Peyton’s phone buzzes, and she answers before the second ring.
“Bill.” Her voice softens. “We’re on the road. About three hours out.”
“He’s here. He’s driving. He’s okay enough.”
I look at her then.
Okay enough.
It is the most accurate thing anyone has said about me all night.
“Any change?” she asks.
Her mouth tightens.
“Okay. Tell the girls we are coming. We will.”
She hangs up and sets the phone down.
“No update. Still in the back, still working on her. The girls are asleep in the waiting room.”
I nod.
The next hour is road and dark and the heat of her beside me. I should not be aware of her body right now. Her knee angled toward me. The faint scent of her shampoo under the stale bite of rink sweat.
At some point, her head tips against the window. Her breathing evens. Sleep takes her mid-resistance, one hand still curled around her phone.
I watch the road and do not reach for her.
Instead, I drive.
A man in a truck on a dark highway, headed toward his mother with Peyton Hayes asleep beside him.
For now, that has to be enough.
Peyton
Iwake when the truck slows.
For one disoriented second, I think I am back in California after a late assignment, my mother’s voice telling me to text when I arrive, my father asleep behind a closed bedroom door.
Then the cab comes back.
The road goes dark around Ryan’s profile, both hands fixed on the wheel.
His jaw is a hard line.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost two hours.”
I sit up fast enough that my neck objects. “Any news?”
“Nothing new.”
That is either mercy or torture. I am too tired to know which.
His phone buzzes again. He looks down, then back at the road. His hands are too tight. His blinks last too long.
