Page 19 of For Life
Quirking my eyebrow at him as he looked around the empty parking lot of the twenty-four hour gas station and convenience store. We were alone as you could be in a city.
“I was emailing my boss,” Maxx rubbed at his neck and started walking towards the little store. Definitely feeling guilty then. “Told him my mom was sick and I had to take her to doctor appointments. That I might be out for a few days.”
“Are you okay with that?”
A bell dinged as I followed him into the building, and a woman in a hijab greeted us with a smile despite the late hour.
“Hello, welcome in!”
“Thanks,” I called back on auto-pilot. I hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, having worked a split shift. My ass and thighs were sore, from the vibrations and not being used to sitting so long, rather than in a fun way. I needed a shower and a bed, as soon as possible, but we apparently had another two hours to go.
“I’ll deal with things as they come,” Maxx finally answered with a shrug, then turned toward the fridges with drinks. He called over his shoulder, “Grab some snacks, there won’t be food at the cabin.”
Diverting to a different aisle than Maxx, I aimed for my favorite snack foods. Sweet and sour gummies. The cabin comment was new information. All he’d said when we first stopped for gas was that we were almost halfway to Tahoe, which was where we’d hide out. I gathered a few types of gummy worms, some crackers and peanut butter, a box of instant noodles, and then added chips to my arm-load. Convenience stores were meant for quick trips, but I was wishing for a cart.
“You got that?” I heard Maxx's amusement from a few feet away.
“Why are we going to a cabin in Tahoe?”
“Because my sister and her husband bought one recently, so it will be harder to track back to me.”
Maxx took my upper arm in hand and steered me in the right direction. I could see in my periphery that he had somehow found a little basket for drinks and other cold items. Lucky.
“Alrighty, makes sense. And why do you feel guilty about lying to your boss?”
“Chinese culture is very superstitious,” Maxx sighed and stopped us as he started to set my items on the counter and I could see him again, “so I hate saying my mom is sick. She would say that is wishing bad luck on her.”
“Your mom is right,” the woman behind the counter told him sagely while ringing everything up, “you should never say someone is sick if they are not.”
“Good advice, ma’am,” Maxx told her politely with only a small twitch to his lips.
She nodded like he was a good boy for saying so, “That will be three bags and a total of thirty-nine, ninety-seven, please.”
Maxx went to pay with cash, but I beat him to the chip machine. Shepherd had slipped me a prepaid card when we said goodbye, and claimed it had my pay on it. I was pretty sure that was a fib, but Maxx had already paid for the gas.
“I got it.”
Outside by the bike, Maxx made me drink some coffee to make sure I wouldn’t fall asleep on the drive. When we had stowed the food on the side of the bike in saddlebags, and strapped our clothing bags to the back, it was a tight squeeze for both of us. Settling in against Maxx from head to toe like we were spooning was not an issue for me.
The drive up the mountain was pretty, the sun just beginning to rise and color the sky pink and purple before us when we turned off the highway. The whole ride up the mountain had required a certain level of trust, since my life depended on him when we were only inches from the road. But I had never felt scared, only safe and relaxed on the smooth roads. Maxx had set his GPS to a headphone in his helmet, so I also had to trust that the long, windy dirt road we went down was the right way. The bumps and potholes weren’t so smooth, but they helped wake me up from the lull I’d fallen into on the ride.
Around a bend, a log cabin was backlit by the sunrise. I’d seen plenty of old cabins growing up in Susanville. My uncle had a cabin just like Maxx’s sister, but hopefully this one had running water and indoor plumbing. We hopped off and I gathered our bags while Maxx ambled up to a flower bed by the front door.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for the ugliest gnome… Ah-ha!”
He held up a key in the dim morning light and I finally understood, but my juggling act started to fail as one bag tore and the contents spilled on the ground. “Dammit.”
Maxx grabbed the rest from me and opened the cabin while I began picking things up. Seeing the treat I bought myself—and remembering that I had only eaten half-a bowl of Shepherd’s soup over five hours before—I tore into the bag.
“You need any help?” Maxx asked as he came back outside. “Gummy worms are not food, Ant.”
“Worms are food for birds,” I reasoned.
“Those gummy worms are not natural.”
Taking a neon yellow and green sour gummy from the bag, I placed it on the ground. There was grass peeking out from the pine needles scattered like carpet, and I made the worm rest like it was crawling before standing up.