They found a reasonably decent looking hotel to stop at, which they selected primarily on the basis of it being in a brightly lit and busy area. The last thing they wanted was for someone to try to steal the truck.
The bed wasn't the most comfortable, but it had Carter in it, and that made up for a lot. They lay together and kissed, but when she began to move against him, he pulled away.
“I can’t,” he said gloomily. “I’m worried that if I get too excited, those damn claws might come out.”
"So put your gloves back on," said Fen.
That got his attention. "And be naked except for my gloves? A bit kinky, don't you think?"
Smiling, she said, “If you like."
He liked.
The next morning she was still suffused with the glow of great sex with her fiancé.
My fiancé,she thought, marveling at it. She’d never been one to dream about marriage in the abstract, but the thought of marryingCarterwas glorious. They’d go to bed together at night and wake up together in the morning, every day for the rest of their lives. Even her distractible, novelty-seeking, possibly ADHD brain would never ever get tired of that.
She nudged him awake, kissed him, and said, "After all this is fixed, you should still wear the gloves sometimes. There’s something so hot about being naked except for a single article of clothing. Being ninety-five percent naked makes the rest of you seem even more naked than if you were one hundred percent naked."
"Well, that definitely makes me want to see you one hundred and ten percent naked." He was smiling too. "Sometime I’ll have you wear nothing but gloves too. Black silk. Elbow length."
"Hot," said Fen. “I presume you’re buying?”
“Absolutely. I can’t wait for that shopping trip.”
“Me neither.”
They went to the hotel’s café to have breakfast before they left. Guiltily, Fen said, “Let’s make it quick. I feel bad for Norris. He must be bored to death, floating there in a dark tank watching a video feed of a parking lot.”
“It’ll just be half an hour,” said Carter. “He’s probably having his own breakfast anyway. There’s plenty of trout left.”
The waitress came around to take their order. Fen requested coffee and shrimp and grits with a side of fruit for Sugar, and Carter ordered coffee and Georgia Eggs Benedict (on a biscuit instead of an English muffin) with a side of sausage for Precious.
As the waitress left, he said, “I see the horror of the swamp is wearing off. You got shrimp.”
“You’ll know I’m fully recovered from the batrachian trauma when I get the pawpaw pancakes.”
A family with an excitedly chattering small boy took the table beside them. Fen had just taken the first exquisite bite of spicy shrimp over buttery grits when she overheard the little boy say, “It’s a great big shark tank! And it has a great big shark! I saw it!”
She froze. Carter almost choked on his coffee.
The small boy’s mother said, “On YouTube?”
Fen held her breath.
“No, in the parking lot,” said the small boy. “It’s all wrapped up, but there’s a rip in the wrapping and I saw it! It has a giant eye and a giant mouth and giant teeth and—”
In perfect synch, Fen and Carter cast regretful glances at their almost-untouched meals, threw money down on the table, and fled. Sugar and Precious let out simultaneous angry screeches at being snatched away from their meals. Fen rushed back, dumped the fruit in one paper napkin and the sausages in another, and fled with them, praying that no paparazzi lurked in corners.
There was indeed a rip in the tarp over the truck. As she watched in horror, a toothy mouth came into view and sucked up several trout.
“There’s the culprit,” she said, pointing. A beat-up truck parked way too close beside them had shreds of tarp dangling from a sharp piece of metal where someone had hit its side mirror.
Swearing, Carter whipped out a screwdriver and some twine, hurriedly punched holes in the tarp along the rip, and tied it shut. Just as he was finishing, Fen heard the clear voice of the small boy. “Look! There’s the tank with the great big—”
She jumped into the driver’s seat, Carter took the passenger seat, and they peeled out of the parking lot as if a great big shark was pursing them.
They didn’t stop again, except briefly to refuel and get coffee, until they crossed the Iowa border. But despite eating granola bars and beef jerky instead of shrimp and grits, they were happy. Carter plugged his phone into the truck and they played each other their favorite songs and podcasts as they watched the scenery change from green and swampy to flat fields of corn.
