Page 22 of Anywhere with You
I’d stayed in a hotel once that offered cereal and milk and black coffee and called it breakfast.
For the moment, I didn’t care if Cara and I had paid full price and a half for this place. We sat at a table next to an indoor fountain, surrounded by tropical plants. Soft music played, interspersed withnature sounds. There weren’t many other guests, but they all looked as calm as I felt, drifting to their tables with mountains of food.
I had two delicious platefuls, and so did Cara: waffles with whipped cream and berries, omelets with every meat and vegetable they offered, and entirely too much bacon. We drank cappuccinos until we were jittery. We were children on vacation, grabbing one last chocolate muffin on our way out the door.
“We could just stay here,” I said.
Cara shrugged. “It wouldn’t be a bad place to spend the week.”
“I meant forever,” I said, and she laughed.
We made a couple of Mesmio reels on the road, making up dances to my music mix and telling jokes, most of them stupid.
“There were two muffins in an oven,” I said. “One muffin turns to the other muffin and says, ‘Damn, it’s hot in here.’ The second muffin says, ‘Aaah! A talking muffin!’ ”
Cara’s pity laugh got me laughing, too.
“Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Fo’ drizzle,” she said, then laughed uproariously.
“More than half of Mesmio users are too young to understand that joke.”
“Oh, oh!” Cara said excitedly. “Do you want to hear the first recorded joke in the English language? What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?”
I faked a gasp, trying not to laugh, “Cara!”
“A key,” she said, grinning. “Mind out of the gutter, Honey.” She winked at her phone and ended the recording.
I burst out laughing.
“We have some new followers,” Cara said.
“Anyone you know?” I wanted to ask if Lorenzo and Bridget were following us, of course. I wanted to hear that they had commented, saying that they had clearly been wrong, that we were the loves of their lives, that they wanted, no, needed us to come home.
For a moment, I let that fantasy fester. I imagined holding Bridget again. I imagined her in her blush ball gown at our wedding. I imagined trying to love her and trust her, but knowing that she had chosen someone else.
The reality was that she had walked out, and for the first time, Ihonestly couldn’t imagine taking her back. Even under all the anger, I hadn’t reached the point of being glad she was gone. But I was a step closer.
I tried to turn my attention back to Cara, who was reading out Mesmio handles. “No one I recognize,” she said.
“Well, we are fucking delightful.”
“And charming.”
Cara replayed our Mesmio reel from Roswell, and we both laughed at our hard hats, already lost somewhere in the back seat.
“Oh, look at this comment,” she said, not holding up the phone to show me because I was driving, but getting ready to read it aloud.
“Don’t read the comments. What are you, new to the internet?”
“It’s sweet,” she said. “How long have you two been together?Hashtag #relationshipgoals.”
I nodded sagely. “Alien autopsies have always been part of my relationship goals, too.”
She kept reading. “Looks like so much fun. Makes me crave a road trip.AndI heart you, Cara and Honey.AndThe busty one with the purple hair is hot. I’d let her take me to space.”
