In a grand mood, Seb checked to see that we were alone and said in a low voice near my ear, “An entire night outside the cottage where roomie rules don’t apply... Anything could happen, don’t you think?”
I elbowed him lightly in the ribs, having heard a variation of this teasing for weeks. “So you keep saying. Show me the money, Jansen.”
When he didn’t reply, I turned to glance at him and our gazes connected. Andoh.The way he looked at me, like he was willing to throw everything away for another kiss. Maybe I was projecting, seeing what I wanted to see. But the hope that sparked in my chest could have started a forest fire.
It was sunny and warm, not a cloud in the sky over the lake. A perfect summer day. We piled into the Land Rover, boys in front, girls in back with Punkin. As Benny started up the car, Jazmine was the first to say what I was thinking. “I swear to God, if you drive this thing into the harbor with me in it, I will never get in another car with you again, Benny Morales.”
“Already did the harbor. I don’t wreck in the same place twice.”
“Oh, you’re like lightning now, are you?”
“Lightning McQueen,” I teased.
“Ka-chow, motherfucker,” he said, flipping me off with the smallest of smiles, and we were on our way.
The drive up the coast was pretty grand once we got out of a tourist traffic jam in Haven Beach. The lake was a dazzling bright blue. With the windows down and the wind blowing through our hair, Jazmine and I sang along to pop songs at the tops of our lungs, and Seb pretended to stab his ears and begged us to put on “real music.”
It was around five when we finally made it to the Sleeping Bear area, where we pulled off the highway into Happy Rest Campgrounds and paid the twenty-dollar fee for one night. The grounds were pretty, mostly tent camping with a few RV spots, and a nice pavilion building in the middle with showers, a TV lounge, and a snack bar.
Seb had reserved us a spot alongside a small creek. It even had its own firepit.
“You did good,” Jazmine told him as we unloaded our stuff onto a wooden picnic table.
“I’ve spent awholelotta time sleeping on the ground,” Seb said, hauling out one of the tents. “Guess that makes me a camping expert.”
“Was this the ‘camping’ you did last fall when you got back?” she asked. “Hate to break it to you, Jansen, but there’s a difference between camping and being homeless.”
“Nothing you can say will put me in a bad mood today,” he informed her. “We’re on the road to Shambala, baby. By tomorrow, we could be driving back with Mabel’s rings—that’s one step closer to riches beyond our wildest dreams.”
Benny pulled out the other tent and dropped it on the grass.“What if our wildest dreams are to live forever? Money can’t buy you that.”
Seb huffed out a laugh. “Good thing your dream is to buy a castle high in the mountains of Transylvania, which will get you pretty close to that forever wish, if you can just convince Vlad to bite you.”
“Well, at least my dream isn’t to live in an RV,” Benny said.
“Not that again,” Jazmine complained. “I told you, tiny homes are great in theory, but you’re a walking dead man during storms.”
I picked up a bag of metal tent stakes and glanced at Seb, thinking about all the travel audiobooks he listened to in his car. “Is that really your dream?”
The expression on his face was so open, just for a second, that I knew the answer was yes before he even said it. “Nice vintage camper would do. See, I figure instead of a storm chaser, I’d be a gold chaser, wandering the country, seeing all the sights. If things go south, you can always pick up and go to a new town.” He cocked his head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shrugged. “You used to want to travel abroad. Kinda assumed you might still since you’re listening to all those travel audiobooks. Flying to Cambodia to investigate temple ruins is a little different than driving a camper through Nebraska.”
“Well, sure. That’s the goal. But an RV seems doable in the short-term. Besides, travel of any kind is freedom, isn’t it? And considering everything I’ve been through, any freedom sounds like paradise to me.”
Did it? I wasn’t so sure. But I gave him a sympathetic look, reached out, and squeezed his arm.
“What about you?” he asked, flicking a glance to my face.
I shrugged. “Guess I’m already living my dream at Harvard.”The geek in me had always wanted to go to a good university, and I’d sacrificed so much to be there. It was difficult to think of any other future but that one.
“Liar,” Jazmine said, tying her curls back with a wide scarf. “You always wanted to be a female Indiana Jones.”
“I believe the term is IndianaJane,” Benny said.
I shook my head. “Nope. Bzzt. Wrong. I wanted to be Indie’s cool girlfriend, Marion Ravenwood. She owned a bar in Nepal and could keep up with all the men.” We’d all seenRaiders of the Lost Arka hundred times. Pretty much every treasure-hunting and pirate movie.
“Should’ve gone for an archaeology degree,” Seb said. “Then you could own the bar in Nepalandget the treasure.”
