Page 91 of Places We've Never Been

CHAPTER 22

“I’m going to walk to the nearest gas station for a phone,” I overhead Skyler say as I was flipping through the glove box papers a second time to make sure I was reading them right. “So the moms don’t get too far ahead of us.”

I shoved the stack of pages back in the glove box. “I’m coming with!”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Paisley said. She was sitting at the table looking through her flora and fauna pics.

“You don’t think they’ll eventually notice and double back?” Ezra asked, opening the fridge and finding some leftover hot dogs from the night before.

“Just in case,” Skyler said, pulling on his shoes.

I retrieved my shoes from under the table and put them on. “How far back was the last town we passed?”

Ezra, a cold hot dog in his mouth, shrugged. “Ten miles?”

“Maybe closer to five,” Austin said.

“Super helpful. Both of you.”

We stepped outside. It was still light out and cars buzzed by on the freeway. I turned one way and then the other.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Do we go with our unobservant brothers or face the unknown?”

“Let’s face the unknown,” I said, and then started walking before I turned that into a double meaning with some doe-eyed look at him.

Cars whizzed by on our left, the wind they produced blowing my hair. Skyler ushered us farther off the road.

“When did your mom tell you about this trip?” I asked.

“Two weeks before we left.”

“How did she explain that?”

“She said she and your mom had been planning it for monthsas a surprise for us.”

“Yeah…my mom too.”

“Why?” he asked.

I explained what I found in the glove box.

“Maybe she just paid three weeks ago?” he asked, trying to come up with a logical explanation.

“No, because there was a booking date where she paid a deposit and another date where she paid in full.”

“That’s weird.”

“It is, right? Why would they pretend like they’d been planning this for months?”

“So we wouldn’t be suspicious?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Something is wrong.”

“We’ll talk to them,” he assured me. “Together.”

“Thank you.” Mom would have to tell us once I spelled out the things I had discovered. I pulled at a tall yellow wildflower growing along the shoulder as we walked. It tore free and Iproceeded to tear off each petal, letting them fly away in the wind of the passing cars.

“Would you rather,” Skyler said, starting a game we often played while walking from his house to mine or vice versa. He was obviously trying to distract my worried mind. “Travel forward in time or back in time?”