Page 40 of Wild Like Us

“Yep,” Sulli yawns.

“Pull over,” I tell her from the passenger seat. “I’ll drive.”

“You justdrove, Kits. It’s my turn.” She readjusts her grip on the wheel. While Banks has been sleeping, we’ve talked…not a lot.

It’s been just great.

Really,reallygreat.

Outside of mentioning campsites, the last we spoke was through the McDonalds drive-thru, and I told her Oreo McFlurries tasted like concrete paste.

She said nothing until she dropped the McFlurry on her lap. And then she muttered, “Cumbuckets,” and gave me a look, “Can concrete paste, do that?” Her whole lap was wet with ice cream. Teal running shorts drenched. I handed her a roll of paper towels and helped wipe up the stream of ice cream that trickled down her leg.

She tensed.

I pulled back a little bit, wadding up the paper towel.

She used to always let me help her, but now—now it’s weird. Is it because she’s older? Because she’s dating—or she’s willing to date? I wish I knew. Things are stranger than I can even comprehend. Heat smothered me, and I just nodded to her.

Sulli mumbled athanksand scrubbed the rest of the ice cream off with harsher, frustrated force.

“I can drive,” Banks offers.

“No,” Sulli and I say in unison, but I add, “You’ve clocked in the most hours behind the wheel.”

“I’m better at staying awake longer,” Banks reminds me.

He’s not wrong. Sulli and I have chaotic sleep schedules. She rises at odd hours. We always nap a shit ton, but I’ve caught Banks popping Tylenol like they’re Skittles today. When I asked him about it, he said, “Just a headache. It’s nothing.”

Heneedsrest too. Beyond being my friend, he’s one of my men. I’m not driving his health into the ground by leeching his sleep.

“Sul, take the next exit,” I say, like an order.

She switches lanes. “Do you see another campsite?”

“I saw a sign for a motel.” And it might be the last one for a while. “We’re getting some sleep.All of us.”

“And that’s an order,” Banks jokes light-heartedly.

I smile, but my face slowly morphs in a grimace when we arrive at the motel in nowhere Wisconsin.

“What a shithole,” Sulli mutters, parking beside a beat-up truck.

The neonvacancysign is half-busted. Only theVandC’sare glowing. The single-level motel looks grimy and rundown: paint chipped, overflowing trash bins, and a few broken windows on rooms 3 and 5. Safety hazards, definitely, but with me and Banks on her detail, she’ll be protected all ways around. No matter where we crash for the night.

“As long as it has running water, should be fine with me,” Banks says as we all unmount from the Jeep.

I pop the trunk. “You need some help raising your standards, Banks.”

“At least my standards are higher than Donnelly’s.” He pulls his rucksack out of the back. “I wouldn’t have slept in the Lost & Found room.”

“The what?” Sulli asks, slipping her Patagonia backpack on her shoulders. The one her dad gave her before we left the REI.

“The Lost & Found room,” Banks says. “It used to be a guest bedroom in security’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. Stunk like stale beer and piss.”

I explain, “Bodyguards would crash there when they were in New York for the night.”

Sulli looks surprised. “And Donnelly wanted to sleep there?”