THE WILD SEASON

Chapter 11

If there were a cat-sleeping contest, this feline would take the gold. Since it went into the carrier two and a half hours ago, it hasn't bothered opening its eyelids for longer than never.

"You need anything from inside?" I ask the cat when we stop at a gas station outside Allegheny.

The grey tabby doesn't move.

"Cool, just checking."

I step outside and stretch, then go inside to use the restroom, which I rate as a six on a scale of one-to-gross. I grab Doritos, a Sprite, and a few other snacks, and hightail it back to the car, thinking I can snag the driver's seat. But no, Colt's big butt is already planted in place.

My hands ache to grip that steering wheel, but in the end I decide the Doritos are more important. I can't remember the last time I ate junk food. "Are we in a hurry?" I ask as Colt zips back onto the highway.

Colt harrumphs, which is more than I've gotten out of him the entire drive, and certainly more than the cat has graced me with.

I pull out a Twizzlers straw and take a bite, dipping it in my Sprite for extra fun. "I've named the cat Sloth, for obvious reasons."

"Cool," Colt says.

"Want to play a game?" I ask. "I'm bored."

When Colt doesn't reply, I get pissed. Of all the people on earth, this is the person I'd least like to be in a motor vehicle with. And yet here he is, acting too good for me.

"Why don't you just turn around and go back?" I say. "If you're not going to talk, I might as well be alone."

Colt grinds his teeth, and I try to figure out what happened between that uninhibited scream of joy he released over the bridge, and now.

"What if I bribed you?" I pull a Mars bar from my bag of goodies.

Colt glances over with lazy eyes, but when he sees what I'm holding, his expression brightens. "Not a Snickers, huh?"

"They were out. Mars is a good substitute."

Colt shakes his head like I'm a moron. "I think you mean Snickers is a substitute for Mars."

I look at the Mars bar. "What? No. No one picks Mars over Snickers."

Colt grabs the candy from my hand, tears the wrapper off with his teeth, and bites down on the chocolate. His shoulders slump with ecstasy as he swirls the nougat and caramel in his mouth. He points at me with the candy bar. "There is no substitute for Mars. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be."

"Congratulations, that's the most you've spoken to me in one hundred and fifty minutes. And it was about something as riveting as chocolate."

Colt finishes the Mars bar in two more bites and tosses the wrapper in the back. His eyes rake over the rest of the snacks I bought as his jaw works back and forth. He's clearly frustrated about something.

"I guess you're still wondering what I was so upset about in the parking lot at school," I say.

"Nope."

"What is it? What?" I ask. "Nothing is worse than this silent treatment."

"I bet you buy junk like that all the time," he snaps. "Without even thinking."