Page 30 of Side Trip

Dylan spread the map out on the table. “Don’t ask what we’re doing. I want to surprise you. But here’s where we’re going.” He pointed at a spot on the map, the Navajo Bridge. He then traced the route, describing the road, showing her landmarks, and pointing out a construction zone that had shown up on Google Maps when he’d looked up the bridge. Would she be okay driving, and did she mind if he slept on the way? He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

Joy regarded him with new interest. In less than a day he’d picked up on her driving anxiety and had wasted no time to put her at ease. She felt the burn of tears and the desire to pay him back in kind.

Dylan looked up. “You okay?”

Joy nodded, trying to discreetly dab away the moisture.

“Excellent.” He grinned, then signed the check and glanced at his watch. “We gotta go.”

By the time Joy inputted the address in her maps app and memorized the directions, Dylan had fallen asleep, passed out before Joy could remind him to buckle his seat belt. But he’d remembered. She gave his belt a gentle tug, satisfied that he was clipped in.

Dylan slept the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive, only briefly waking up when she’d turned into the bridge’s parking lot. He’d asked her to wake him when a black truck with a DESERTADVENTURESlogo arrived. He also told her to change into something more suitable for what he had planned. Workout clothes would be great, he offered.

Joy changed in the restroom, and when she returned, Dylan gently snored in the passenger seat. There was nothing else for her to do but wait. She rubbed her damp hands together, feeling amped and anxious. What did he have planned? She didn’t like being spontaneous, and it had been years since she was, not since the night she’d planned to meet Taryn at her family’s cabin so that they could hang out with Kevin. And because Judy had been on her mind so much lately, Joy was immediately swept back, drifting through memories of her sister’s last day. Memories she’d replayed in her head countless times, and they always ended the same.

With Judy dead and Joy alive. Sisterless.

This time the memories picked up right where she’d shut them down while waiting for Dylan to get onstage. She was back in the back seat of Judy’s car, hiding under the wool blanket, and trying not to puke as the Plymouth Belvedere lumbered around one hairpin curve after another.

They finally made it without Joy making a mess in the back seat. After Judy had parked her car and left for the party, and after Joy discovered that Taryn’s family never made it to the lake as planned and that she was locked out of their cabin, she realized she had to do something until she could duck back into Judy’s car before she left. She was starving, sticky with dried sweat from hiding under the blanket for almost an hour, and she had to pee. Desperately.

She ran down the street into Kevin’s yard and weaved through a crowd of drunk and stoned graduates. She stole into the house, around a corner, down a hallway, up the stairs, through another hallway, and slipped hopefully unseen into the first unoccupied bathroom she could find.

She peed, applied a fresh coat of guys’ deodorant she found in the medicine cabinet, and had just rinsed her face when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

Startled, Joy stared at her reflection.

“Joy? It’s Kevin.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.Shoot.She’d passed him in the hallway downstairs. He was talking with some other guy and she didn’t think he saw her. So much for thinking she could be invisible. Did he know Taryn wasn’t home? Had he asked Judy where she was? Joy hadn’t thought of that. What if Judy had told Kevin that she was grounded?

Ugh. Could she be any more embarrassed?

She glanced at the window. Two stories up and not an exit option. No way out the door either but to walk through.

She stared at her reflection.Play it cool.

“Just a sec.” She turned on the tap, pretending to wash her hands. She then opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Kevin backed up, giving her space.

“Hi.” His voice was shy.

“Hi.” She twisted her fingers, her gaze at his chest level, suddenly feeling shy herself. Kevin wore board shorts and a loose tee. Blond hair spilled over his face in tousled disarray, towel dried and uncombed. His nose and cheeks were sunburned red. He smiled.

“You made it. Your sister said—”

A shrill voice shot upstairs, cutting him off. Judy, looking for Todd.

“Do you want to hang out?” Joy blurted with an anxious glance toward the stairs.

He gestured at the door behind him. “My room.”

“Cool.” Joy scurried across the hall and into the room. Kevin closed the door right after she heard Judy shout, “Where the hell is Todd?”

“Wow, it’s noisy downstairs.” Joy breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’s up with Judy?”

Joy shrugged. “Who knows?” She didn’t care, so long as she could avoid her sister the rest of the night. She needed to get back into the car without Judy knowing that she was there, or Joy’s single night of punishment would change to sixty-plus nights. The whole summer break. Her dad would ground her for sure, because Judy obeyed the rules. She’d rat Joy out.

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