Page 28 of Side Trip

Later, after Chase takes their rental car back to the inn where they’re staying for the weekend, Dylan trolls the festival, aimless. He takes it all in. The darkness of night and free-flowing alcohol, people dancing with strangers, letting it all go. Music oozing from the speakers. The burned oregano smell of weed and hands slyly exchanging small pouches of white powder if you knew where to look and who to ask. A hypnotic and addictive combination that both Jack and Uncle Cal succumbed to on more than one occasion.

Temptation is a clever bitch when on the road, luring unsuspecting souls into nights of bliss, only to slip out before dawn, leaving the door cracked. Just enough space for regret to slink into bed with you in the morning.

Chase was conceived because of nights like this. Dylan’s parents divorced because of nights like this.

He walked away from Joy because of nights like this.

He knew they’d come for him.

And tonight he feels the rush he’s always been able to resist. A rush he’s always wanted to resist. Until now.

He told Chase he’d catch a ride later, hire a cab, or hitch a ride from a friendly festivalgoer. He wants alone time. He wants to stop thinking about Joy and all thewhat-ifs. He wants to punish himself for screwing up.

He needs to fucking purge her from his system.

He drinks a beer, then another and another. He ignores that the alcohol content is higher over here. By his fifth he can barely walk a straight line and stumbles between two women dancing together.

Hello, girls.

He smiles at them.

They invite him into their fold. They laugh and they sing, and their hands explore him. They’re in his hair, on his lower back, his upper thigh, inside his shirt. They glide over his heated skin. He’s on fire for a woman he can’t have.

One woman presses her body against his backside, the other against his front. They encourage him to dance. Okay, he’ll bite.

He looks down into the face of the woman running her palms up his chest and all he can think isgorgeous. He draws his arms around her waist and sways with her. She doesn’t feel right in his arms. She doesn’t look at him the right way, not the way he needs.

Not the way Joy would.

He thinks of Joy and imagines her with Mark. He pictures her in Mark’s arms, his bed, with him for the rest of her life.

Dylan’s embrace tightens, almost brutally. The woman squeaks. His hands slide down and grasp the woman’s ass, fitting her snugly against him. She moans, tilting her face up to the stars.

He needs to get Joy out of his head, and the only way he sees how is to drown in someone else.

Hands slide up his spine.

Make that two someone elses.

He kisses the woman in his arms. He twists his neck and kisses the other woman. And later, when the music stops, he takes them back to his room.

Because temptation is bliss and he no longer gives a fuck about regret.

CHAPTER 10

BEFORE

Joy

Grand Canyon to Marble Canyon, Arizona

“This is insane,” Joy vocalized out loud to no one in particular. Her day was not turning out as she’d meticulously planned, and she only had herself to blame.

Last night she had spent close to an hour plotting her route and studying the highway’s topography. Road hazards? Manageable. Bends, merging lanes, and straightaways? Memorized. Now here she was, ready to toss those out the convertible roof for a possible route deviation to who knows where with a guy she met only yesterday. All for a small taste of adventure.

Do something you’ve always wanted to do.Her, not Judy.

Joy had been looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon. Judy had talked about her desire to visit on numerous occasions. She’d studied the area in geography class and showed Joy the photos in her textbook. Her parents had planned a family camping trip here the summer before Judy was supposed to leave for college. They never made it.

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