“You took so long I almost ran out of gas,” he cracked.

“You waited,” I said and spread my hands out in a what can you do gesture.

Drew rolled his head in my direction and grinned. “Put on your seatbelt, frat boy. I got some driving to do.”





Drew

I don’t like French fries.

I love them.

Golden and crispy on the outside, warm and potatoey on the inside, with just enough salt to make it like a damn party in my mouth.

With ketchup.

A man couldn’t eat fries without a bucket of ketchup. And not some off-brand, bottom-shelf kind of ketchup. There was only one ketchup: Heinz.

About an hour from the hotel where Gamble so generously reserved me a room, we pulled off at some roadside diner that looked like a grease pit. That meant they probably had some kickass fries.

I was starving. I’d skipped dinner because right after I’d gotten the call from Gamble (not his assistant, but the man himself), I’d headed out to the driveway and did a complete tune-up on my car.

No, technically it didn’t need one.

But one didn’t simply not do a tune-up when they were driving for a man who could quite literally make your dreams come true.

“I’m so hungry I could eat my own cooking right about now,” I said, killing the engine and pocketing the keys.

Trent made a face. “No one’s that hungry.”

“I can make shit,” I argued.

“Yeah, shit that makes people sick,” Trent quipped.

He was right. I was the worst cook known to man. Sometimes I burned shit in the microwave… I didn’t even know that was possible until I did it.

“Like you’re any better,” I retorted as he pulled open the glass door to the bullet-shaped silver diner and stepped in.

“I’m better than you.” He flashed me a smile over his shoulder. The dark-green fleece pullover he wore had the collar turned up, and the backward hat worked together to give him a sort of mysterious look. Kind of covered up, like someone with a lot of layers.

I knew all of Trent’s layers.

Or did I?

I didn’t let on I was thinking about anything other than what we were talking about, and I chuckled. “Well, that is true.”

Trent didn’t cook much either, but he was better at it.

His stuff was at least edible.

There had been more than one night of hanging out and playing video games that we were too lazy to go get anything, and he’d managed to put together some pretty good eats in the kitchen.

The diner was just like the cliché kind you’d see on TV or find on a roadside during a random road trip like tonight.

The inside was long, like a big rectangle or a bowling alley. Against the far wall was the line where the cook was preparing orders in plain sight for all the diners to watch. In front of the line stretched a long countertop with round stools that was peppered with napkin dispensers, ketchup bottles, and salt and pepper shakers.

The waitress was behind the counter on one end, standing behind a cash register—not a computer, but a genuine register. It made beeping sounds as she punched in the ticket someone had given her to pay.

She was an older woman with poufy red hair and a white button-down shirt that looked like it belonged on a man. She had a pen tucked behind her ear and gum in her mouth.

Elvis was playing over the speakers, and the entire place smelled like a combination of pancakes, coffee, and burgers.

Because it was late, not many people were in here. Off to my left in the last booth on the row was a group of teenagers with their heads all focused down on the electronic devices in their hands. A man sat at the counter, eating a piece of pie with meringue piled so high I wondered if there was any filling beneath it. There was another booth by the door, holding a young man and woman sharing a milkshake.