Where the Road Takes Me

by Jay McLean

  I sucked in a breath and held it. Then forcefully blew it out, along with any thoughts of what his presence, and what his words, did to me.

  Blake

  I knew that I was making it too obvious, but I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I wanted to say something stupid and have her laugh at it. I wanted to do something nice and have her appreciate it. Because in the past four years that we’d been in the same place almost every day, I had never noticed her. Not even a little bit. And to me—it felt like there were four years of her life I needed to know about. Four years of not paying attention to make up for. But it wasn’t just that. Deep down, I knew she was the only person in the entire world I wanted to notice me.

  She leaned her forearms on the counter next to me, mirroring my position, and stared out on to the lanes. “Does Hannah ever come and visit you at work?” I looked at her. A strand of hair had come loose behind her ear. My fingers itched to touch it, but she beat me to it, turning to face me at the same time. Her eyebrows were raised, waiting. She had asked me a question. What had she said?

  “So?”

  “Huh?” I needed to get my shit together.

  She smirked. “Hannah? Your girlfriend? Does she ever visit you at work?”

  I straightened up. “Why do you keep asking about her?”

  “Why do you keep forgetting about her?”

  “Because she’s not important.” And as the words left my mouth, I knew I sounded like a dick. I just sighed and walked away, not wanting to get into it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Blake

  “Would you assholes hurry the fuck up?” On the other side of the counter, Josh bounced on his toes. I decided to sweep extra slow, just to piss him off. “You’re a dick,” he spat, and then looked to the doorway of the prep area. “Seriously, Not Abby! Let’s go.”

  I laughed. “What’s with you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fire truck you. I get one night a month and you—” He raised his voice. “You guys are being slow on purpo—” He broke off, giving me enough reason to stop sweeping and face him. His mouth hung open. Then a smirk developed and a low whistle came from him. “Holy shit, Chloe, you clean up good.”

  I spun around quickly. Too quickly.

  We hadn’t spoken much since yesterday’s shift. Once she’d brought up Hannah, the mood had shifted. Even though she had every right to mention her, I was still pissed.

  “I wasn’t sure what your plans were, so I didn’t know how to dress.” She chewed her lip and looked down at the floor. Her dress was loose but short. Too short. She cleared her throat.

  My eyes snapped up. I’d been staring at her legs. “You look nice,” I told her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can we go now?” Josh whined from behind me.

  “Yeah,” Chloe and I said in unison, but our eyes remained locked, refusing to budge.

  “You guys are fucking ridiculous. I’ll wait by your car, Chloe,” Josh said as his footsteps faded.

  I waited until I thought he was far enough away before speaking. “You look nice.”

  “You already said that.”

  “I did?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe you deserve to be told more than once.”

  Her breath caught. “I’ll wait at my car.”

  Chloe

  They directed me out to an abandoned basketball court in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, that was their way of letting loose.

  “There’s no fucking room in this backseat,” Josh complained. He sat sideways with his knees up and skateboards on either side of him. He and Blake must have planned ahead and skated to work.

  Blake and I both turned around and laughed at the sight of him. “I didn’t really plan on anyone ever sitting there.” The squeal of the hand brake when I lifted it echoed through our surroundings.

  “You should probably get that looked at,” Blake said, holding on to the top of the windshield. The nights were getting warmer, and I was able to drive with the top down more often.

  “I plan to.”

  Josh jumped out of the car, not bothering to wait for us. I only had a two door. I’d never needed room for anything more. “You know what I plan to do, Chloe?” He pointed his finger at me. I slumped farther into my seat. Blake’s deep chuckle reverberated in my ears. “I plan on getting fucked up!”

  After the third beer in ten minutes, he pulled out a Ziploc bag. I knew what it was without looking.

  “He doesn’t do this often,” Blake explained. He sat back on his outstretched arms, next to me. We were on the hood of my car, watching Josh. “I’m not judging,” I said quietly, turning to face him. “So he doesn’t hear from Tommy’s mom?”

  “Never.”

  “Sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And school? Does he ever plan on finishing?”

  “Don’t know.” He dropped back and leaned on one elbow so he could face me. “He says it’s hard to make plans when your future is so uncertain.”

  “Huh.” Turned out Josh and I had more in common than I’d thought. I watched him mumbling to himself as he paced back and forth, only a few feet ahead of us.

  Taking a drag of the joint and holding it, he pointed his finger between us. He didn’t speak, not until he’d exhaled the smoke and taken a few steps toward us. “You know what I miss?” He handed Blake the joint and clasped us both on the shoulders. “Pussy.”

  Blake chuckled.

  “I. Miss. Pussy.” He directed his glare at Blake. “And you, dickface. You get pussy whenever you want. It’s as if she’s an open door, and you can just walk in freely. Here, Hannah,” he mocked. “Here’s my cock.”

  “Oh my God!” I couldn’t contain the laugh that escaped.

  Blake took a drag, then offered it to me. I declined. If I smoked, I did it to lose myself, and I didn’t want to do that tonight. Only certain nights, like the night I met Blake. “It gets worse.” His words were weak as he tried to hold the smoke in his lungs.

  “And you, Chloe,” Josh continued. “Chloe. Pshh. Dumb name. I’m calling you Chlo. No. Dumb name, too. C-Lo!” He laughed to himself, but for only a second before his eyebrows furrowed. “C-Lo, I bet you’re the same. You can probably get all the cock in all the world.” He threw his arms out to his sides and spun around dramatically. “But not Joshua. Joshua gets no pussy.” He looked back at Blake. “Hunter. Dickface. Free pussy.”

  “Dude, random words are not sentences.”

  “Fuck you, Free-Pussy Hunter.” He paused. “Hunter? It doesn’t even suit you. You don’t hunt for pussy. It’s like they scream for you!” His voice changed to match that of a whiney girl. “Take me, Hunter. Take me now!”

  Blake’s embarrassed laugh made his head fall forward and onto my arm.

  Josh took the joint from his hand and walked away. “I’m Hunter,” he announced, grabbing on to his junk. “What’s that, tree? Oh, you want my dick? Sure! I’m Blake-fucking-Hunter. Take all the dick you want.”

  “Quit it!” Blake yelled. “You’re making me sound like an asshole in front of Chloe. You’re breaking bro code. Not cool, dude!”

  Josh ignored him. Opting, instead, to start humping the tree.

  “Oh my God,” I laughed.

  Blake looked up at me with embarrassment. “Kid’s lost it.”

  “He’s allowed.”

  “Yeah,” he said sadly. We watched as he moved away from the tree and started pacing again. “So what about you, C-Lo? What are your plans after high school?”

  I looked down at him. His eyebrows were raised and his head tilted lazily . . . but his eyes . . . his eyes held a depth in them that knocked all sense out of me. For a second I wanted to tell him everything. The truth about me and my future. “The Road.”

  Blake’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The road?”

 
“Yeah.” I turned away. His eyes had the power to wreck not only me, but also the walls I’d spent my life building. “The Road,” I repeated, as if saying the words again would make him understand. Lying back, I leaned on my elbows so we were level. And I waited. I knew the questions were coming, and even though Clayton was the only one who knew my answers, for some reason, I didn’t feel the need to hide them from Blake. “After graduation, I’m taking off.”

  “Taking off?”

  “You keep repeating my words, like they’re questions.”

  “Yeah, well, your answers aren’t really answers. They’re just words.”

  “How are answers formed, if not with words?”

  “By words that form explanations.”

  “Explanations are the same as answers.”

  He laughed. “Shut up and explain.” He poked my shoulder with a single finger. “Properly.”

  I sucked in all the air my lungs could handle and then let it out in a whoosh. “I’m just gonna get in my car and drive. No destination. No maps. Nothing. Just drive.”

  “For the entire summer?”

  I turned to him, finding it difficult not to look at him when he was that close. “Kind of like an endless summer.”

  I could see the question in his eyes before his mouth opened, but before he had a chance to voice it, I cut in. “It’s kind of the plan for the rest of my life.”

  “The rest of your life?” he said incredulously.

  “And there you go, repeating my words again.”

  He shook his head as if clearing a thought. “I’m confused.” And he looked it. Which made him even cuter. “Are you going on your own?”

  I nodded.

  “Forever?” His tone had changed—past confusion—into something completely different.

  I nodded again.

  “Why?”

  “Because.” I shrugged. “There’s nothing keeping me here. I don’t have family. I don’t have any friends—”

  “I’m your friend.”

  That made me laugh. “I guess. But I’ve known you . . . what? A week? As far as being a reason to stay, I don’t think that really cuts it.”

  He sighed. It sounded as dramatic as it did genuine. “And you’re going by yourself?”

  He seemed closer, or maybe it just felt that way. The air around us intensified as I forced myself to answer. My voice came out shaky when I finally did. “Yes. Why?”

  Blake

  “Why?” I said back.

  Her laugh was all-consuming as she pushed playfully against my chest. I fell back onto the warm metal of her hood. “You just keep repeating what I say.”

  I did. But I really couldn’t form any other words. “I just worry about you,” I said, looking up at the night sky.

  It was silent for so long that I thought she’d left me. Just as I was about to turn to her, her hand swept down my arm and onto my palm. I heard her exhale right before she laced her fingers with mine. “You don’t need to worry about me, Blake,” she said quietly. But she was wrong. And I realized it then—that even if I tried, I couldn’t help but worry. It could have been because of the way we’d met, or it could have been because she meant more to me than anyone ever had. “I don’t know, Chloe,” I said. “I kind of feel like someone has to, you know?” I turned to her, wanting to see her reaction.

  She was already facing me; her eyes glazed with her unshed tears. She blinked quickly, letting them fall and wiping them away before I could do it for her. “You can’t do that, Blake. You can’t worry about me like that.”

  Josh’s shadow fell on her. “Here, Free-Pussy Hunter.” I sat up, reached for the joint he offered, and placed it between my fingers. I watched as his eyes moved down to Chloe and my joined hands. He didn’t say anything. He never would. She must’ve noticed, though, because she tried to pull away, but I held on to her tighter.

  There was no warning that they were coming. No sirens. Just the flashing of blue-and-red lights.

  “Tommy,” Josh said, almost as a whisper.

  Why would he be thinking about Tommy?

  He turned his back on the cop car, just as their doors opened and two uniformed officers stepped out. “Hunter, man, I can’t lose him.” He pulled out the bag of weed from his pocket, his hand shaking as he did. Eyes wide, he turned his head slowly from side to side. I’d only ever seen him like this once before—the day he’d realized Natalie was gone. He was scared shitless.

  I could see there was no time to throw the bag in the bushes or even put out the lit joint I was holding. Without thinking, I took the bag from his hand.

  Even though it all happened in a matter of a few seconds, it felt like an eternity. The joint between my fingers was pure fire in my hands. I dropped the bag onto my lap, just as a flashlight shone in my eyes, blinding me. “Hunter,” the cop asked, “is that you?”

  And that was when I knew it was over. My future. Whichever road I travelled—I was done. Basketball. My dad. All of it.

  “Thanks, baby.” Chloe’s soft voice broke through the silence. She picked up the bag from my lap and took the joint from my fingers. Then proceeded to smoke it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I tried to whisper, but I’m sure it came out louder than I’d wanted.

  “Whose marijuana?” the cop asked, now shining the flashlight at her.

  “Mine. Obviously.” She took another drag. “He was just holding it for me.”

  “I call bullshit,” the second cop said.

  “Yeah?” She jumped off the hood, letting go of my hand as she did. “Clayton Wells is my foster brother. You can call bullshit all you want, or you can call him and ask him where I got this weed from.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Blake

  A cab had picked us up from the half-court and dropped Josh at his house before taking me home. Josh hadn’t said a word after the cops took Chloe away. I knew he felt guilty and that it was all his fault. I hadn’t even thought twice about taking the fall for him. He was my best friend, and had a shit ton more to lose than I did. Chloe, though—she hadn’t needed to do any of it. In the grand scheme of things, we were nothing to her. Like she’d said, she’d known me a week.

  I’d gotten in my car and driven to the station. I’d panicked when they’d started asking questions about my relationship with her. I didn’t know shit. I didn’t even know how old she was. So I’d done the only thing I could think of: I’d called that seedy place she had taken me to a week ago and asked for Clayton. He’d shown up fifteen minutes later. That was seven hours ago. Seven hours with nothing more than a single nod of acknowledgment when he’d walked in. He’d spoken to the cops about her and then had taken a seat opposite me—his long legs kicked out in front of him. A few officers had greeted him by name, and I wondered how they knew him.

  His loud sigh cut through the silence. My head jerked up. Slowly, he stood up and walked over to me. I didn’t know what it was about him that was intimidating. I was short for a baller but tall among average people. He stood over me and glared down. “Who are you to her?” His words weren’t laced with anger or confusion—it was just a question. I noticed he still looked as tired as the first time I’d seen him.

  I didn’t respond.

  He sighed again and took the seat next to mine. “Are you seeing her? I mean, are you her boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “You want to be?”

  I stared straight ahead. “I have a girlfriend.” Though Hannah wasn’t really relevant, I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Really? Could’ve fooled me. Where was she last night?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t really think it’s appropriate—”

  I turned to face him, cutting him off. “Are you okay with her and The Road?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
<
br />   “I dunno,” I spat out. I didn’t need him telling me what was appropriate and what wasn’t. “Just kind of makes you look like an asshole if you’re letting her get in her piece-of-shit car on an endless fucking road trip. You can tell me what’s appropriate all you like, but you know her better than I do. I’m sure you might even care about her more than I do. Just seems like a dick move, is all.”

  He laughed. It was loud enough that the cop at the front desk stopped what he was doing and looked up at us. Once Clayton had settled down, he leaned back in his seat and drawled, “I like you, kid.”

  I fucking hated being called kid.

  “But here’s the thing you may not know about Chloe . . . yet. She does what she wants. She lives her life the way she wants, and nothing and no one can stop her.” He paused for a beat. “You guys go to the same school, right?”

  I nodded, my eyes fixed on the floor.

  “When did you start noticing her?”

  My body went rigid, and my breath caught.

  He must’ve sensed it, because he laughed again. “I thought so.”

  “Thought what?”

  “Chloe—she likes to remain invisible. The fact that she’s hanging out with you—or whatever it is you guys are doing—it means something. But just don’t fall in love with her.”

  My eyes snapped to his. “Whoa. Who said anything about love?”

  His hands went up in surrender. “All I’m saying is that you’re gonna get hurt. She’s not gonna be around, and she’s not gonna let you in. You might as well give up now.”

  Maybe his words should’ve surprised me, but they didn’t. I’d worked out enough about Chloe to know what he meant. Just as I opened my mouth to ask why she was like that, the cop at the desk interrupted me. “I’ll tell you what, Hunter.” He pointed a pen at me and smirked. “You give me the exclusive of where you plan on playing college ball, and I’ll let your little girlfriend go.”

  I dropped my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was pissed and so fucking tired. I wanted her out of there. I wanted to thank her. And I wanted my goddamn bed. “Are you charging her or just keeping her for shits and giggles?”