Page 25 of Logan

The change of scenery was refreshing at first, but endless flat green grasslands soon grew very boring.

On the afternoon of the third day of our trip, we were somewhere in Nevada, and Clay was sitting beside me scrolling through my phone for music worth listening to. I hadn’t prepared for a long road trip, so I didn’t have much ready to go, but Clay seemed to find some amusement building a playlist on my Spotify account.

“Seriously, do you pick things by just spinning a wheel. You have the most random music history.” Clay scowled at something on my phone, then started laughing. “You listened to several country songs and then immediately switched over to Rhianna. Why? What do those possibly have in common?”

Clay’s laughter was genuine, and it chased away any annoyance I felt about making such a long trip. I didn’t even care that he was finding joy in making fun of me. It was the first time I’d seen him actually enjoying something, and I wasn’t going to ruin it.

It wasn’t even the first time someone had made fun of my music choices, either. Those kinds of jokes were common amongst my friends.

I couldn’t explain it, either. When I was listening to music my mind was free to wander, and it would latch onto the most random things. A single lyric in one song would remind me of something completely different, and I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head until I found it.

Online algorithms hated me. They could never predict what I wanted, which led to some awkward content suggestions.

Clay laughed again, this time having found a time in my history when I spent several days skipping between show tunes, barely letting one finish before moving onto the next.

It was a good thing I was driving. The task gave me something to distract myself, so I wouldn’t spend the trip just staring at him. Clay was so much more beautiful when he was happy. Even his black eye, which had faded to an ugly shade of yellow and green, seemed to soften around the edges.

I kept my eyes fixed resolutely on the road. There was no way I could avoid looking at him entirely, so I watched the clock, and allowed myself one brief glance over at him once every ten minutes.

I’d been hoping to get most of the way through Nevada by the end of the day, but the weather had other plans. Seemingly in the blink of an eye, the sunny sky turned dark and cloudy. The brightafternoon light was chased away, and we were plunged into a gloomy dark that made it feel more like twilight.

As the rain started, we pressed on, hoping the storm would pass, but soon it was coming down so hard I could barely see the road in front of me.

“We’re going to have to pull over early today,” I declared as I squinted to try and make out the road lines.

I was certain I was still on the road based on the feeling of the ground under my tires, but I couldn’t be certain what lane I was in.

Clay didn’t argue, and even seemed relieved as he directed our GPS to the nearest motel.

We were crawling down the road at a snail’s pace through the rain. Despite the nearest motel being only two miles away, nearly an hour passed before we pulled into the parking lot.

I couldn’t even read the motel’s neon sign through the downpour, and hoped they had vacancies, otherwise we’d be sleeping in the car. Until the storm passed, we weren’t going anywhere.

The car was a rental, and I hadn’t planned ahead enough to bring an umbrella, so Clay and I darted across the parking lot toward the motel’s front awning as quickly as we could.

“Stupid, fucking rain,” Clay complained once we were safely under cover. “Storms shouldn’t be able to just roll in without warning like that.”

He finger-combed the water from his hair, pushing it back out of his face. The rain had turned his hair to a dark honey color, which complimented his blue eyes well.

A drop of rainwater traveled down his neck toward his collarbone. I tracked its path for a moment, before realizing what I was doing and quickly turning away.

“Are you coming in?” I asked as I held the front door open for him.

He shook his head and started shaking out his shirt to keep it from clinging uncomfortably to his skin. “No. I’d rather stay out here. Wet clothes and air-conditioning don’t mix.”

By now, I was certain that he wasn’t going to suddenly disappear or run away, so I felt comfortable enough to leave him alone for a few minutes.

Still, I vowed to hurry back as I headed for the motel’s front desk.

The person sitting behind the counter barely looked up from their phone when I approached and just waved toward a sign with their rates posted.

It all looked standard, and I was about to request a room for the night—with two beds this time—when I noticed something written at the bottom of the sign.

It was listed so matter-of-factly that I hadn’t even noticed at first, but apparently the motel also offered rooms that could be rented by the hour.

There was only one reason to rent a room in such a way. People either brought their partner here for a clandestine affair, or they brought someone that they’d paid for.

How many hours had Clay spent in places just like this?

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