Page 10

(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? – Oasis

‘Well, you look like shit.’

‘No, seriously. Do you want to go back to sleep?’

I shook my head and rubbed my fingertips into my eyelids, trying to dislodge the dry, gritty feeling. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She went over to the little fridge and got the leftovers out. ‘Pizza for breakfast?’

That made me smile. ‘Sure.’

‘I thought that might cheer you up.’

Brooke sat down on the end of my bed and opened the box between us.

I was suddenly starving. She clicked on the TV, giving us some background noise, and I decided then not to tell her about Chris and the blonde lady.

Brooke had made me work so damn hard last night to get Chris off our backs, and even after all that, he’d shown up in the middle of the night.

Brooke didn’t need to know.

I wanted to move on, to keep moving, and I would just put last night behind me and forget about it, like all the other stuff that I was trying really hard to forget.

‘Do you want to go into the city today?’ Brooke asked.

I swallowed my bite of pizza. ‘Do you?’

She rolled her eyes at me. ‘I’m asking you.’

‘I don’t mind. Sure.’

‘You say that a lot.’

‘What?’

‘ I don’t mind. And sure . And okay .’

‘That’s because I don’t mind.’ I was happy to let Brooke take the lead.

She licked a spot of sauce off her thumb. ‘Okay. I want to go into the city today. All the driving is giving me a headache and I want to have a day of walking around and not concentrating.’

‘That sounds really good. Listen, I was thinking last night –’ I’d done a lot of thinking last night – ‘do you think we stand out because we don’t have phones? Like, everyone our age has a phone.’

‘Huh.’ Brooke tossed her pizza crust back in the box and reached for another slice. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

‘No, me neither, but last night Chris was checking his phone all the time. If we’re going into the city, we could maybe look for one of those second-hand electronics stores, see if we can pick up a couple.’

Brooke nodded. ‘That would make it easier to plan a route.’

‘Exactly,’ I said, relieved.

I had ulterior motives. I’d never cared about having the latest shiny new phone, but everything that had happened last night had highlighted how vulnerable we were.

Even though the last thing I wanted to do was call the cops, if we ever got into a bad situation and needed help, we would be stuck.

Or if we broke down. Or got lost. Or whatever.

While Brooke was in the shower, I fell back asleep, and she didn’t wake me until almost check-out time, so we didn’t leave the motel until later than we usually would.

Before we left the parking lot, I glanced around for the black van, and reassured myself that it was gone.

I couldn’t decide who Chris and the blonde lady were, which was turning into an annoying itch in the back of my consciousness.

Brooke’s parents were wealthy, so it definitely wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility that they’d paid for a private investigator to find her.

Or maybe Chris was an undercover cop who was specifically looking for us. Well, looking for me . I’d stopped checking over my shoulder every other minute, but maybe I’d become complacent as we’d gotten farther away from home. It was possible – probable – that the police were looking for me.

Or they could be career criminals – who knew? The whole thing was slightly ridiculous.

The most boring option was usually the truth, so I decided they were petty thieves, looking to rob us because we seemed vulnerable. That was scary, but we would be out of Utah soon, and we’d never see them again.

With that decision made, it was a relief not to worry about them anymore.

Neither of us knew much about the city or where was good to hang out, so Brooke followed the signs for downtown and parked in a multistory lot.

It didn’t seem that busy, but I had no frame of reference for how busy downtown Salt Lake City got.

The whole city was so freaking clean . It made me nervous.

Like someone was going to sweep down at any second and give me a ticket for looking a mess.

‘What day is it today?’ I asked as we got out of the car.

Brooke counted on her fingers. ‘Thursday.’

She had picked me up on Monday night, and it felt like we’d been on the road for both a year and ten minutes.

One moment it felt like things were easier, especially now that we were almost friends.

And the next moment I was panicking about who Chris and the blonde lady were, and why they’d wanted to get into our room.

After walking for a few blocks, we found an outdoor mall with a stream running through it and plenty of chain stores where people were hanging out.

We stopped to go into a bookstore to poke around and soak up the vibes, then into a few stores to look at expensive clothes neither of us was going to buy.

Not having the pressure of somewhere to be or people to impress made me relax in a way that really highlighted how on edge I’d been since we left Seattle.

Here, it just felt like we were two girls out shopping, but after a few hours I started to wilt.

‘I need to stop,’ I groaned. ‘My feet are killing me.’

‘We haven’t even walked that far!’

‘I know, but they still hurt. Coffee?’

‘Fine,’ Brooke said with a laugh. ‘We can get coffee.’

We only had to walk another block to find a Starbucks, and Brooke went to the counter to order for us both while I found a spot at a long, shared table. Someone had left a newspaper behind, so I pulled it over and scanned the headlines.

It was clearly a slow news day.

‘Here,’ Brooke said, holding out an iced caramel latte. ‘Don’t say I never get you anything.’

I usually drank my coffee hot, but as soon as I took a sip, I decided I’d been converted.

‘Thank you,’ I said emphatically.

Apparently my taste in coffee was the latest thing I’d learned about myself. Brooke took a seat opposite me and gently shook her cup, the ice clacking against itself, and I felt myself smile.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

Brooke was just so stupidly perfect, and I couldn’t quite believe that we were sitting together in Starbucks like it was nothing.

This would never have happened in Seattle.

I wouldn’t have ever been able to work up the courage to ask her out for coffee, and even though this wasn’t a date , it felt like one.

Almost. I smiled at her again and she laughed this time.

‘You’re so goofy, Mouse,’ she mumbled, ducking her head like she was embarrassed.

Like, maybe, she was flirting with me …

I let that thought wrap around me like a warm balm, and I was about to try flirting back to see how it would be received, when I spotted the blonde woman out of the corner of my eye and a switch flipped. I immediately went on high alert.

She’d done something different with her hair, and I forced myself to glance her way a few times rather than staring, in case that made her notice me.

Instead of wearing her distinctive hair long and loose, she’d pulled it into a sleek bun and was wearing a blazer over skinny jeans and heels.

But I’d recognize her however she dressed, even after only seeing her once through the distortion of a motel peephole.

‘Mouse?’ Brooke asked, clearly sensing something was up.

‘Give me a second,’ I murmured.

My heart was pounding again as I watched the blonde lady pick up her coffee and go back to the front of the store. Instead of leaving, she sat on one of the tall bar stools that ran along the front window and pulled out her phone.

She was blocking our exit.

I wished we’d already bought the phones.

All I wanted to do was silently text Brooke with the details rather than tell her out loud and have someone overhear.

I had to tell her, though. I’d wanted to protect her from that uncomfortable, sick feeling that came with knowing Chris had come back for us last night, and the questions I knew she would have.

Questions that I really didn’t have answers to.

I drummed my fingers on the table for a moment, then grabbed the newspaper and spun it around to point at a random paragraph.

‘Don’t look up,’ I said to Brooke as soon as her attention was focused on the paper.

‘Okay.’

‘I’m serious. Don’t look up until I tell you. There’s a woman sitting in the window: blonde, white shirt, blue jeans, black heels. Pointy nose. Look now.’

Brooke scanned the front of the store, then nodded and looked back at me. I turned the page and pointed at something else.

‘What about her?’ Brooke asked.

‘Last night, she was with Chris. They tried to get into our room.’

She looked up at me, startled. ‘What?’

‘Last night,’ I repeated, pointing emphatically at the paper to direct her attention. ‘When you were asleep. They tried the key card Chris pickpocketed from you to get into the room.’

‘You should’ve woken me up,’ Brooke hissed.

‘Why? They didn’t get in and they left after. I didn’t think –’

‘That they’d follow us here?’

‘It might just be a coincidence.’

Brooke muttered something under her breath that I couldn’t quite catch. She put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand, subtly angling herself toward the door.

‘How are we going to get out?’ she murmured.

‘She doesn’t know that I recognize her,’ I said, then sipped my coffee again. ‘And they don’t know that I caught them trying to get in last night.’

‘Okay,’ Brooke said.

‘But if we walk right past her, she’s only going to follow us.’

‘There’s only one door in and out, Mouse.’

I shook my head. ‘No way. There will be another door somewhere, for emergencies.’

‘Will it set off an alarm?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Shit.’

We waited in silence for another minute, watching to see if the woman would look up at us or make a move. But she didn’t. She drank her coffee and scrolled on her phone, like she was waiting. Like she had all the time in the world for us to move first.