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My brain got hung up on the ‘let me be in charge’ comment for a few seconds before I caught up with the rest of what she said.

“That sounds perfect,” I said. “But I have a list of places I want to visit.”

“Like what?” she asked curiously.

“Like Mount Rushmore and the Mitchell Corn Palace and the Bean in Chicago.”

She looked a little surprised by that but nodded. “That all sounds good. Should we hit the road?”

I made a dorky hand gesture that I was immediately embarrassed by. “Hit it.”

Jenny

I’d had a bad feeling about this trip ever since Katy smuggled this woman into my car, and nothing that had happened since then was changing my mind. One thing for sure, I was going to email everything about this to Pops from the hotel tonight, so I’d have a record of what happened.

I wasn’t sure what it was about Blair, but I wanted to help her. Show her what a real road trip was like. Let her have her freedom. She hadn’t gone into it too much, but I could tell from the shadows on her face when she talked about it that growing up in a cage had taken a toll on her.

She needed someone to show her how to survive in the real world, that much was clear. It was like she was that fairytale princess who grew up in the tower. Was it Rapunzel? I couldn’t remember. There was a lot she could learn from me if she really wanted to be on her own.

Except… I was incredibly attracted to Blair. That was super inconvenient, especially when we were embarking on a road trip that would keep us in tight quarters for several days. It would not be a good idea for me to be lusting after her the whole trip.

Not that she would share my attraction. After all, I was significantly older than her, solidly a size twelve, and I didn’t have a glamorous bone in my body. Meanwhile Blair managed to make faded jeans and a tee shirt look like haute couture.

We headed back out on the freeway, both of us quiet. When I glanced over at her, Blair was staring out at the road with a pensive look, as if she was hoping it would give her the secrets of the universe.

“Do you mind if I turn on some music?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Oh sure, that would be great.”

I fiddled with the radio until I found a station playing a mix of songs from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Perfect. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as I drove, letting my mind wander.

Four hours later my stomach was growling.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. Blair had been pretty quiet so far.

“Starving,” Blair replied in a dramatic voice that made me smile.

“Let’s stop for lunch, and we can fill up the car on the way out.”

“Sounds good.”

I exited at the next small town, finding one of those ubiquitous small town diners as soon as we hit the main road.

“This okay?”

Blair looked dubious for a second. “Is this the kind of place you’d normally stop on a road trip?”

“Yep. You can’t go wrong with a diner like this. I can guarantee you there’s going to be a sixty-something waitress in there who’s worked at the place since high school, and they’ll serve breakfast food all day as well as serve really good burgers.”

“Sounds fun.”

We walked in and found a booth in the back. The menus were on the table, pushed behind the metal napkin dispensers. I slid one over to Blair and then smiled to myself as I saw Breakfast Available All Day! on the front of the menu.

A few minutes later the server came by. She was a little younger than I predicted, maybe early fifties, but she had the look of a person who’d lived a hardscrabble life. Her nametag identified her as Connie. Her scowl identified her as someone who’d had enough.

“You girls know what you want?” she asked in a bored tone.

I ordered an omelet with a side of pancakes and after a brief hesitation, Blair did the same.