Right Place, Wrong Time

63. On the Road

Joey regretted leaving his packing to the last minute when he was running around the next morning while Lauren and his parents got to sleep in, already ready to go. But in his defence, he'd been too excited about Lauren getting there to focus on anything else.

Finally, he loaded his bag into his car beside Lauren's. They set off behind his parents, but at the first gas station they passed he pulled in to get refreshments; it wasn't a real road trip otherwise. Lauren came in with him, and they both walked out with armfuls of snacks and cold drinks.

"So, I was supposed to be following my parents. I don't actually know where I'm going," he said, buckling his seatbelt back in. "I'm going to need you to give me directions."

Lauren's jaw dropped. "Are you joking?"

He grinned. "Yes."

He laughed at the look of relief on her face, even as she called him an asshole, plugging the address into his GPS.

"I'm fucking terrible with directions," she said. "We never would have made it."

"I know," he smiled. "You've got nothing to worry about. You're with the best driver in LA."

"And when we get out of LA?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned. "Second best, probably."

He pulled out of the gas station, eager to get on the highway. It was warm, but he left the A/C off in favour of rolling the windows down. The wind blew through his hair, and it swirled Lauren's around her head.

"Would you rather I closed it?" he asked.

"No, it's good," she smiled.

It was a while before he'd have to focus too hard on navigation, so he turned the radio on loud. Lauren turned it down a few notches, and he smiled apologetically,

"The weather's gorgeous today," she said, tipping her head to the wind blowing in the window, the sun shining in on them.

"It always is here," he said.

"It'll probably only take one more New York winter for me to think about moving," she said.

He glanced over at her, wishing her eyes weren't hidden by sunglasses right now. "Would you move?"

"Probably," she said, playing with the hem of her shorts. "I love New York, but I don't know that I could live there forever."

"Where do you think you'd want to move to?" he asked quietly.

She turned to him, not answering the question in the time it took for them to overtake another car, but not looking away.

"Whichever place felt right," she finally said softly, and he vowed to do whatever she needed for that place to be with him. He had one year left of school, and then he'd move anywhere in the world if she wanted him to.

A song they both knew came on the radio then, and Lauren began signing along to it. Joey joined in, tapping out the beat on the steering wheel. As the song went on their voices grew louder, immediately whipped away in the wind. Lauren had a huge smile on her face, but it grew even wider when Joey began singing deliberately out of tune. Then it became a competition to sing as badly as they could, which was way more fun than singing properly had been.

Coming up to another rest stop, he indicated to turn in. Lauren had been giving him swigs of his drink as he drove and his bladder wasn't happy about it.

"We're stopping again already?" she asked.

"I have to pee."

"Oh my god," she said, leaning her head back against the headrest.