Journey runs her hands down the back side of her jeans, then stretches her arms above her head. “I don’t know. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with you. I’m not a big planner, so I prefer playing by the minute more than anything else.”
I used to be like that before Hannah came along, but with a kid, everything must be pre-planned, so I can’t be spontaneous anymore.
Journey doesn’t make any mention of going upstairs to her apartment and I’m wondering what’s going through her head, especially after today’s events at the warehouse. Since I’m learning that she doesn’t like to be pushed into anything, I release the gate on the bed of my truck. “Want to stare at the fog for a while?” It’s so mild out, it’s nice to get some fresh air after the long winter.
“Sure,” she says. I hop up onto the bed and open the metal crate I keep a few emergency supplies in. I toss out a thick blanket, so she doesn’t have to sit on the cold metal.
Journey doesn’t hesitate to climb up and snap the blanket out so it’s flat across the width of the bed. We take a seat and lean against the metal crate for support. “I don’t remember the weather ever being this mild in March,” she says.
“Same. It’s weird, but nice.”
I scroll through the apps on my phone to find Pizza Palace. The pizza isn’t half bad and they deliver. “What’s your actual address here?”
“290 Oak Knoll Road, Apartment twenty-four, but we’re not in the apartment so you might as well say the parking lot.”
“Do you like anything special on your pizza?”
“Cheese,” she says.
“That’s not special.”
“Gummy bears?”
“That’s better, but I’m afraid they might be fresh out of those.”
“Then just cheese.” She’s smirking. She’s lightening up. Whatever it is I’m doing is working, but I don’t know I’m doing.
“Is that like a photographer thing? It’s a cheesy cheese joke, get it?”
Journey tilts her head to the side and gawks at me like I have two heads. She obviously needs more humor in her life. “Okay, I’ll keep the jokes to myself.”
“No, it’s okay. If it makes you laugh, go right ahead,” she says. Journey couldn’t sound more unfazed if she tried.
“Pizza will be here in forty minutes,” I say, placing my phone down on the blanket.
“Perfect. Now, you can tell me your deep dark secrets,” she says as the wind blows her dark strands across her forehead. Thankfully, there’s a streetlight behind us so we’re not sitting in complete darkness. It would be a waste of a night if I couldn’t steal a few glances of her raw beauty.
“Is that all I’m good for? A story?” I say, dreading the topic.
“I have to know if you were in juvie. Give me that at least,” she says.
I slowly sweep my tongue across my bottom lip before shaking my head in response. “No, I was never in juvie.”
“Were you sent to boarding school?” I didn’t realize that was another one of the rumors going around.
“No, not boarding school.”
“Then where were you for those couple of years that you just seemed to vanish??”
“Tending to responsibilities that a teenager shouldn’t have to deal with,” I respond simply.
“Responsibilities,” she repeats, questioning the word. She knows Mom and Dad well enough that they wouldn’t cause unnecessary responsibilities to lay upon their teenage son.
“I had a troubled friend, a best friend. He put me through the ringer.”
Journey seems more confused now than she did after I said I was never in a juvenile detention center.
“What kind of trouble? Drugs, drinking?”
