Page 81 of Here We Go Again

Remy looks away from his dying ex, and his eyes land on the logo on the side of the van. “This is quite an interesting choice of vehicles for a cross-country road trip.” Remy smirks. “Are you, Joe?”

“Am I what?”

“Still a queer cuddler?”

Joe barks out a mucus-filled laugh, and finally, he smiles up atRemy. He looks transformed. Thirty years younger. Joe from the nude painting. “It’s been a while since I’ve had someone to cuddle, to be honest.”

“We could fix that,” Remy offers, and Logan blushes from secondhand horniness.

It’s a little too much AARP-level sexual tension for her taste. “I hate to block some geriatric cock, but we have a slight problem. The Gay Mobile won’t start.”

“Who are you calling geriatric?” Remy scowls. “I’m sixty-three and not ordering off the senior menu quite yet, thank you.”

Logan thrusts her thumb at the van. “Good for you, but we still need a mechanic. And”—she checks the time on her phone—“I think we might be stuck in Ocean Springs for the night.”

Remy once again responds with unruffled calm. “I have a friend with a shop just up the street. I can give her a call and have her tow the van,” he offers. “And y’all can come back to my place for the night.”

“Oh, no!” Joe flusters. “We couldn’t possibly impose on you like that!”

“My ingrained Southern hospitality has to insist. It wouldn’t be an imposition at all.” Remy looks at Joe like he’s the sole glittering star in the night sky. “It would be a chance for us to get caught up.”

And Joe looks two seconds from taking off his underwear and throwing it in Remy’s face. He clears his throat. “Uh, okay. If you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Joseph, having you in my house after thirty years would be an honor.”

Logan looks at Rosemary in her yellow dress. What would it be like, to be so unafraid of your own feelings?

“Okay, Remy.” Joe smiles, surrenders. “Okay.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

ROSEMARY

“The good news is, you can buy shrimp at this auto repair shop.”

Rosemary glances up from her plastic waiting room chair and sees Logan strut back from the front counter. “How is that good news, exactly?”

Logan doesn’t sit down in the vacant chair next to Rosemary but leans sideways against the nearest wall. “It can’t be bad news. Frozen shrimp next to the spark plugs sounds like a good omen to me.”

It sounds like a terrible omen to Rosemary. Remy’s mechanic friend is a gruff, butch white woman named Gladys, who seemed personally offended that they’d already driven the decrepit Gay Mobile three thousand miles and intend to drive it another two thousand to Maine. She also seemed shocked the van hasn’t collapsed from beneath them before this.

“What did Gladys say?”

Logan sighs and shoves her sunglasses up into her tangled bun of hair. She looks exhausted, and Rosemary wonders if maybe Logan didn’t sleep much last night either. “She said it’s probably just the dead battery, but she wants to run a full diagnostic. They’re closing now, but she promised to get to it first thing tomorrow.”

“Of all the places to break down, I suppose we lucked out.”

Remy had helped them transfer all their belongings into the back of his truck, and then he drove Joe and Odie back to his place with the promise that there was room enough for everyone to crash. For some reason, Logan is being weird about the whole thing.

“The Gay Mobile will be fine,” Rosemary tries to reassure her. “I’m fairly certain that beast will outlive us all.”

Logan taps her foot against the linoleum. “Are we sure we can trust thisRemycharacter?”

“Remy? The impossibly handsome artist who talks like mint juleps taste and clearly still loves our Joe?”

“Yeah. Like, what if this is all just some big elder scam, and Remy just wants Joe’s money?”

“An elder scam that he planned even though he had no idea we were coming…?”