Page 32 of Excitable Boy
“One of the places you can see them. I’ve never done that. I think it’s not the right time of year, anyway. Usually that’s in winter, when the water gets cold.”
They took their time heading north while Shayla looked up hotels and other places on her phone. They hit I-10 not long before dark, and found a hotel not far west of Tallahassee to stay in.
* * * *
The next morning, they slept late, made love, and had a long, hot shower and breakfast before getting on the road again. Tony was beginning to really relax and enjoy the trip, certain he’d put his spate of bad luck behind him for good.
They were coming up on Pensacola when Shayla noticed they had a problem.
“Uh-oh,” he heard her say.
“What?” he asked.
“There’s an accident this side of Mobile. The bridge is closed.”
He smiled. “Then I guess we’ll head north.”
She blinked. “Oh.” A laugh escaped her. “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He reached over and took her hand. “Nope.”
But when they stopped for gas and lunch just south of Evergreen, Alabama, before getting on I-65 to go north, another problem cropped up.
Tony tried to swipe his bank card to get gas and the pump wouldn’t take it.
He opened the driver’s door. “Pet, give me your bank card.” They’d set up an account specifically for this use, one they could transfer money into as they needed it and not worry about risking their main account with credit card skimmers, or risking their credit cards, either.
She handed it over…
It wouldn’t swipe either.
That’s when both their phones, sitting in the console, started going off with text alert notifications.
Tony finally put gas on one of their credit cards that he preferred not to use for stuff like this, and they pulled into a parking spot so he could call their bank’s customer service line and get their cards reactivated.
That took the better part of forty-five minutes.
Despite the fact that he had personally gone into their account and activated the travel notice feature to prevent exactly this scenario from happening.
Maybe I thought I was out of the woods too soon.Maybe I should have hung that damncharm in this car.
They got that straightened out, had lunch, and finally got back on the road. But instead of taking the interstate, he changed his mind and they meandered their way up toward Montgomery. He asked Shayla if she wanted to drive, but she was happy to be his passenger.
Which was fine. He didn’t mind doing the driving.
But he’d hoped to get her to fall in love with the Pilot so he could get his CRV back. He loved the Pilot, but he wanted her to drive it every day. It was bigger than his CRV.
Sure, he could order her to drive it, but he wanted her towantto drive it.
Besides, he’d feel like a shithead if he did that after she’d said why she loved driving the CRV so much.
Because it was his.
The things we do for our pets.
They were trying to decide where to stop for the night when Tony realized the steering wheel was feeling…funny. Like the front end had a weird vibration in it, rapidly getting worse.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
