Getting There
The alarm rings, and despite Loki’s spell, I’m immediately awake. I jump up and grab my smaller bags, thundering down the stairs to the car at a breakneck pace, Rey right behind me, waking a few unhappy neighbors.
“Girls, slow down. We have plenty of time.” Loki emerges from the apartment calmly, to large suitcases under his arms, his toned-but-not-too-toned arm muscles flexing against his green t-shirt. o
“We can’t!” I reply. “We’re too excited.”
“I should have guessed.” He pushes open the building’s main door with his back, propping it open so that Reyna and I could slide through.
We load our luggage into the trunk of the car and slide in, Loki in the driver’s seat, me in the passenger seat, and Reyna splayed out in the backseat.
“Do we have everything?" Loki puts the keys in the ignition, checking the car around him.
"We do," I replied, banging my pillow to fluff it. "And even if we didn't, couldn't you just magic it there?"
"I'm getting the 'true vacation experience'." He smirked.
"Touché." I plug my phone into the stereo and scroll through my vacation playlist. "Here we go!"
Our drive to the highway is occupied with Reyna and I singing along to Michelle Branch's Loud Music, Loki focusing intently on the road, which I knew was caused by our karaoke. Most of the time, Loki just magicked the car so that it would drive itself.
"Come on, Loki!" I beg. "Sing with us!"
"I really should...focus on the road."
I flashed him a look, but didn't pursue as the next song came on and Reyna and I resumed our session.
•
Towards the end of Loki's driving shift (we had a divided it up so each of us had an hour of driving, giving Loki two as he was the best driver), the introduction to Cassiopeia by Sara Bareillles sounded through the speakers. I looked to Loki, a begging look in my eyes.
"Come on, baby," I whispered, taking his hand. "It's one of our songs."
Loki sighed, and I thought that he would refuse. But when the first verse began, he lifted his chin and began to sing in his clear, gentle voice, glancing over at me with liquid emerald eyes ever so often.
"Come in close now it's time to tell the story./Long ago, and so many years before we/Ever were, ever dreamed we even could be/There was her and her very first heartbeat."
I grinned, starting to sing as well. I never thought myself a good singer (despite Loki's protests), but couldn't resist myself with songs such as these.
"All alone in a corner of the night sky/Spiral bones of a supernova starlight/Fell in love with another burning bright/She dreamed of a way to ignite. She said..."
When the chorus began, we sang together, automatically harmonizing.
"Tonight/Come on, come on collide/Break me to pieces I/I think you're just like heaven/Why, come on, come on collide/Let's see what a fire feels like/I bet it's just like heaven/Just like heaven/Just like heaven."
When Loki begins the second verse, I notice Reyna filming us. I grin madly and wink.
"Such a shame nowhere near even a near miss/Light years away from the hope of being sun-kissed/Anchored home in her interstellar sea but/Poor lonely Cassiopeia."
