Except for Tyson. He was weird about his nephew.
6
Better Than Nothing
Simon
Ihated road trips.
My brother could spend all day in the car, but not me. And I actually hated driving. Thankfully, he knew all of this and volunteered to get behind the wheel for the first shift.
I actually hated mornings too. Trenton chugged coffee to get him through it but I hated the stuff. No amount of sugar ever made the bitterness fade for me, I could always still taste it on my tongue for hours afterward. Most of the time I drank it anyway because I loved caffeine.
We had loaded our bags into the back of the SUV, plugged the address into the gps, and now we were just waiting on Ariel to show up.
I half expected her to show up with a slew of her husbands in tow, ready to bring them with her.
Five minutes later the back passenger door opened and Quinton unceremoniously tossed a bag inside. Ariel climbed in behind it and the door shut once again. Quinton disappeared and our journey began.
The tension just melted away the further we got from the mansion.
I knew it wasn’t right to see it as a vacation because of what we were going to do but I was going to make sure we enjoyed as much of this trip as I could. My brother could keep his stick up his ass for all I cared, but I was letting mine loose for the time being.
Because Trenton was smart and he knew me almost better than he knew himself he stopped at the first gas station so I could stock up on snacks for the trip.
Sometimes you just had to feed the beast so you could keep it happy.
They both stocked up on coffee so I got enough snacks for them too. They could thank me for it later. And energy drinks.
It took two hours into our journey for the sun to come up and the ride so far had been completely quiet. Ariel wasn’t a loud person by any means but she also wasn’t ever a silent one. I wished I could crawl around in her head and see what she was thinking. It’d make the job so much easier.
I wasn’t suited for the silence and I was starting to come out of my skin. If the quiet bothered my brother he didn’t show it. Then again, he was a fucking robot.
At times it drove me nuts.
And Ariel wasn’t any better. She seemed to be lost in her own world.
I put my headphones in and listened to my instructor teach me French. I loved learning new things. Be it languages, arts and crafts, cooking, it didn’t matter to me. I had several different afghans I had made that most people probably would have madefun of me for. Seemed like a hobby for little old ladies but for me it kept my mind and my hands busy and I needed that.
Trenton was the opposite and it didn’t take any effort to calm his mind.
I always envied him his easy peace of mind.
He was my calm and there were more reasons than just us being brothers for me to consider him the other half of my soul.
I was going over the French alphabet in my head when my brother pulled into a drive thru and I immediately perked up. I had a serious love affair with food. And if it was bad for me I wanted it even more.
Trenton was probably going to order a sad salad with lite dressing like a fucking psycho.
I was right, he ordered a salad and some kind of chicken wrap.
Ariel ordered mozzarella sticks, curly fries, and a shake I’d bet my life she was planning on dunking her fries into.
I went all out. Shake. Fries. Mozzarella sticks. And two sandwiches. I’d have to do some sit ups before bed to work it off but I’d do those anyways.
Neither of them commented on the amount of food I ordered. Ariel used to poke fun of me but eventually she gave it up and left me be. Trenton was used to my garbage disposal ways and he always just let me be me.
We were back on the road for awhile and all of our food had been consumed before she spoke.
