Page 4 of Bayou Knights
“Mom, you’re really tired. I can drive,” Gage says from the passenger seat.
“It’s okay. I think I just need to pull over and rest for a bit,” I say as I pull off at a rest stop. I put the car in park and lean my head back. Before too long, I’m asleep.
When I’m waking up, we’re moving but I’m not driving.
“Gage?”
“You were tired, and I know you want to keep going to destinations unknown,” he states.
“Where are we? We should stop for the night,” I say.
“There’s a sign for a bed and breakfast up ahead. I think the sign said Black Bridge. We’re in Louisiana.”
“Wow, you did drive a lot,” I murmur.
“I didn’t keep track of hours,” he says.
“Okay. We should stop for the night or maybe two. I don’t know. I do need to figure out where we’re going since I can’t keep you out of school too long.”
“Okay,” he says as we pull into the parking lot of a quaint little bed and breakfast. The house is well kept on the outside with pretty flowers and hedges.We’re the only car in the parking lot, so that means we might be the only guests. I don’t mind. Right now, I don’t want to talk to people.
Gage grabs our smaller bags, and we go inside, a bell tinkling as we enter. A man, a lumberjack of a man, has me taking a step back as he comes out of a back room.
“You need a room?” he asks, and I nod.
“Three nights,” Gage offers.
“All right. The place is empty now. I can put you in the back room, it’s the biggest with two rooms in it.There is a patio off the living room where you can sit out and watch the wildlife. In the morning, be careful there might be gators,” the man says, handing me a key without taking our names.
“I can tell you’re tired and I’m easy going.Just give me your info in the morning and we can work out the payment.Ziggy cooks in the morning, best breakfast in town.Tomorrow night, we’re having a seafood fest, I hope you’ll come. Down the hall,” he points.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“The name is Gator,” he chuckles.
“Interesting name,” Gage nods.
“It’s my nickname,” he says, before turning and going back into the room he came out of.
“Nice guy,” Gage says, leading the way to the room, which is quite lovely.
It’s decorated in various shades of grays with blue accents.Small kitchen with a coffee pot because I will need that.I look out on the deck and see we’re right near the stream. That’s not what they call it. Swamp. That’s the right word, swamp. But for some reason, it seems calming.
“The beds are comfy,” Gage says as he bounces on his and I laugh. The first laugh since this debacle happened.
“I’m hungry. Do you think you could go ask Gator where we could get some food?” I ask him and he rushes out as I take my bag and unpack a little bit.Maybe this might be a good place to hide out.I can’t keep driving forever.I will have to confront what happened sometime.But so far this place seems nice.We’ll have to see in the morning.
“He says he can cook us up some crawfish and alligator with gumbo,” he says.
“That seems like a lot of food,” but fuck it, I’m hungry. I gesture to the door with a smile.
“This is going to be good,” Gage leads the way.
Gator shows us to the larger patio where he and a couple of guys are running a grill.
“Hi,” I say, and they all turn. They’re large men, but for some reason they don’t really scare me.
“Food is almost done.This is Ziggy,” he points to a man that can’t be more than twenty-one.
