Indigo Road (4 page)

After lunch,
we drove for about half an hour until we saw an exit sign for a
campground, and because we were still shattered from the restless
night before, we stopped. Our only deadline was to be in San Diego
for Christmas, so it didn’t matter how many miles we drove. That
was the best thing about being on the road like this—if we wanted
to stop we could and if we didn’t, then we didn’t. If we wanted to
head south and spend a month in the Texas summer, we could. But we
weren’t stupid, Texas could wait for winter. The sense of freedom
was liberating, and having Alex with me, I felt we could do
anything.

The
campground we stopped at wasn’t busy, just a few tents set up
around a small lake. Alex made a fire, grabbed a small frying pan
from the overhead cupboards, and made us grilled cheese for dinner.
And it was the
best grilled
cheese ever. It tasted of freedom.

After
we
had eaten
,
as we sat in the back of the van, our backs against the
storage/fridge, Alex pulled out another trick. Reaching down the
side of the mattress, he showed me what at first looked like two
pieces of wood, until he folded them out. Three pieces of plywood
held together with two hinges and a center brace made a little
table to rest his laptop on. A smaller, thinner version, with two
holes drilled in the top for our beer, sat between us as we watched
a movie. With the back doors open to the cool breeze and the lake,
it was perfect.

THE FOLLOWING morning, I half opened my lids to
find large blue eyes staring at me.

“
Hey,” I
said, my voice rough with sleep
.

“Horse.”

“
How was your
first night sleeping in Maude?”

“You snore,” Alex stated flatly.

“You already knew this.” Alex and I had been
lucky enough to be roommates during our last year at Purdue and
we’d had a blast our final semester together.

“
But this is
the first time I’ve been close enough to smother you with a
pillow.” Alex leaned over and ruffled my hair—well, he would have
if I’d had any—before he crawled out of Maude and disappeared
behind the pee tree.

Alex returned
and crawled back into his sleeping bag beside me. “What did Julie
say?”

“What did Julie say when?” I was on my back,
my fingers threaded behind my head as he settled alongside me.

“When you woke her up yesterday morning?”

“I thought I told you already?”

Alex shook his head as he rolled onto his
side, propping his head on his hand.

“She asked if she could have my room while I
was ‘finding myself.’”

Alex flashed
me his perfect white teeth. “Are you lost?”

“Dunno.”

“
If we’re
supposed to be ‘finding ourselves’”—Alex made air quotes with his
fingers—“where do you think we are?”

“Don’t know about you, but I’m in
California.”

“Why California?”

“
I’ll give
you three words. Sun, sea, and chicks.”

Alex laughed
and rolled onto his back. “Yeah, I think I’m in California
too.”

We lay in bed
talking for a while until the pee tree called to me. When I
returned, Alex was rebuilding the small fire from last night and
getting the coffee pot ready. Our dining table had been set up and
a box of cereal and two plastic bowls were waiting. When Alex
looked up, our gazes met. He frowned, then went back to lighting
the fire. He had something on his mind, but for the life of me I
couldn’t figure out what it was.

I sat at the
table eating my cereal and waited for the coffee. Alex sat down
opposite, looking at me warily.

“What?” I asked.

Alex’s eyes
flitted to my face, then away. “Ugh. We need to talk.”

My first
thought was he was breaking up with me. Then I realized how stupid
that sounded. But that was the first time I’d been on the receiving
end of those words and my stomach clenched. We’d only been on the
road for a day.

“Um, okay?” I wanted to make light of the
tension that suddenly enveloped us, but when I looked at Alex, I
thought better of it.

“We need to work out a plan for when we
argue.”

Okay, I
didn’t expect that.
“We’re going to
argue?”

“
Yes. It’s
inevitable. We’ll be spending twenty-four seven together.
Eventually, you’ll do something to piss me off, or I’ll piss you
off. I don’t want to ruin our trip bickering or fighting over
stupid shit.”

“
Okay. That
makes sense, but we’ve lived together for the last year and we
didn’t fight then.”

“We didn’t see each other much during the day
because we had different schedules. Now we’ll be spending all day
and all night together. I don’t want to ruin our friendship with
stupid squabbles.”

“You’re really worried about this, aren’t
you?”

“
Yes. You’re
my best friend. I don’t want to lose that…” Alex trailed
off.

I could see
where he was coming from. If we had an argument
, he might be tempted to pack it in and go home. If we
couldn’t resolve an issue, he might leave me here with Maude. My
stomach clenched. Alex was waiting for me to say something, and
when the silence dragged on too long, he got up and made coffee
with the now boiling water.

Alex returned to his seat and poured me a cup
without meeting my gaze.

“Thanks.”

Alex remained
silent. Was this our first fight? We weren’t actually fighting
but…
we weren’t talking,
either.

“
Um,” I
started, but I didn’t really know what to say. I needed to reassure
him that, no matter what happened, our friendship wouldn’t be
compromised. “Okay, we need to work out a strategy for when you
piss me off.” Alex’s eyes shone a little at my attempted humor. “We
both know it won’t be because of me.”

Alex’s lips
twitched. “You’re an idiot. But yes, we do, I don’t want to go home
early because
I’ve
pissed
you
off, but more than that, I
don’t want to lose your friendship. Not for any reason.” Alex
sobered a little. “So what should we do? Maybe if things are
getting heated, we walk away for a day. Go do separate things and
cool down. If we’re driving, then we need to pull into the nearest
town and do something for an hour or two by ourselves.”

“
That’s a
start. We might think of something else later, but for the time
being, that’s good. As long as we can stop it before it becomes too
big to fix. I don’t want to lose your friendship, either, and I
definitely don’t want to go home before we have to. Plus, driving
by myself would be boring as hell, but—” I paused and put on my
thinking face. “—on the other hand, think of all the chicks I could
bring back to Maude if you weren’t here?”

My attempt at lightening the mood worked and
Alex chuckled before sipping his coffee.

Alex’s lips
twitched once more.
“Ass.”

“
You like my
ass.”
What? Where the hell
did that come from?

JUNE AND JULY were
spent traveling through Iowa, Nebraska, and part of South
Dakota, and it was several hundred miles before our constant
togetherness became a little annoying. Every time we stopped, Alex
insisted on getting receipts and entering the amounts
into
a spreadsheet so
he could keep an eye on our expenses. If it were up to me, I
would’ve just logged into the joint bank account we’d opened a few
years ago and had a look at the balance if I wanted to see how much
money was left, but Alex wanted to do it his way. As long as we had
enough money to last the year, I didn’t care. I learned pretty
quickly to make sure I kept any receipts, though.

The last week
of July brought us to Aberdeen,
a small
town in South Dakota. Alex had been unusually quiet for most of the
day, and after I
parked
Maude on Main Street, he grabbed his laptop and
the laundry bag, saying he’d be gone for a few hours. Without
looking back, he bolted across the street and then down the block.
I couldn’t see a laundromat anywhere, but knowing Alex, he knew
where one was. He had taken the spare key to Maude and his phone,
so if I moved the van, I could call him and tell him where she was.
I had lunch by myself in a mom and pop diner, then ambled around
the small town, wondering the whole time where he was. I passed a
laundromat, but there was no sign of him until I rounded the next
street. Alex was across the street, near the entrance to a movie
theater, talking on his phone. He didn’t see me as I watched him
from the opposite corner. His shoulders were hunched, and he looked
a little sad. I wanted to punch whoever he was talking to for
making him look like that. I wondered who it was. The only phone
calls he had had so far were from his parents and
Calvin.

Alex lifted
his shoulders
, then dropped them,
seemingly letting out a large sigh, and ran his free hand over his
head before pocketing his phone. Lifting his face to the sky, he
seemed to be praying for guidance or help before he headed into the
cinema.

He
texted me about three hours later, wanting to
know where I was, and I pondered what movie he’d seen that had
taken that long. I picked him up on South Main Street and asked him
what he’d done all day. He shrugged and said, “Not
much.”

We drove to
Wylie Park in silence, a campground-cum-family recreation park
northwest of the town, and rented an RV site. We drove past the
entrance to the Wylie Zoo, which housed buffalo, deer, elk, and
llamas. Storybook Land was on our right, complete with castle,
carousel, and other kiddy rides. It was quieter than I expected,
being the middle of summer, but there were some families close by
setting up their tents and getting campfires going. The ballpark
had a few kids playing, and lots of kids were out in the twilight
riding bikes along the paths. I parked Maude next to an elderly
couple sitting on folding chairs by a fire, not too close as to be
in their space but near enough to wave and say hello.

“
Did you talk
to anyone today?” I asked Alex after we’d started our fire. His
unwillingness to tell me what he’d done annoyed me.

“
Cal rang
earlier. You?”

“What did he want?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, just checking in.”

Cal often
checked in with Alex, but I could tell he was reluctant to tell me
what they spoke about specifically. I decided to let it go in the
hope he’d open up to me later.

Alex pulled
the chairs out and set up the table to get ready
for dinner while I got the steaks ready for the
grill.

“
You were
gone all day, what did you do the whole time?” For some
reason,
I couldn’t let
it go. He was hiding something from me and I wanted to know why he
couldn’t—or wouldn’t—talk to me.

“Laundry.”

“It took you all day to do the laundry?”

Alex frowned. “It took a couple of hours,
then I went to a movie.”

“What movie was it?”

“
Jesus. Do
you have to know everything? Some lame action movie where people
got shot and they wrecked a whole lot of cars. What does it
matter?”

I held up my
hands. “No reason, I just wanted to know what you’d done all day.”
I paused. It wasn’t Alex’s fault I was in a foul mood. “I was…
bored without you.”

The fight
went out of him and his shoulders slumped. “Sorry. I just needed a
day off. A day to myself. It wasn’t you.”

“
So I haven’t
pissed you off yet, then? I can’t be trying hard enough,” I
joked.

Alex’s wide grin returned. “Idiot.”

PROXIMITY. It had to be.

“I’ve been going over the budget and…”

The following
morning
I watched Alex’s mouth as he
spoke. I didn’t hear the words, just watched his lips move and curl
around the words. They were pink and full, like a girl’s… except
not. His were surrounded by dark blond stubble and I had no idea
why, but this made them even more attractive.

“…
motel and
possibly pizza. I’ll have to see and make adjustments…”

Proximity. It couldn’t be anything else,
could it? I mean, I’d never felt this… whatever it was. Alex bit
his lower lip as he concentrated on his spreadsheet and the
movement made my stomach flip.

I
had awoken that morning with an erection that
could smash rocks. Alex was asleep beside me. We’d kicked off the
sleeping bags during the night as it was too
warm,
so I could feel his body
heat through my thin T-shirt. Small puffs of air blew from between
his lips and his long eyelashes fluttered slightly against his
cheeks.

Oh my God. I
needed to get laid. Since being on the road, I hadn’t had any
action apart from the odd jack-off in the shower. The longest dry
spell I’d had was back in high school so, yeah.
Proximity.

“You’re not even listening to me, are
you?”

“What? Sorry.”

“
I stopped
talking three minutes
ago,
after I asked you if you’d prefer an elephant or
rhinoceros steak.” Alex’s voice was tight.