Page 94 of We Are Just Us

“It’s barely morning,” Kieran muttered.

“Grumpy before coffee?”

“Grumpy always. Coffee makes it tolerable.”

Rory laughed and crouched down to greet the dogs. Mabel jumped up onto him immediately, but it was Hank who got the real attention, Rory running his hands over his coat, checking him over.

“Look at you,” Rory said softly. “Adventure dog. Where the hell did you go?”

Hank’s whole body wiggled in response, tail wagging so hard he nearly fell over.

“He’s not talking,” Kieran said. “I’ve asked.”

Rory stood, still grinning. “He looks good. Considering.”

“Hasn’t stopped eating since I brought him home.”

“Smart dog.”

Rory took Kieran’s bag and tossed it in the truck bed alongside camping gear, a cooler, and an alarming amount of firewood.

Both dogs hopped into the back seat with suspicious confidence, like they’d done it a hundred times.

“You ready?” Rory asked.

Kieran looked back at his house. At the neighborhood he’d somehow started to belong to. At the two dogs now pressing their noses against the truck window.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready.”

They climbed into the truck, and Rory handed him a travel mug. “Good coffee. Like you requested.”

Kieran took a sip. It was perfect.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re forgiven for the early wake-up.”

Rory pulled out of the driveway, and they headed east.

The drive to Joshua Tree took three hours and was a slow slip between worlds.

They left Encinitas after seven, the marine layer still clinging to the coast. Hank and Mabel were settled in the back seat, Mabel’s nose pressed against the window, Hank curled up beside her, still catching up on rest.

The Tacoma hummed north and then cut east, eventually merging onto the 10 as the marine layer gave way to inland heat, windows cracked enough to let the air move through. Rory’s playlist drifted low from the speakers, an instrumental that didn’t demand attention.

For the first stretch, they didn’t talk much.

Not the uncomfortable kind of silence. Just the quiet of two people who’d learned they didn’t have to perform for each other.

Rory drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Kieran’s thigh, a thumb occasionally brushing back and forth in a slow, absent rhythm.

Kieran watched the landscape shift.

First the sprawl of cities bleeding into each other, strip malls and freeway exits and billboards. Then the gradual thinning, the spaces between buildings growing wider, the concrete giving way to scrub brush and distant hills.

The sky opened up.

That was the thing about leaving the coast. The sky got bigger. Wider. Like someone had pulled back a curtain Kieran hadn’t realized was there.

“You good?” Rory asked, glancing over.