A/N: sorry about the long wait for the update, guys. The websit was down for 18+ hours!


"If you're going to California, why did you decide to go through Omaha? I mean, isn't that kind of 'out of the way' too?" She puts theoretical air-quotes around the phrase "out of the way" and asks me the millionth question of the hour. She's like a little child that you have to put up with. The kid you stow away in the back of the car and make you bang your head off the steering wheel every time they ask, "Are we there yet?" I can't tell if she's naturally this curious or if she's just making a conscious effort to get under my skin and annoy me. Either way, it's working. It's annoying the hell out of me and making me want to act like I'm going to the bathroom while I make a getaway. She taps her fingernails against the wooden table that we're sitting at as a gesture to express her impatience. She won't let me ignore her, either. I've been trying for the last twenty minutes and she just doesn't let it happen. I pretend to be very concentrated on cutting off a corner of my breakfast omelet with my fork. "I mean I'm not really a cartographer but I could've sworn there was a way to get out of Iowa without passing through Omaha."

"You. Are. Annoying." I put down my fork just to look her in her eye and say that to her. She doesn't shut up! We woke up about an hour and a half ago and she was pleasantly quiet while she was still in the stages of fully waking up. We got in the car and started driving and she's been a motor-mouth ever since. I was hungry and I thought maybe she'd be hungry too. So I took the first exit and went to iHop for breakfast (or late brunch, rather). I thought maybe once she was shoving food down her throat that she'd shut up but of course, I was wrong. She didn't order anything but a glass of water and since she's not eating, her mouth is free to continue talking my ear off. "Seriously, don't you ever just give it a rest? Your jaw has to be hurting." She grabs onto the straw hanging out of the glass of water she's drinking and starts pushing the ice cubes down to the bottom with it. She takes a brief sip of water and pushes the glass away from herself. Finally, she's quiet. I pick my fork back up and start cutting into a pancake. It's a wonder how she's not hungry. She didn't even look at the menu and act like she was interested in getting something to eat. Through the corner of my eye, I glance at her. She has her head down like she's staring at something between her legs and her hands are moving, so maybe she's texting or something. Her hair is still damp from last night and it's out, resting far down on her shoulders. She looks like she's upset. I think she's right about at least trying to get along. I've still got like…two weeks to be stuck with her. I could at least try to get along with her. I put my fork down again and take a drink of my orange juice to wash my pancake down. I lick my lips and lean back. "I have some business to take care of down in Kansas…that's why we're going through Nebraska."

"Oh." She stops looking between her legs and picks her head up. Like she's bored, she picks up the straw floating in her water again and stirs it around. "Sorry. I didn't realize my talking bothered you." She's not looking at me while she's talking, but her face is pretty expressive. Those eyebrows have a tendency to raise up and furrow with her emotions. "Some people tend to think that my talking is actually annoying but sometimes I talk a lot when I'm nervous and I don't always necessarily realize when too much talking is too much…" Her eyes flicker up and meet mine again. "I'm doing it again, aren't I?" For the first time since I've started actually associating with her, I take a serious look at her face. Her eyes are almond-shaped and a shade of brown so light that it kind of clashes with her skin tone. Her nose is thin and her lips are full. She has a chubby face but it really suits her. Her face is very childlike and the more I look at her, the more I think that she was probably a really pretty little girl when she was younger. "You really didn't have to do this for me, you know…"

"I know I didn't." I reach in my side pocket and pull out my wallet. I'm finished with my food and I'm ready to pay the bill and leave. It's almost quarter after noon and I have to start driving before 12:30 if I want to make it to Kansas in two days. It's Wednesday so I should make it to Kansas by Friday if I keep up at a steady rate. "And you really don't have to keep thanking me. I get it, you're thankful. You can shut up about it." She purses her lips together and nods her head at me. "So…" I lift my arms and stretch out my back, yawning in the process. "We're gotta get going if we want to make it to the next hotel by sundown." She nods her head again and pushes her chair out. I can tell that she's making a conscious effort to stop talking so much. I didn't mean she had to stop talking completely though. Actually…I kind of liked how much she talked, just a little bit. It would probably make for a very awkward trip if she was actually silent the whole time. "Before we leave…" I stay in my seat until I get her answer. "Are you sure you don't want anything to eat? Are you sure you're not hungry?"

Following my lead, she sits back down in the seat as well. I'm usually pretty good at reading a person's character and I can sense that she's nervous. Do I make her nervous? "I just…I don't have much money to eat on. I'd rather save it for dinner…" Eloquently, she thrusts her head back to flip her hair and her hair falls back behind her shoulder like she wanted it to. I find it kind of fascinating how everything she does is effortless in her ways. She doesn't have to try to make her movements look graceful, they just are. "So yeah, come on. We can leave." She gives me a nervous smile. Her teeth are pretty straight but I can tell, when I look hard enough, that she never had braces. "Thanks for asking though."

I won't lie, I'm borderline insulted. I know she thinks I'm nothing but a dickhead, but she can't possibly think that I'm really going to make her pay for any of this. None of this is her fault and she didn't ask for any of this, so why would I make her pay for anything? She seriously didn't order anything to eat because she didn't have the money? "First of all, I said stop saying thank you. It's starting to get annoying. It was polite at first but now it's kind of getting on my nerves." I see her mouth the word "damn" to herself as she looks away from my eyes. "And second of all, if you're hungry, eat. It's on me." She looks at me as if she wants me to tell me that she's joking. She clearly can't believe anything that I'm saying. Fittingly, the waitress just so happens to be coming back to check on us. She stands beside our table and before she even has to ask us if we need anything, I start talking. "Yeah, she decided that she wants something to eat, so…" The waitress nods once at me and pulls out her notepad.

"Oh… um…" Jo grabs the menu from the spot on the table we pushed them aside to and starts trying to get the menu open. I just took her by surprise by telling the waitress that she wants something all of a sudden, so she's flustered. She gathers herself and starts looking through the menu. "I just want…" She's flipping through the menu too fast to even be properly looking. I don't know why she's so nervous all the time. "Can I have the chocolate chip pancakes, please? With a glass of iced tea?" She looks across the table at me for approval. She can order whatever she wants off the menu without a complaint from me, but instead of busting her balls about that, I just nod anyway. The waitress scribbles down her order on the notepad. Politely, Jo picks up the menu and gathers up all my garbage from the food I just ate and hands it all to the waitress. "Thank you." The waitress seems to be taken aback by her politeness but I zone out just as she starts to tell her that she's welcome. I'm trying to figure out if this girl is as sweet as she seems to be or if this is all just an act. I know people with manners aren't extinct—she's living proof of that. But she literally says "please", "thank you" and "I'm sorry" over anything. I'm beginning to wonder who the hell raised her. The waitress hurries away and leaves me and Jo alone again.

"What's all that about?" I ask her. She looks at me with confusion and a little bit of worry clear across her face. "Handing the waitress everything. What's that about?"
"It's called being a nice person, haven't you ever heard of it?" She lays the sarcasm on me thick. She's a very sweet, mannerly, polite girl but sometimes I get the feeling that she has a dark side. In addition to her soft side, she can be quite witty, dry and very sarcastic. I don't know if she's both sweet and sour of if she's faking one of the sides. "Plus….it's not that hard to make her job easier. It sucks being a waitress." She folds her hands neatly in her lap and leans back against the chair. "People don't appreciate you when you're a waitress. They totally don't get that you're the one serving them."

"Lemme guess…" I grab the paper that my straw came in and crumple it up into a ball simply because I'm bored. "You were a waitress, weren't you?" Her attention isn't even on me. She's looking out through the window we're sitting next to. Her side profile is just as striking as her face is from the frontal view. She has big ears but they suit her. Her nose sticks out just the right amount and her jawline is perfectly squared away. She nods her head to answer my question about her being a waitress. I have half a mind to toss the little paper ball I made at her but I don't know her well enough to do that yet. I don't know just how playful she is yet and I don't want her to get mad at me for hitting her. "…So where'd you waitress at?" She's still not paying much attention to me. I take a look out the window to see what she's looking at but it's no use. I can't see out the window as clearly as she can.

The waitress comes back over and puts down her glass of orange juice on the table. It's reluctant, but nonetheless, she starts to peel her eyes away from the window. "…Hooters." She finally stops looking out the window and looks back at me. She grabs her straw and starts smacking it off the table to open it up. Hooters? Where the girls with the giant jugs work? Where the sexy chicks work? That Hooters? She puts her straw in her orange juice and takes a sip. "I waitressed and bartended at Hooters for two years before I started working at the store." She pushes the glass of juice away. "I just know how rough it can be to waitress sometimes. People can be buttholes."
"Wait…" I shake my head and feel a gentle smile tugging at the corners of my lips. "You worked at Hooters?"

"See, I knew you were gonna judge me." She has a smile on her face too but I can tell that her smile is just a nervous smile. She's not smiling because she finds anything funny, she's smiling because something is wracking her nerves. "Yeah, I worked at Hooters…okay? I wore the skimpy uniform, I walked around like that at all times, I flirted for tips… I was a Hooters girl. It's not that serious." She rests her chin in the palm of her hand. I can see it. I can see her prancing around in the Hooters uniform. She has an amazing ass so I bet it looked good in the shorts she had to wear. And her boobs are pretty great too. She's hot. She looks like she could've been a Hooters girl. "Stop looking at me like that." I wrinkle my brow. I didn't realize I was looking at her any kind of way, to be honest. "Like I'm a slut. I'm not a slut. Don't look at me like I'm a slut. It was just a job."

"I'm not looking at you like you're a slut…" At least I don't think I was. Sorry if it looked like I was looking at her like a slut but I really wasn't trying to. I wasn't even thinking that she's a slut. I don't think those girls are sluts at all. I think they're bold, for sure. And they MUST be confident. I think they're bold and confident to be fine with walking around in the uniforms they wear and being okay with the fact that guys are gawking most of the time. I think Hooters girls are bold and confident but definitely not sluts. It's not like they sleep with the customers. "It must've been a good place to work…" I'm bored so I pick up one of the promotional pictures they have hanging on the table and swing it around, leisurely. "If it was good enough to stay there for two years though, why'd you quit?"

"I finished school." She looks like she is totally, utterly unamused by this conversation. Her chin is in her hand, her eyes are low and she's almost lifeless. "I worked at one in Princeton. I went to college at Princeton so I was really only working there so I didn't get terribly in debt." She rubs her eyes and livens up a bit. "I worked my entire way through college because even with scholarships and grants, Ivy League schools are expensive as heck. So I was just working to pay off my debt, really. When I graduated school, I didn't really see the point in working there anymore. It was a good job though. I made good money." She runs her hands through her hair.

"You went to Princeton?" I raise my eyebrow at that. She must be a brainiac. I can see it now. She does speak properly and she doesn't seem like she's a dumb person by any means. I can see that she's smart. "Damn. Parents probably went crazy, eh?"
"Yeah, they were pretty proud." She nods. "They helped pay for my first two years but times got hard and stuff… so I just worked my way through my final two years. Graduated at the top of my class, too." For some reason, she doesn't sound like she's proud of herself. She sounds so lackluster and halfhearted when she says that. She graduated top of her class at an Ivy League college. Why isn't she prouder of herself? "I want to go to Harvard. I applied to their medical school and I got in, but they want almost $5,000 just to hold my spot in the program. They gave me like… six months to come up with the money before they give my spot away to somebody else on the waiting list." She sighs. "It looks like they're going to give my spot away. I don't have 5k to just give up…"

"What about your folks? Can't they foot you the money to go?" I suggest. I know it's probably a stupid suggestion because most likely, she's already asked her parents. Obviously if she's saying that her spot in the program is pretty much toast, she's already exhausted all her other options. I just don't want to stop talking to her. I don't want to seem rude if I don't say anything at all so even though my suggestion is stupid, I said it anyway. "I mean, you could just pay it back once you're a hotshot doctor…"

"My parents are dead." The waitress finally comes back over with Jo's food. She puts the plate of pancakes in front of her, puts down a container of butter and syrup, gives her napkins and walks away. "My mom and dad would've definitely found a way to pay the deposit for me. They definitely would have." She turns the container of syrup over and dumps it all over her pancakes. "They've been dead for years though."
"Yeah, my dad's dead too." Damn. I can't imagine how I'd get along if both my folks were dead. I was a wreck when pop died but I can only imagine how I'd be if ma died too. I can't imagine living without both my parents. Don't get me wrong, I hardly talk to ma as it is. But I'd be a wreck if she died right along with pop. I barely made it through pop's death alive. "It's always good to make your parents proud though. I guess the positive part is that you always have someone to live for." She has a mouth full of pancakes and she's chewing so slowly and properly that it's sickening. "I mean clearly I'm not the best guy in the world but…" She seems shocked that I just admitted to being a total asshole. "Sometimes when I think about making my dad proud, it helps."

"Well yeah…" She swallows her pancakes. I like that she just let loose enough to talk to me with her mouth full. I was beginning to think that she was going to be some prissy little princess that doesn't know how to get her nose dirty. "Your dad is probably proud of you no matter what. With like…you being a writer and all." I nod my head and just look down at the table. She needs to speed up with the eating. I don't mean to rush her but we're starting to get really behind schedule with this. I don't mind being behind schedule over her getting something to eat, but I'm really starting to get antsy. We still have to stop somewhere for dinner and make it to the next hotel, all before it gets too late at night. Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone by getting dinner at the hotel. We're staying in a hotel tonight, by the way. No more cheap motels for me. "I have a question." She puts her fork down and looks me directly in my eyes. "It's kind of silly, but…I've just been wondering." I raise my eyebrows to let her know I'm listening. "You're a published author, right?" I nod my head. "Are you um…your…your name. What is it?"

"You should eat your food…" I pick my phone out of my pocket and push the home button. It's 1:15 in the afternoon. "It's getting late and we have to get to the hotel by a certain time." I put my phone back. "So come on….eat." I can't tell her that my published name is Michael Evans. If I tell her that, she'll tie the pieces together and she'll know that I'm the reason her house got burned down and she'll be mad at me for that. And for some reason, it'll actually mean something if this girl is mad at me for any reason. I don't know why I care if she's mad at me but I do. I can't tell her that I'm Michael Evans. She doesn't press the issue, either. She just picks her fork back up and continues to dust off the rest of her pancakes.

Jo's Point of View.

His face is so focused and intent while he's driving. It's like he has to concentrate in order to just drive the car straight. For the last three hours, we've been driving on nothing but flat land and his face hasn't changed. He's so focused…like he's on a mission of some sort. The only movement I got out of him was about half an hour ago, when a song came on the radio that he was mouthing the words to. We've been listening to crappy mainstream radio music ever since we left the restaurant. When we drive through an area full of trees, the radio goes out and won't come back on until we reach a clearing. He has CDs and an auxiliary cord but we're listening to the RADIO and I think it's because he's too lazy to put in a CD or something. I'd put in a CD for him but I don't know him well enough to just touch his radio. I admit that I am starting to warm up to him though. He actually sat at the restaurant and talked to me like I was a human being that had feelings. And I saw a side of him that suggested that he might not be an animalistic bastard after all. He paid for my food without a second guess. More and more, I'm starting to find the good in him. I really think I might be breaking through his shell. I'm starting to warm up to the idea of being stuck with him and he's starting to treat me better. Maybe this trip won't be a total wash.

Secretly, I've been sneaking peeks at his face here and there. His eyes are focused solely on the road so most of the time, he never notices when I'm looking at him but when I feel like he might be noticing that I'm looking, I hurry up and look away or I just pretend that I was looking out his window to see what's on his side of the car. Very discreetly, I turn my head just slightly so I can look at him. The side profile of his face looks like it was handcrafted by the gods themselves. He's actually kind of beautiful, I think. He has a baby face. His eyes are circular and round but they're soft and caring, unlike his personality. His lips are small and soft looking. He has a very sweet face and I think if I look hard enough, I can find his true personality reflected in his looks. He's beautiful, but he's not a beautiful person. I stop looking at his face and look out the window. I wonder what business he has to tend to in Kansas. Kansas is kind of out of the way for where we're going, I think. I don't know, I still wonder why we're driving and not taking a plane. He still has a lot of secrets but honestly, he seems like a secretive person so I'm not sure if I'll ever find out what his issue is.

I was so close to finding out if he's Michael Evans or not. At this point, I'm almost certain that he's not. But I have to know for sure. When I asked him what his pseudonym is, he dismissed the topic and dropped it like a hot potato. He doesn't seem like he wants to discuss the fact that he's an author and I understand that, so rather than press the matter, I just dropped it. There must be a reason he doesn't want to tell me things. There's a reason he lied to me about not having enough money to fly on a plane. There's a reason why he doesn't want to discuss the fact that he's an author with me. I don't know, maybe I'm totally off base with him. Maybe he really doesn't like the attention he gets from writing. So he's clearly not going to tell me if his fake name is Michael Evans or not. I'm going to have to find another way to find out on my own. I don't know how but I'm going to find out. "Are we just going to drive the rest of the way in silence?" I can't take the quietness anymore, so I crack and start talking to him.

He shrugs his shoulders and keeps one hand firmly on the steering wheel. "What did you want to talk about?" He breaks his avid concentration on the road and looks at me. "I just didn't know what you'd want to talk about."

"That's my point." I grab onto my seatbelt and wrap it around so it's behind my back and not resting between my boobs like it's supposed to me. I kick my flip flops off on the floor to make myself more comfortable and cross my legs in the passenger's seat. "We're strangers. You don't know what to talk to me about and I don't know what to talk to you about. We should…try to get to know each other, don't you think?" He shrugs his shoulders again. I sigh and pull my hair back away from my face. "…Have you ever played 20 questions?" I ask him. He shakes his head, unenthusiastically. "Okay, let's play." I feel myself being annoying. I'm not usually this pushy and persistent and peppy and annoying, but I feel like I need to be. He's still a stranger to me. This trip has the potential to be disastrous and I don't want it to be. "I'll go first." I start pulling at my fingers because I'm nervous. He makes me nervous. He's intimidating. "When's your birthday?"

"…January 5th." He mumbles. "Yours?"

"May 5th." I keep pulling at my fingers. "Your turn to ask a question."

"But I just asked you one."
"That was my question though, so it doesn't count." I clarify.

"Alright." I watch his cheek pop out where he puts his tongue in it. "What'd you go to college for? What do you want to be?"

"I…have a degree in Biology right now. I want to be an orthopedic surgeon eventually." I lick my lips. His face reads that he doesn't know what I'm talking about so I take the minute to explain. "Fix broken bones." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "I broke my arm when I was eight and I never got it looked at. It didn't heal right, I guess. So when I finally did get it looked at, this guy had to break my arm again. Hurt like hell but he fixed me. I just thought it was kind of cool how he had to break my arm to fix it. So I wanna do that." My foster brother broke my arm, actually. I was swinging on the swing in the backyard and he undid the latch that kept it up on the hinges. So I went tumbling down mid-swing and I landed on my arm. I heard it crack when I broke and I started screaming because it burned so bad. They never took me to get it looked at, of course. But after I got with mom and dad, when they took me to get looked at for my nightmares, they had me get a physical and the doctor found that the break was still misaligned and they had to take me to an orthopedist. I remember that mom and dad had to fill out so much paperwork to prove that they weren't the ones that broke my arm.

"You're a twisted chick." He smirks.

"Hey, shut up." I playfully tap his arm and immediately regret it. I don't know him well enough to joke around like that yet. I don't know if he likes to play around as much as I like to. "Sorry."

"It's fine." He clears his throat. "Your turn to ask a question…"