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“We keep driving until we reach Gurnee and take it from there,” I said. “But we will take things slow and see what happens. No pressure, okay?”

“Okay.”

It was a long day of driving, and any other day I would have suggested that we stop sooner, but I felt compelled to put as much distance as possible between us and the place where Blair called her parents. Plus, if we were going to spend the day at the amusement park tomorrow it would be great to have the whole day to explore.

We stopped along the way to fill up the car and drive through McDonald’s for dinner. Normally I would have preferred to avoid fast food, but I was eager to get to Gurnee and get settled in. Even though this was technically supposed to be a leisurely road trip, I couldn’t help but have the nagging feeling that our time together was going to end before Boston, whether we wanted it to or not.

To my surprise Blair had actually eaten at the fast food giant before. Kind of.

“One time on my birthday I told my parents I wanted to go to McDonald’s,” she told me as we ate. “They sent one of the household staff out to pick some up and bring it back for me. It wasn’t exactly what I imagined doing, but it still was fun to eat something different for once. After that I requested it every year.”

“My mom used to take me to McDonald’s sometimes when we had early dismissals from school,” I shared, my tone wistful. “When I was really little I’d play in the playground they used to have in the restaurants, but as I got older we’d hang out at a table and eat fries and talk like we were girlfriends instead of mother and daughter. It was nice.”

Mom always acted like it was our little secret that we went to McDonald’s when I got out of school early, but it turned out Pops knew about it all along. Not that it was a big secret or anything, but it had been fun having something that was just for me and my mom.

“Your mom sounds fun,” Blair said. “I love that she did things to make you feel special.”

I wondered if she was thinking about how her life would have been different if her family hadn’t experienced so many serious tragedies in a relatively short time.

“Did you have anything like that?” I asked curiously. “Something fun that you did with your mom or dad?”

She was quiet for a few seconds before she answered. “When I was younger Mother would have a team come and we’d do an at-home spa day. Manicures, pedicures, facials, the whole thing. That was fun. We’d turn the entire game room into a spa space. But somewhere along the way we stopped doing that together, I’m not sure why.”

On impulse I reached over and squeezed her hand. She turned it over, threading her fingers through mine, and I drove like that until we exited the freeway in Gurnee.

Unlike our experience in Wyoming and South Dakota, getting a hotel near the amusement park was a little harder. We stopped at three different places that were filled up and drove past several more with the ‘no vacancy’ sign glowing before I finally pulled over and did an internet search for available rooms. We ended up backtracking thirty minutes to find a hotel with a room available.

Any fantasies either of us had entertained about having sex tonight were squashed by the time we trudged into our hotel room. We were both quiet, taking turns in the bathroom before settling in bed next to each other. Unlike last night, this time we both settled near the center of the bed, close enough to touch.

“I’m so tired,” Blair yawned. “I don’t even want to watch TV.”

That was pretty tired, I thought to myself. My companion had been enjoying TV every night we’d been on the road. It helped that pretty much anything we watched was new to her.

“Go to sleep,” I said as she pulled the blanket up to her neck and tucked herself in like a human burrito. “We have a big day of amusement tomorrow.”

She rolled over to look at me, her eyes glittering in the dim light. “At least let me give you a goodnight kiss before I pass out from exhaustion.”

She didn’t need to ask me twice. I leaned forward to meet her, our lips pressing together in a chaste kiss for a few seconds before we pulled back again.

“Good night, Blair,” I said, stroking her arm through the blanket.

“Good night, Jenny.”

I swear she was asleep before I even turned off the light.

Blair

When I woke up there was a thin patch of sunshine coming in through the gap in the curtains. Behind me I could hear Jenny breathing deep and even, telling me that she was still asleep.

All day I’d been looking forward to finally – finally – having sex with her and then by the time we found a hotel with an open room it was after midnight and we’d both been too exhausted to do anything. But I wasn’t exhausted now.

Carefully I rolled over to face Jenny. She was sleeping on her side, her hands tucked under her cheek on the pillow like one of those angel paintings, her face soft in sleep. She was beautiful, smart, and sexy as hell. If we hadn’t been literally on the side of the road yesterday when we kissed I would have been sorely tempted to throw her to the ground and have my way with her, which was really weird, because I was not one of those passionate throw people to the ground kind of people.

Then again, I wasn’t normally a road trip person or an amusement park person or a dye my hair pink person. At least I hadn’t been before. One thing about this trip, it was teaching me a lot about myself. Traveling with someone who didn’t think it was weird for me to try new things or be my natural self was refreshing.

The more I experimented, the sadder I was that I hadn’t asserted my independence from my parents sooner. It had always seemed cruel to make my parents worry about me more than they already did, but Katy had helped me to see that somewhere along the line their natural protectiveness had turned into control. It was time for me to live my life on my own terms, whether they liked it or not. Going on this trip had done wonders for my self-confidence.

“You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Jenny mumbled sleepily.