There was a strange reversal of roles in the house after Freddie called me his nothing. He moped around trying to lure me into apologetic conversations, and I silently rebuked him every time. His mother was worried about us, so she'd taken to asking pointed questions at the dinner table, which had little effect on my resolve, and most nights Freddie was working late anyway. He'd picked up more shifts to keep him out of the house, which meant he was working almost as much as I was. Fortunately, he was not in my department, and not my responsibility. My new position was challenging enough without Freddie constantly bouncing between hopelessly sorry for himself, and jealous of me. He was not as happy about my promotion as I was, and I got the feeling he thought I didn't deserve it.
At home I was still looking for the perfect car to fit my needs, which suddenly included a lot more driving than I'd originally intended. There was no way I could afford to live in the city, but there was also no way I could afford to live anywhere without this new job, I was stuck with a commute, probably a long one. There were a few nice places available just outside Seattle in a neighborhood that boasted only three shootings last year. That seemed like a lot for a four block radius to me, but the website assured me that the neighboring streets had at least twice that many. Not the most convincing selling point, considering the proximity.
Of course, there was still that amazing little cottage I'd seen, no one had rented it yet, and it was only 40 minutes from the mall where I worked. I had gone back and forth trying to convince myself that it must be in a terrible area, or in disrepair, because otherwise, why would no one have scooped it up by now? The longer I tried to convince myself that the little cottage was completely wrong for me, the more I wanted to at least go look at it. So Wednesday I left work early, which I found out supervisors can just do, borrowed Mrs. Benson's car and drove out to see the place.
I got lost three times trying to find the house, which turned out to be located behind a huge military base. The neighborhood was actually tucked into a little alcove that was surrounded on three sides by fenced off government property, which meant that I almost drove onto the base twice, and had to be turned around by the same gate guard both times. The second time he asked for my license and looked really hard at my backseat, trying to figure out if I was dangerous, or just stupid. He decided it was stupid and let me go.
Finally, I made my way down 150th street toward the house. The road was lined with apartment complexes until about halfway down, when it gave way to a whole neighborhood of cottages. It looked like an imitation version of the suburbs, but where the suburbs had huge sprawling houses and lawns, these places looked like overgrown dollhouses. I stopped in front of a tiny green house with the number 107 painted in gold down one of the columns lining the front porch. It was the same facade that every child has drawn at some point: square front, triangle for a roof, little white door and a window on each side. It was perfect, and so cute it made me want to laugh out loud. From the roadside, it didn't look like there was anything wrong, the paint was fresh, the windows were clean, even the lawn was freshly manicured.
Slowly, I stepped out of the car and looked around to make sure there were no nosy neighbors watching. It was getting close to dark by this time and I had to hurry if I wanted to see anything. I crept through the picket fence, around the back of the house, and up to the back porch. The back door was paneled glass, and even though there was a curtain, I could see through the sheer fabric into a tiny living room. The wood floors butted up to a short breakfast bar, and behind that was a tiny kitchen. There were two doors off the living room, but they were closed. I could see the front door from where I was though, and so I saw when a big white SUV pulled up behind Mrs. Benson's car. A guy got out and ran toward the front door I was at him staring through, and I panicked. I spun on my heel and ran back around the house, dashed passed him on the lawn, and tried to yank the car door open.
"Where are you going?" The guy called at me, while I tried to figure out the key fob, in my terrorized stated. Just as I heard the click of the doors unlocking, I felt his hand close around my forearm.
"Let go of me!" I yelled and stomped his toes, which did nothing since he was wearing boots.
"Calm down, why are you freaking out?" he let go of me then "You can leave if you want, I just wanted to talk to you anyway."
"If you just wanted to talk, why were you charging the door like a mad dog?" I accused. He smiled then, making his whole face seem much kinder.
"A mad dog huh? Is it because I'm black?" he was teasing me now, laughing at me.
"No it's because you're a crazy person. God do you even live around here? Why do you care if I'm looking in the window anyway?" I crossed my arms defiantly.
"I do live around here," he laughed some more. "And I care because I own this house."
"Oh God," I buried my face in my hands, this guy was not going to let me rent his house, and I really wanted it now that I'd gotten a good look at it.
"Why exactly are you peering in my windows at sundown? You casing the joint?" With my nerves calmed down a bit, I could see that he was no one to be afraid of.
"I just wanted to see it. I mean, I saw the pictures on the internet, but it's been up for rent so long that I figured there must be something wrong with it." I shrugged, trying to make my interest seem casual. He wasn't paying attention to me though, he was frowning at the house shaking his head like maybe there was something wrong with it. Maybe termites, or ghosts.
"So you just drove all the way over here to look at a house? He asked.
"I guess, how do you know how far it was. Maybe I live down the road too."
"Do you?
"No," I said, he waited for more. "I'm from Seattle. Like an hour away."
"I know where Seattle is." he smoothed out his face and went back to laughing at me. "You drove down here on a whim, so you could peek in a few windows? And you called me crazy!"
"That's not crazy, once I took a road trip to California because I got a wild hair across my ass, plus I only got to peek in one window before you showed up and ruined my fun," I grumbled.
The sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the temperature dropped to frigid, the misty rain turned into gross wet misty snow, and I shivered despite my three layers of clothes.
"Maybe we should go get some coffee," The smug guy offered.
"Maybe not, you could be a murderer."
"I'm an Airman, we only kill trees." he laughed at his joke, but I didn't get it. "Come on, I'll tell you about the house, and you can tell me about California."
"I'm driving my own car," I said.
The coffee shop was a tiny building painted bright orange with Coffee Strong painted above the door. The smell of ground coffee was smothering even before we opened the door, but the atmosphere was pleasant. There were little green tables scattered around the room with groups of varying sizes gather around chatting. The smug guy introduced himself as Myles. I thought about giving him a fake name, but if I wanted him to consider renting the house to me, he was going to know it eventually. We casually hovered over a young couple's table until they get nervous and left.
"That works every time," he smirked at me over his peppermint latte.
"I know, it's my trick too. Except I pretend to fart really loudly too." I told him.
"Gross, but effective. I like it." He bumped his cup against mine, causing my hot chocolate to dribble out onto the table.
"Hey, if you waste this you're going to buy me a new one," I scolded.
"I bought that one," he reminded me.
"I thought you were going to tell me about your house?" I changed the subject.
"Yeah, well I thought you were going to tell me about your road trip," he countered.
"That's actually a pretty good story." I said "Last July, after my friend, Freddie got his car-"
"Wait, how old are you?" he looked worried, like maybe he'd kidnapped a kid.
"I'm legal, don't worry, that's not the point anyway." I shushed him, and dove back into my story.
The sticky heat of summer was wafting in through two open windows, Carly's desperate attempt to cool the studio down a little. The air conditioning up here was terrible at best, and today it was just a mocking hum in background as we roasted alive.
"Where the hell is Freddie, shouldn't he be suffering too?" I complained in Carly's direction. She was spread eagle on the floor with her shirt pulled up to her bust trying to meditate her way to comfort.
"He should, but he's at the car dealership with Spencer." she huffed. "I can't have a damn car, but golden boy Freddie get all his whimsies cosigned."
"Bitter much? At least yours will be free when you do get it. Freddie's going to be paying that thing off until he graduates college." He had probably been saving every penny he'd ever been giving since birth to get this car. I asked why he didn't just buy it outright, but he groused about building credit and I lost interest.
"I guess that's true," she sighed and unstuck her bare back from the wood floor with a wet noise. "This is so gross, I'm going downstairs to the lobby, at least it's cool."
"It's cool, but it's also littered with children right now." I warned.
"The stupid festival should have been canceled, it was a terrible idea to move it into the lobby,"
"I did it!" Freddie slammed through the studio door and stood beaming, "It's in the parking lot and it's mine! Well technically, it's Spencer's but, I'm on the loan too."
"That's great Freddie," Carly held her thumb up without moving the rest of her body.
"Yeah super," I said, "Wait, does it have AC?"
"Of course it does, but Sam-"
I didn't hear the rest of his sentence because I was already halfway down the stairs to the parking lot. When I reached the lobby I had to weave my way around a group of screaming toddlers running away from the lowest budget clown I have ever seen. His face had been something out of a horror film before he started sweating, and with the makeup running all over his face and down his neck, he looked like he'd been eating clowns for lunch. So when Freddie grabbed my elbow, I screamed and slammed my entire body weight into his chest.
"Sam!" he grunted as we fell over each other directly in the path of the lumber clown killer and his wailing band of children. The clown tripped over my leg and fell face first into the lobby's fountain, yelling about his lawyer, but the kids finally stopped crying and started giggling. One of the little monkeys plopped down on my lap and clapped his hands merrily.
"Oh no, no, no!" I lifted him up under his armpits and deposited him on the ground. "I do not like children. Let's get out of here."
"Follow me," Freddie grabbed my wrist and we ducked out of the lobby. The valet waved at Freddie and hurried over with a set of car keys.
"Here you go, sir." he plopped the keys down in Freddie's hand.
"Thanks Mark, I'm not going to tip you, because I'm poor now," Freddie said.
"That's okay buddy, you parked your own car anyway."
"Why did he have your keys if you parked your own car?" I asked Freddie as Carly came up behind us, panting.
"For posterity. What took you so long, Carly?" He gave her a quick once over.
"Gross," I gave him a sharp look.
"What, you don't like this shirt?" Carly asked looking down at her white tank top, a cartoon dinosaur sat eating a cheese wedge in the center. "I had to change, the other one was all sweaty."
"It's fine, it's cute actually." I assured her, "but it's sweaty too now that you ran all over the building."
"Sam don't mess with her." Freddie chided. "Come on, let's take my new car out for a spin."
Three hours later, were parked at a gas station in Portland, Oregon. We hadn't intended to go anywhere, but once we were out on the highway, the air felt so nice, and the independence was even nicer, so we just kept going. The little bell jingled overhead as I pushed my way into the convenience store, it was cool in here too. I picked up a few bags of chips and an entire case of water for the road, Freddie hadn't said anything about where we were headed, but I wasn't ready to go back home yet. I figured I could convince him we needed a little vacation.
"That'll be $9.64," the clerk drawled.
"I hope you know that's highway robbery," I retorted, but handed over a ten.
"What's taking so long?" Freddie's voice startled me as I was attempting to hoist the case of water onto my shoulder. Freddie reached over and took it with ease, then smirked at me, gloating.
"I hate you," I said.
"I hate you too, why do you need all this water?"
I put a hand on his wrist to stop him before we reached the car, and Carly's ears. He raised his sunglasses up to rest on his head and studied my face. He knew me well enough to suspect something.
"I just thought it would be nice to go to the beach," I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
"Okay, is that all?" He wasn't fooled by my vague answer.
"In California..."
"Not a chance," he turned and started walking away from me.
"Freddie, it will be fun," I jogged after him, he was tossing the water into the trunk. "It's not that far from here, and you're always saying how you want to run away and do something crazy. This is our chance to really cash in on our last summer together."
I could see his resolve softening. He did want to do something outrageous, and it was his idea to take this summer by storm, which we hadn't really done yet. Most of the past few weeks were just a rehashing of every other summer we'd spent lounging around Carly's house eating pudding and watching cartoons.
"What are we going to tell our parents?" he asked, a hopeful note in his voice. He wanted me to convince him.
"Well I'm not going to tell mine anything, but you can tell your mom that your AV buddies are having an all night movie marathon. She'll buy that, since you're such a nerd." I grabbed his bicep and shook him around a little. "Geez Freddie, have you been working out?"
"What are you going to do about work?" he evaded.
"I don't have to work tomorrow, or today actually. They cut my stupid shift." I was at nearly forty hours this week, and someone must have realized that I was not authorized full time hours, which sucked, because I like the money. Also it might have been illegal to work a minor that much, but that usually didn't really matter. "You know Spencer doesn't care what Carly does either, as long as she isn't lying about it."
"Oh shit, let's just get in the car, and go to California then." Freddie disappeared into the drivers seat and slammed the door.
"So just like that, you all jumped in the car and drove out to California? No plan, no clothes, nothing?" Myles leaned back in his chair, grinning.
"Well yeah, sort of. We made it to California eventually, but it wasn't exactly the super fun road trip I'd imagined."
We were just outside of a city called Eugene when Freddie started whining about stopping for a bathroom. He insisted that he was going to ruin his new car if he didn't stop at the absolute next gas station, and no we could not stop for fast food, because no one was going be eating greasy food in his new car. So we pulled into the shell station around two in the afternoon, which was next door to a restaurant anyway.
"Nah nah Freddie, you can't stop me from getting pizza and go pee at the same time," I danced off in the direction of food.
"Sam I will not let you in my car with pizza," he yelled after me.
Carly followed me inside the pizzeria, never one to taunt Freddie, but still not going to pass up a chance to eat something other than potato chips. We ordered a large cheese pizza and found a table big enough to hold our lunch and Freddie's disdain. He tucked himself into the corner of the booth and pouted while the waitress refilled our drinks.
"She knows that we filled these ourselves from the fountain right?" Carly said holding the glass in front of her lips, because the girl was still looking over at our table.
"I think she just came over here to flirt with Freddie, who has no game." I nudged his knee with mine, and winked at him. "She could be the one Freddie, she looks like the type."
"I don't think Freddie is going to find true love in a gas station restaurant Sam," Carly rolled her eyes.
"Yeah I was thinking about another kind of love," I said, Carly made a twisted face, and Freddie and I both laughed.
"Maybe if he wants an STD and a staph infection," Carly said.
"Ew, pass," Freddie relaxed, and grabbed a slice of pizza. "If we eat too slowly we won't have much time on the beach though."
"Calm down, it's the journey, not the destination," I said trying to sound zen. "Also I've been doing some math-ulations and we should be about four hours away from this place near the border called Crescent City. So we're on track to be there around six." Considering the sun didn't really set until about nine this time of year, we had plenty of time to mess around in the ocean.
"You can't just make up words, Sam" Freddie scolded.
"Why is that the part you got hung up on?"
We bickered back and forth for another ten minutes while Carly stealthily finished off the pizza. That's probably why I never gained any weight, Carly ate all my food while I was arguing with Fred-Monster. Freddie had parked the car in the shade between the two buildings, which was thoughtful. As we surrounded the car to resume our trip, a grey ball of fur rocketed past us and under the car.
"What the hell was that?" Freddie dropped to his knees and peered under the car. "A cat?"
"Awesome let's keep it," Carly said, and did a celebratory dance around to where Freddie was kneeling. She dropped down out of sight and started clicking her tongue at the cat. "Come on kitty, we're gonna be your new family."
"No we are not," I said bending over to look at what they were seeing. A kitten was cowering between the two rear wheels, just out of Freddie's reach. I stuck my hand out toward the cat to catch it from a better angle, but it saw me coming and hopped up on top of the gas tank.
"Sam! You scared it, now it'll never come out. How are we supposed to get to California, or home, if we can't start the car?" Freddie popped back up onto his feet and rushed around to where I was still crouched down beside the car. I thought he was going to slap me for a second, but he just took me by the shoulders and dangled me an inch of the ground.
"What are you doing, Freddie?" I kicked at his shins.
"Trying not to kill you."
"Don't be scared kitty, mommy and daddy always fight like this," Carly's voice filtered up from under the car. "They just stay together for us kids," she smothered a giggle.
"It's not funny Carly," Freddie set me down, and I rubbed my arms where he'd squeezed them.
He pounded his fist on the top of the car, which produced a little meow from our stowaway. Carly and I locked eyes from across the undercarriage, and shrugged, it couldn't hurt to try a new method. We whacked our palms against the doors and bumpers as hard as we could without giving Freddie an aneurysm. When that didn't work, we hopped and jumped and flailed around the car screaming at the top of our lungs, which also didn't work. Forty five minutes later, the attendant from the gas station came outside to tell us he was calling the police.
"Please don't sir, a cat crawled up under my car and we can't get it out." Freddie looked ridiculous covered in sweat and dirt, but the attendant took pity on us.
"Let me take a look," he said.
He got down on his back in the middle of the alleyway and scooted under the car to look for the tiny animal. He tapped on some stuff and said 'Hey cat" a few times before sliding back out to look at us, with very suspicious eyes.
"Where exactly under there was this cat?" he asked.
"Well it crawled up on the gas tank last we saw it." Carly told him.
"Uh, I don't know what you're doing out here, but there is no cat under there, and I'm going to call the police if you three aren't gone in ten minutes."
"What the hell, man? We saw the stupid thing, all three of us!" Freddie scooted himself under the car, and did the same tapping that the other guy had, and came out equally empty handed. "I think he's right, the cat must've run away while we were yelling and we didn't notice."
"You know what?" I said flinging the car door open and falling inside, "I don't even care if the cat's still under there, let's just go. If it's too stupid to run away, it deserves what it gets."
"Sam, that' s cruel." Carly said, more out obligation than conviction.
"After all that, you just went on your way?" Myles looked impressed, and amused.
"What the hell were we supposed to do? Fucking cat was probably long gone, and we couldn't live in the alley just in case." I shrugged. "So yeah, we left."
"Did you at least get to see the sunset?" Myles asked. "Since the cat made you so late.?"
"We did, but not from California."
Three hours later, only five miles from the California border, we stopped for gas again, because Freddie was afraid we'd run out of gas miles from civilization. The town was so small that the only gas station wasn't even a gas station, it was an RV park with a small fill up area where gas cost twice as much as is did even in Seattle. The guy manning the gate leered hungrily at Carly and I, so we stayed in the car while Freddie put all of six gallons of gas in the car. While he was pumping, the gate guy came and leaned in my window. His scruffy chin was dotted with pieces of whatever he had for lunch, and he smelled like bad breath and snuff.
"What are you kids doing all the way out here?" He flashed a toothless grin at us, and I heard the thunk that meant Freddie was out of room for gas.
"Uh, just passing through," Carly chirped sweetly, too scared to be curt.
"Well, if you find yourselves needing a place to stay at tonight, we got some room here." he tapped his hand on the half cocked window, clinking his wedding band against the glass, and walked away.
"Freddie, get us out of here, before we end up as leftovers on that guys chin." I said, keeping my eyes on his retreating form.
Freddie shifted the car into gear and pulled back out onto the main road. We meandered along the towns single lane, one way roads for a while looking for the highway. Eventually Carly pulled out the GPS and punched in the address for the beach. Freddie dutifully followed the little blue line, but when he drove past the signs to get on I-5, I got nervous.
"Freddie, what are you doing? Why aren't you getting on the interstate?" I pointed as we passed the last on ramp on our way out of the city.
"I don't know Sam, I'm just following the GPS," Carly had placed the phone on his thigh so he could hear it better. I snatched it up to see what had gone wrong.
"You're taking a detour? Why are you taking a detour, Freddie?" I threw my arms up, completely done with his incompetence today.
"I didn't know I was, maybe I bumped something when Carly handed me the phone." he shrugged, "I'll just get back on the highway at the next ramp okay?"
"That really seems like the only option at this point doesn't it?" I barked.
The next opportunity came about two miles down the pockmarked highway, and Freddie was anxious to get away from the "hazardous driving conditions" as he kept mumbling. As we accelerated up the in ramp, there was a sudden thud, and a shifting of weight. The right side of the car dropped and sent us careening toward the guard rail. Everything slowed down to a crawl, and still happened so fast I didn't have time to feel anything at all. We barreled straight toward the metal barrier, but just before I was sure we were about to slam into it, Freddie jerked the wheel the other direction, I tumbled across the seats and slammed my face on an armrest. Our tires screamed in protest as the back of the car fishtailed around and around, spinning us in two full circles. I could see the unprotected side of the ramp coming closer and closer, with nothing to keep us from tumbling down the fifty foot drop and then, without warning, everything stopped, I was slammed into the other side door, and the world went silent. The first sound that came back to me was Carly crying, then the sound of Freddie shoving the door open and throwing up on the road.
"What happened?" I squeaked. "Are you guys okay?"
"Oh my God, Oh my God," Carly chanted through her tears.
"Freddie?"
"Yeah Sam, I think I'm okay. Are y-holy shit you're bleeding!" he twisted around in his seat to touch my cheek. I remembered hitting the door, I should have worn my seat belt.
"Freddie we need to get out of here, cars use this ramp , and they can't see us soon enough to stop." I pushed the door open on Carly's side and started to step out, but Freddie grabbed me roughly by the arm.
"Sam stop, you're going to kill yourself." he gasped, still out of breath and terrified.
I didn't blame him, I couldn't keep myself together either. I'd just almost hopped out of the car onto nothing. We had come so close to falling over into the ravine that there was no ground under my feet, just air. I shivered as a breeze blew up my pant leg, and tucked myself back into the backseat.
"I can't get out," Carly whispered, then again louder "I can't get out, I want to get out."
"Calm down, Carly, you're okay." Freddie unbuckled her seat belt while she continued to have what I'm sure was a panic attack. "Come on Carly, just breathe, you can climb out my side. Come on, you're almost there."
I laid back across the backseat and tired to bring everything back into focus. I'd hit my head twice, and I was bleeding from my face, but I was alive. Nothing really bad had happened, but now that everything was over, all I could think about was the earth spinning and spinning outside those windows in the few seconds that I was sure were going to be my last. I rolled over and buried my face in the cushions to cry. Freddie and Carly were too busy unraveling to notice.
"Freddie," I poked my head out the window when I was sure I could keep my voice even. "What happened?"
"Uh the tire blew, I think it was low on air. The light came on while we were leaving that gas station, but I just thought we'd fill it up at the next one." His voice was shaking, and so was his everything else, but he was holding it together better than Carly and I. He hadn't dissolved into tears yet, anyway.
"Do you have a spare?" I pushed the button that opened his trunk. Of course he had a spare, this was a new car. I walked back to get the tire, and shuffled around for a second looking for the jack. Luckily the bad tire was not on the side facing the cliff. "Where's the jack, Freddie?"
"I don't know, does that come with the car?" He untangled himself from Carly and walked over to look in the trunk with me.
"Yes, if you bought it from a dealership they have to provide it." I told him, but as much as I wanted that to make a jack magically appear in the trunk, the space that was clearly supposed to house it, was empty. "How is this happening?"
"I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't know, I'm so sorry," his voice got smaller and smaller with every word until he was just forcing breath through his lips. I didn't want him to start bawling, so I pushed him around to the driver's side and sat him down.
"Listen, you and Carly need to pull it together, we're okay. The car is fine. We're going to change this tire and then we're going to have a great time in California, okay?"
"I don't want to go to California anymore," Carly moaned.
"Oh yes you do, we've been on the road all day, we almost died to see the beach, we're literally one hour from our destination, and we're going to California, okay?"
"Okay, jeez Sam, we'll go," Freddie sighed. "but you need to get that cut looked at." He reached out and toughed my cheek. His fingers came away bloody, but I wasn't in pain.
"Fine. Now we need to get out of this blind spot before someone comes around that bend and hits us." I pulled Freddie and Carly to their feet and led them back down the ramp and as far away from the road as we could manage, so that anyone coming could see us and hopefully not hit us or the car.
"Now we need to figure out what we're going to do," I couldn't change the tire without all the proper equipment, and we were miles from the nearest gas station. I was not about to go wandering around knocking on doors until I got murdered. "Any chance you have AAA Freddie?"
"Yeah, why? My mom uses it for discounts and stuff." he shrugged.
"Really? You know they'll just come out here and fix this shit for us right? Like no questions asked, ready to go, no tips please, fix it, right?" I dropped my head into my hands and groaned so loudly that it echoed, Freddie muttered about never having had to use it before. "Just fucking call them and get me out of this mess, please."
"Did they come and save you?" Myles leaned forward, intrigued.
"Well they changed the tire, anyway. Plus the guy gave me a butterfly bandage for my face, which shut Freddie up, but it took the truck an hour to get out to us because we were in the middle of nowhere. So we all huddled together on the edge of a hill and watched the sunset. It was really a let down after the promise of crashing waves and sea salt."
"The car worked fine after all that too?" he asked. "You guys were so lucky."
"Yeah, we were. The car probably needed the alignment adjusted, but it worked fine."
Ten o'clock at night we finally pulled into the parking lot at Crescent Beach, in California. Sitting there watching the ocean waves crash over the sand, I let myself relax for the first time since we left home. We made it, we almost died, probably killed a kitten, and I was going to have a scar, but here we were. There wasn't anyone out here at this time, just some old people sitting on the end of a dock, holding hands. I thought about just running out onto the sand and throwing myself at the ocean anyway, even though there was nobody around to impress, but I'd spent all my adrenaline for the day.
Freddie and Carly had leaned their seats back and were watching the stars out of a moon roof, I had not previously noticed. I curled up in the backseat, and tried to forget the miserable day we'd just had. This was our big adventure, our story to tell the grand kids, and we'd wasted it in the worst possible way.
A giggle bubbled up from somewhere inside me, and then another and another until I was clutching my ribs, trying to hold myself together. Freddie stared back at me annoyed, but Carly let the laughter roll over her, and soon tears were streaming down her face too. Freddie tried to keep the stern look on his face, he really did, but he was no match for our hysteria, his deep rumbling laughter slipped into our cacophony and sailed out the open windows into the night. When we fell silent, Freddie rolled up the windows, and we fell asleep in a parking lot, in California, together.
"Seven thirty the next morning, a cop comes up and starts banging on the window. We'd fogged up the glass overnight and he thought we were in there having some kind of weird all night orgy." I giggled at the memory. The cop was so mad when he thought we were out there fornicating, and even more mad when he realized we weren't. He accused us of wasting government resources, and told us to go home before he decided to arrest us.
"Oh shit," Myles laughed, "What did you do?"
"We drove home." I said.
"Really, you just slept in your car and drove home?"
"Well we went to the drugstore first to get some of those travel toothbrushes, because I was not spending 8 hours in the car with Freddie's morning breath."
Myles exhaled a long breath "You were right, that's way crazier than driving an hour out here to look through my windows."