Authors: Jane Davitt
Tags: #Gay & Lesbian, #Lgbt, #Fiction, #Erotica, #Romantic, #Contemporary, #Gay, #Romance, #Romantic Erotica, #Literature & Fiction, #MM
Wild Raspberries (15 page)
Tyler swallowed dryly, his gaze locked on the show.
“I bet you walked into that place and had everyone staring.” Dan’s voice was matter-of-fact, idle. “Men and women.
I
would have stared.”
“Most people were too busy eating to notice me,” Tyler said. He smiled. “I could invent a flirtation with the waiter, if you’d like.”
Dan raised his eyebrows. “You’re on your knees; if you want to confess, go for it.”
Tyler chuckled. “Nothing to confess, unless you count a goodnight kiss when I left Anne.”
“Where did you kiss her?” It was flirtatious, not accusatory.
Tyler leaned in and brushed his mouth against Dan’s cheek. “Right there.” He tilted his head and put the next one on Dan’s mouth, remembering how much he’d wanted to do this earlier, when it was fixed in a sullen, sulky pout. “Not there… not there, either… and most definitely not here.”
Dan’s breath quickened as Tyler’s kisses migrated south, his lips brushing over nipples hardened to points and the smooth, taut skin of an exposed hipbone. “Oh, man… you’d better not have. Just me, okay? You only get to kiss
me
in those places.”
“I can do that.”
It was as close as he could get to a promise and, really, given the state of his love life — if he’d even had one before Dan’s appearance — it wasn’t a difficult promise to make.
The wine hadn’t made him drunk exactly, not three lousy glasses, but it had left him feeling a little wild, a little loose. Uninhibited. He curled his tongue into Dan’s mouth, tasting toothpaste and licking the mint away until he could only taste Dan. The tie slithered to the floor, forgotten.
“Bed,” he said against Dan’s mouth. “Now.”
They stood beside the bed a few moments later, wrapped around each other, the heat from Dan’s skin seeping through Tyler’s shirt, as tangible as spilled liquid would have been. Tyler pulled away reluctantly, the need to get naked and feel that heat directly just about trumping the desire to stay like that, holding and being held. Dan watched Tyler in silence, his chest rising and falling quickly, and timed the removal of his shorts so that when Tyler kicked his pants out of the way, he looked up to find Dan naked.
The room was lit only by moonlight and the glow of the forgotten lamp still burning in the main room, and Tyler decided to keep it that way. There was enough light for him to see what he was doing and enough darkness for Dan to feel less on display. Somewhere in the kissing and the talking and the relocation, the sharp edge of his desire had been rubbed down a little, so while he was still hard, balls full and screaming messages to his brain, he could think again. That was a good thing, even if he missed the hazy, comfortable lust that had made him contemplate doing Dan over the back of the couch.
He pointed at the bed. “Lie down.”
“Since you ask so nicely,” Dan muttered and made the bed bounce as he got onto it, springs squeaking. Tyler put the lube where he could reach it — had to buy some more — and a condom, the package ripped open because he always forgot to do that before his fingers were slicked up, always.
Then he got onto the bed and on top of Dan, his weight braced on his forearms.
“You’re going to ask me if I’m sure about this, aren’t you?”
“No. You said you want it, and that’s fine by me. It’s not like I don’t want to fuck you, you know. I do. And like I said, you’re more than welcome to do me. I was just…”
“Just what?” Dan demanded.
Tyler shivered, beginning to slip back into that state where thinking was difficult. Every time he moved, the head of his cock slid on Dan’s stomach, a maddeningly not-enough friction eased by what was leaking out of the tip — his brains, probably. “I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the fucking time, okay? I was enjoying what we were doing, and —”
“So was I.” Dan’s tongue flickered across his lips. “God, yes. It’s just that I wanted to try this with you. Last time, with… well, it felt like it
should
have been good, you know?”
“Going to make you come first,” Tyler said, abandoning subtlety because they just didn’t have time for it. “You okay with that?” He shifted his weight and cupped Dan’s face with his hand. “Going to be able to get it back up for me?”
Dan turned his head, captured and bit Tyler’s thumb. “Give me a couple of minutes staring at you, and sure.”
Sweet. If Tyler didn’t know that at Dan’s age practically anything could be guaranteed to work as an inducement, he would’ve felt flattered. He could’ve just slid down and got busy, but he didn’t. Not when he was enjoying this so much, the slow kisses that kept turning dirty-sweet, the way he was the one close to coming, but Dan was the one making all the noise, helpless, throaty murmurs, muttering Tyler’s name and making it sound like a plea, like a command, like a prayer. He ended up with his fingers and Dan’s interlocked, pressing Dan’s captured hands above his head into the pillow, holding him down with his weight and riding out the bucking, writhing, squirming going on as Dan tried to rub off on his hip and his belly.
“Slow down, boy. I’m not going anywhere.” He bit down on the crook of Dan’s neck and then reconsidered and chose a place that would be hidden by a T-shirt — the top of Dan’s shoulder. The skin there was too thin to take a mark as easily, but it was a good place to bite and suck, and something told him that he wasn’t going to be tasting Dan’s come, but wearing it. Just too good like this, with Dan eager and pushy and pinned down. He accepted his temporary captivity in a way Tyler would never have been able to do. Any guilt Tyler might have felt was wiped away because Dan was so clearly enjoying it, without any deeper thought showing on his face than that he liked knowing Tyler wanted him.
It was like a ball being volleyed between them; he tried to give Dan something, and Dan took it, held it, smiled, and lobbed it back for Tyler to catch and keep. Right now, Tyler was giving himself blue balls trying not to come until he could do it with his dick high and tight in Dan’s ass, and Dan was… making it difficult.
Tyler went back up on his elbows and knees, so that the only skin his dick was touching was his own belly from time to time, and gazed down at Dan with something that felt a lot like affection, which he’d admit to more or less willingly, and a little like love, which he wouldn’t. Dan smiled back, with him in a way Tyler could never remember another lover being, whether casual or serious. Dan fingered the bite mark and bit down on his lip as he did it, a deliberate tease that nearly sent Tyler over. “Going to leave a mark.”
“Already did, boy.” The skin wasn’t broken and it wouldn’t be more than a red mark now and a pale shadow of a bruise by morning, but it was enough to make Tyler’s dick harden even more. Christ, he had to move this along… easy enough, though. He just put the flat of his hand over the rigid, quivering column and rubbed it, his thumb swirling over the glossy, slick head when it was in reach. Dan came almost at once, come spurting out into the air, onto his belly, across Tyler’s hand. Messy. Tyler licked his thumb reflectively and then pushed it, wet and reasonably clean, into Dan’s mouth, obeying an instinct he didn’t want to analyze. Dan sucked it, his teeth digging in and then said, “Do it. Now,” without letting go, the words emerging plainly enough.
Tyler tugged his thumb free, collecting a scrape across it because Dan didn’t ease up much with his teeth, and sat back on his heels. He was about to ask Dan how he wanted it, but it occurred to him that making it easy meant not asking Dan to make choices. They’d do it the way he chose this time and get fancy later. Unless Dan still didn’t like it, in which case this was the only chance he was going to get.
But no pressure.
Tyler put Dan flat on his stomach and grabbed a pillow. “Lift up.”
Dan eased up enough for Tyler to slip the pillow under his hips and then reached under to settle his cock into a more comfortable position. “If I come all over this pillow…”
“You’ll wash it tomorrow and use one from the chest for tonight,” Tyler told him. “Don’t worry about it; there are worse things than come to clean up.” He put his hand on Dan’s back. “Relax. It’ll make it easier.”
“If I was any more relaxed, I’d drip off the bed.” Dan wiggled his ass at Tyler. “Come
on
. In me.”
He put a slap on Dan’s ass for that, light enough that it wouldn’t have popped a soap bubble, and got an unrepentant chuckle back. Dan’s nervousness seemed to have dissipated; he sure as hell wasn’t flinching now when Tyler’s hand strayed near his ass. Tyler found himself liking that show of trust, and he smiled at the back of Dan’s head, letting himself relax, as it seemed like he was the only tense one in the bed.
Tyler took a moment to roll a condom on, taking care not to do anything to make his cock think it was time to party, sweating with the effort because he was so close and the way Dan was squirming restlessly just wasn’t helping. Then he lay beside Dan, one hand stroking Dan’s hair, the other, fingers lube-slick, moving in gentle passes over Dan’s balls and the strip of smooth skin leading up to his hole. When he slid one finger inside, with no more warning than a kiss against the shoulder he’d bitten, Dan moaned, low and sweet, and arched his hips up to take more.
“Do you like this?” Tyler murmured, his finger gliding, slipping, in and out. He did. The silky tight clutch around his finger reminded him of Dan’s mouth on him, and it hadn’t been that long since he’d done this that he’d forgotten what it would feel like when his cock was in there. There was no resistance beyond the natural flex of muscle; Dan was making it easy, adjusting his position instinctively.
“God…” Dan’s voice was choked and husky. “Yeah… don’t stop. I could do this all night.”
He sounded like he meant it. Tyler contemplated doing some online shopping for a plug to take the place of his finger. He could see himself really getting off on the idea of knowing Dan was wearing it around the cabin in the day, but he didn’t share the thought. Baby steps… He wasn’t huge, hell, no, but his dick was bigger than a finger; just because Dan liked this didn’t mean he was going to feel the same way in a minute or two.
Tyler’s balls were tight and heavy, lust and longing roiling in his gut. Make that thirty seconds or so.
He used lube lavishly on his cock and gave Dan a single, slow thrust with two fingers, both of them dripping wet, and then knelt behind Dan. “This hurts, hell, even if it doesn’t, but you want to stop, you tell me, do you hear me?” He put one hand on Dan’s hip and took hold of his slippery cock in the other. “I’ll stop. Doesn’t matter when. I’ll stop.”
Dan growled something that probably wasn’t meant to be comprehensible and then said clearly, “Thanks. Appreciate it. Now just fucking do it before I — uhn!”
Tyler grinned, eased out the inch or two he’d gone in, and then pushed forward, repeating the action, gaining more ground each time as he did. He had both hands free now, and he used them to keep Dan still when his words didn’t work. Finally, he administered another slap, harder this time. “You rush me, boy, and it’ll hurt and you won’t want to do it again for a while. And if you go at my ass like a bull at a gate, I can fucking guarantee you won’t get the chance again.”
Dan banged his head against the pillow he was clutching and then glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes were glazed and his face was flushed. “Okay.
Okay
. Just feels —” He broke off to moan again, the sound trickling over Tyler like ice water on a hot day.
He brushed his hand over the faint, fading mark his palm had left. “I know.”
By the time he was as sure as he could be that Dan was open and used to him, he was shaking, his fingers tight on Dan’s hips. He pulled out most of the way, tipped another dollop of lube onto his cock, and gingerly smoothed it around. For good measure, he applied some to the stretched, taut hole he was fucking, which led to Dan making some interesting sounds and stretched his own self control to breaking point.
Enough. One final, testing ease in and out, Dan’s breath a sob of need, his own harsh in his ears, and then he took what Dan was offering and gave him what he was demanding. He had to close his eyes by the third stroke. Watching the way Dan was riding his cock, anticipating each strong, forceful thrust and meeting it with an eagerness that verged on hunger, was too much. If this was going to last long, he had to block out sight. The feel of Dan’s skin dragging against his palms as Dan moved within his light hold, the ripe scent of their sweat and the spilled come; they were more than enough to cut this short, if he let that happen.
He slid his hand around and clawed at air, then the renewed stiffness of Dan’s cock, damp and hot and hard. Dan grunted in protest, as if the touch was too much, but when Tyler let his hand fall away to hover a few inches below, Dan adjusted his position so that his cock rubbed against Tyler’s waiting, cupped hand.
Tyler closed his fingers tightly enough to give Dan something to fuck and went back to what he’d been doing, relishing each stroke because he could almost hear a timer counting down. His climax was waiting, gathering strength, about to pounce with a snarl and a ruthless strength that would beat down every barrier he’d built, but he’d stopped caring.
He’d told Dan he could stop any time; he’d been lying.
He couldn’t stop now. He wasn’t in control of his body now; he wasn’t sure of anything, but he was sure of that. Beneath him, ass high, hands kneading the quilt convulsively, Dan was as lost as he was.
From somewhere, he rediscovered the ability to speak, and when he came he was saying Dan’s name, holding onto that thought as hard as he was holding onto Dan. Habit and necessity let him deal with stripping off the condom and giving them both a perfunctory wipe down where they needed it, but after that he lay in the shadowed room, his arms around Dan, and let sleep come without fighting it.
“I’m going to use the computer for a while,” Tyler told Dan on his way to the bedroom. “I won’t be long. If someone was to make me a sandwich for lunch, I might show my gratitude by taking him into town later on and showing him the night life. And when that crowded five minutes is over, I suppose we can find something to do.”
Dan felt his heart lurch even as he returned Tyler’s easy, happy smile with one of his own. He swallowed. The e-mail. God, would Tyler know he’d seen it? Well, not seen it, because he hadn’t looked, but… The glow from being well and truly fucked the night before and woken by Tyler’s mouth on his, sweet and slow kisses as Tyler’s hand stroked over his stomach and down, faded to a cold apprehension.
It had been so damn good for such a short fucking time, but every instinct for trouble that Dan had developed on the road was screaming at him that the e-mail was bad news and Tyler wasn’t going to like it.
He found himself thinking that it wasn’t fair, in a show of self-pity that he wanted to wallow in, just as he’d spent the morning luxuriating in Tyler’s good mood. Man, they’d both been smiling until their faces ached, kissing, groping, playing around… It was as if the fight and then that bone-meltingly good sex had combined to put them on solid ground, and now they were walking on quicksand and sinking fast.
He knew the moment that Tyler saw that e-mail. From where he lay on the couch, his book forgotten, he could hear Tyler’s tuneless hum cut off abruptly. He stood, registering dully that his ass wasn’t as tender as it had been when he woke and half missing the throb that reminded him of how it’d gotten that way, and went to the kitchen.
He’d cut and buttered some bread when Tyler came out of the bedroom and dumped a packed carry-on bag onto the kitchen table. No way he’d had time to pack it; it must have been sitting ready in the closet. “Get your stuff together,” Tyler said, his face washed-out and his eyes dead. “All of it.”
If it hadn’t been for that bag on the table, Dan would have thought that Tyler was kicking him out, but it looked like whatever Tyler had planned was something they’d be doing together.
“Okay,” he said cautiously. “Uh, mind if I ask where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
He opened his mouth to protest, because, man, he wasn’t just another piece of luggage for Tyler to toss in the truck, but he saw the way Tyler’s gaze was flickering around the room as if he was looking for something.
Shit, Tyler thought they were being
bugged
? He caught Tyler’s eye, grimaced and tugged at his ear, then lifted his eyebrows in a question. The distant expression on Tyler’s face softened for a moment, making Dan feel less alone, and then Tyler hunched up one shoulder and jerked his thumb.
I don’t know. Maybe.
Hurry.
He scrabbled together the little he had and took time out to pee. He treated himself to a minor meltdown in the bathroom, a silent one that lasted all of fifteen seconds before Tyler banged on the door. “You about done, boy?”
Dan stared at himself in the mirror, all wide-eyed and scared. That wouldn’t do. He made himself grin at his reflection, jaunty, casual, and then opened the door. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Tyler looked at Dan, a muscle jumping in his cheek. Dan wanted to put his fingers against it and make it stop, but Tyler didn’t look remotely approachable.
He did it anyway. The scratch of stubble that had left his chin tingling when Tyler had kissed him earlier had been shaved away to a glassy smoothness that wouldn’t last long. He cupped Tyler’s face in his hand and they stood there for a moment, linked, but separated by space. Tyler brought his hand up, covered Dan’s for a moment and then gently pulled it off him.
They drove away from the locked cabin in silence, the familiar jolting as they drove down the driveway worse than usual because Tyler was going fast. A rabbit hopped across the trail and Tyler swore, braked sharply, and gave its disappearing tail a disgusted glare.
Dan rubbed at his shoulder where his seat belt had bitten in and very carefully said nothing. He carried on saying nothing as they drove through town without stopping, Tyler’s gaze seemingly everywhere apart from the road ahead as he went through two lights that had turned red before the truck even began to go through the intersection.
Maybe that wasn’t a mistake, though.
Once on the road out of town, Tyler put his foot down and the truck took off, the engine running smoother than Dan would’ve expected, given its age, the speed gauge climbing.
“Uh, Tyler…”
“I can let you off wherever you want,” Tyler said quietly, without looking at him. “You’d be better off putting some distance between yourself and the cabin first, but it’s your choice, boy.”
“Just tell me where we’re going.” No fucking way was he leaving Tyler alone, not when Tyler was in this mood.
The corner of Tyler’s mouth quirked up. “As far as we can until we hit water.”
“The coast? We’re going to the ocean?” Dan grinned and felt a bubble of excitement displace his concern. “You’ll have to throw me out of the truck if you don’t want me to come with you.” He poked Tyler’s leg. “That was a figure of speech, just so we’re clear.”
“I got that.”
“Do you think… can we, you know… is it —?” Okay, talking cryptically was harder than he’d thought. “Can we talk?”
Tyler sighed and relaxed back against his seat, his foot easing up on the gas. “Yeah.”
“You don’t think they’ve bugged the truck?” It was funny, but Tyler calming down was making him feel as if he had to take over being worried.
“’They.’” Tyler shook his head. “Shit, you don’t have a clue — no, they haven’t.” He leaned forward and tapped a small box hidden under the dash. “That would be beeping if they had.”
“Maybe they disabled it.” Dan gulped. “Maybe there’s a bomb under the fucking truck and they’re gonna blow us up.”
“Maybe the aliens are landing and the moon’s made of cheese.” Tyler patted his leg. “They want me back, Dan; they’re not trying to kill me. And I doubt they bugged the cabin or the truck; I was just…”
“Panicking?”
“Yeah. Panicking.” Tyler’s knuckles were pale, the skin tight over them as he gripped the wheel. “Except when they trained me it probably had a fancier name like responding quickly to a crisis situation.”
“That e-mail…” Dan hesitated. “It came in last night. I didn’t read it, but I saw it.”
“You did what?” The steel in Tyler’s voice and the lurch as the car swerved had Dan closing his eyes. If he couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there… it worked for ostriches, didn’t it?
“I told you.” He opened his eyes again. “Watch the fucking road and get down off your high horse, okay? You’d left your e-mail window open, and just as I was about to log off, this message popped up. I — yeah, I clicked on the window. I wasn’t thinking. And I saw the number and it was the same as the one on your dog tags, but that is
it
, man, that is
it
.” He snuck a look at Tyler, who was staring forward, mouth clamped tight. Scary. “Use your brains.”
“What?”
Okay, snarls were better than silence. “Something in that e-mail freaked you out. Look at you. Freaked. Do you really think if I’d read it, I’d have let you fuck me and tuck me into bed? Let you spend the morning playing kissy-face with me? I’d have told you about it last night, Tyler! I’m not dumb.”
“No, but I guess I am.” Tyler hit the brakes and brought the truck to a shuddering halt. “Out. Here. Start walking.”
“No.”
“Don’t make me throw you out.”
“You put your hands on me to hurt me and I’ll kick you in the fucking balls.” He watched Tyler’s hand move, flipping back the jacket he wore and sliding into the small of his back, a leather harness showing. “Pull that gun on me and I’m gone for good, I mean it. You just don’t do that, Tyler, do you hear me? You just don’t fucking do that to someone you — someone you -”
Tyler put his hands back on the wheel. He looked exhausted and his hands looked like they were only steady because they had something to hold on to. “Someone you what? Someone I’ve fucked? Think again. I’ve done worse than that to men I’ve known longer than you.”
“Well, you might have had a reason to with them, but you don’t with me.” Dan felt his face heat up, hurt and anger boiling inside him. “I haven’t done a damn thing wrong and I’m not getting out until you tell me what that message said. They want you back? Is that it? Fuck, of course they do! You were good at what you did, and it’s not like there’re a lot of men like you out there.”
“Assassins? You’d be surprised.”
“Marksmen they can trust,” Dan said, keeping his voice level. “You’re not a murderer. Have you ever killed anyone they didn’t point you at?”
“Yes.” Tyler gave him a sidelong glance. “Sometimes I had to, to get at my target or defend myself. No one who was… no one who wasn’t involved, you know? But the way you mean, killing for the hell of it, or for money… no. I haven’t done that.”
“I believe you. I do. I don’t — you don’t scare me, Tyler. I know what you’ve done and it doesn’t matter. You don’t scare me.”
“I should.” Tyler turned the key and silenced the engine. A truck went by with a roar, shaking the vehicle, and then the quiet seeped back in. The road was bordered by trees, green and dark, and the sky was a deep blue scattered with cotton wool scraps of clouds. Peaceful and familiar, all of it. “I should terrify you, and you should be begging me to let you go, not trying to stay.”
“Why would I beg for that? If I wanted to go, you wouldn’t stop me. Just like you’re not lifting a finger to keep me when I know — shit, Tyler, tell me you want me to stay.”
“Oh, yeah.” The words were said so low that Dan had to fight to hear them, a whisper in a gale. “I want you to stay, boy. I just —” His voice strengthened. “I don’t want you mixed up in whatever’s coming.”
“Such as?” Dan asked bluntly. “Will you just fucking tell me what they said?”
“Nothing much.” Tyler bit at his thumb, worrying a shred of loose skin with his teeth, and then frowned at himself and stopped. “It was from Cole, my old boss.”
“What, like a general or something?”
“No.” Tyler shook his head. “I started out in the army, but by the time I left, well, I’d been —” He ground to a halt. “It’s hard to explain. They take you, and they transfer you, and they hide you. One man. Big army. It’s not difficult. I was technically still enlisted, but I was taking out targets for a whole bunch of organizations with alphabet soup for names.”
“CIA? FBI?” Dan guessed, a little hazy on the details.
“Sure, sometimes. Look, that’s not really important. Cole was just nudging me, I guess. He didn’t say they were bringing me back in and he didn’t threaten me. It’s just… out of the blue like that, after two years of silence…”
Dan thought, but didn’t say, that if something that small could have Tyler running, there was no way he was fit for duty again. Pity swept away his anger, accompanied by an impulse to protect that seemed laughable on the surface. Tyler could probably kill someone with a matchstick or, hell, just by looking at them right; Dan had been in a couple of fist fights and ended up bloody and bruised.
“Just tell him you don’t want to. Be nice about it, sure, but tell him no.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Tyler muttered.
“That’s because it is.” Dan rubbed at his face, the tension of the last hour hitting him hard. “Do you want to go back?”
Tyler gave that about as much consideration as a vegetarian would give a steak. “No. I want to see the ocean.”
It was a measure of how weird the day had become that those two sentences made perfect sense. “Then let’s go.” Dan settled himself back in his seat. “Just —”
Tyler turned the key. “Yeah?”
“Are you going to keep on driving like you’re being chased by a bear or something?”
The truck peeled out in a screech of rubber and a spray of gravel. “Hell, yes.”
***
By the time the sky was beginning to turn pink and gold, Dan was starving, cramped, and wondering if the ocean was really worth it. Dan didn’t complain, though; Tyler was still in an introspective mood, although he answered any comments Dan made amiably enough and let Dan put the radio on for a while. When Tyler reached over in the middle of a song and snapped it off, Dan didn’t protest, but he rolled his eyes and went back to staring out at fields and farms and trees. Same old, same old.
“We’re not going to get there before dark,” Tyler said abruptly. There was no map out, so Dan didn’t have a clue where they were. Dan had offered to navigate, and Tyler had shrugged and said he knew the way. “How about we find somewhere to stay for the night and finish the journey tomorrow?”
“Could we eat, as well?” Dan asked hopefully.
Tyler chuckled, which made something inside Dan ease a little, as if a pressure he hadn’t been aware of had lifted. “I’ve been listening to your stomach rumble the last fifty miles, so I guess we’d better.”
“Do you — have you made this trip before?” He didn’t want to pry, but it was getting to the point where he had to think about everything he said, and it was getting on his nerves. He was going to just come out and say it and the hell with the consequences.
“Sometimes I just felt like I couldn’t stand being in that cabin another minute,” Tyler answered obliquely.
“So where do you usually stop?” Dan scanned the road ahead and saw a smudge on the horizon that might have been a small town coming up.
“I don’t.” Tyler put his foot down and the truck surged forward, the needle creeping up. “This is how I usually drive and I don’t care if I get there in the dark; I know what the ocean looks like.” He eased off and Dan sighed with relief.
“You’re lucky you never got pulled over,” he said severely.
“Yes, officer,” Tyler mocked. “I do sometimes, but I can tell when there’s a cop around and I slow down.” He nodded as they passed a sign telling them that Gilmore was two miles ahead. “This place coming up isn’t huge, but there’s a motel or two and places we can get food.”
They found a motel on the outskirts of town, small but cheerful-looking, with well-watered planters in the parking lot overflowing with red and white flowers that matched the checked curtains in the windows of the rooms.