Road Trip

Chapter 9

We slept in the following morning and got back on the road after a big breakfast, this time of French toast and bacon, always a good choice in my book. By the afternoon we were already past Little Rock and just entering Oklahoma and feeling good about the trip.

"So, Oklahoma City tonight, or push on through?" I asked, wondering how slow she wanted the trip to go.

"If we go past it, where would we stop?" she wondered.

"I would have to confer with my navigator on that." I winked at her.

"Hey, I'm handling the important music part!" she objected. She was currently playing Skillet, another new one for me.

"True, you're doing a great job too. You'll have to download a lot of music for me before this is all done."

She was busy on her phone for a bit while pulling up Google Maps. "All right, if we go past Oklahoma City, then we have a whole lot of nothing till we hit Albuquerque."

"You have a preference?"

"Albuquerque sounds a lot more fun," she admitted with a smile.

"We won't see much while driving at night." I reminded me.

"Ethan, we're in Oklahoma," she retorted. I couldn't argue that point.

"Albuquerque it is then."

While we didn't stop for the night in Oklahoma City, Blake and I did grab some dinner there and then continued on our way just after sunset. I didn't feel like driving into the setting sun, so it was a good break. Unfortunately, that delay and our choice to drive through the night resulted in us hitting a rain squall that made the driving treacherous. I could see Blakes hands turning white on her phone, the lack of visibility in the rain storm was obviously getting to her.

"Blake?"

"Yeah?" she said, keeping her head down to avoid looking out at the rain.

"Can you tell me a little more about yourself?" I asked, trying to keep her mind off the storm. My own mind I couldn't do too much about, but the car was handling it well, so I just reduced the speed a little and hung on to the wheel.

"What would you like to know?" she asked in a ragged voice.

"All right, let's start with an easy one. Favorite color?"

"Green." She answered softly.

"Any green? Lime? Dark? Light?" I persisted.

"Dark, like a leaf green. I always liked walking in the woods."

"Oh, me too. I have a lot of trees around my house in the mountains, I can't get enough of walking through them. The scent of the forest always calms me down," I said with a smile. I could see her turn to me and smile a bit as well, though it was hard to really see when I was concentrating on the road.

"What is yours?" she asked, her voice starting to sound less worried.

"Well, I used to say blue a lot. But now I have to think gold." I admitted.

"Gold? Like jewelry? White, rose or yellow?" she asked, surprised.

"Not like jewelry, no. Every morning I watch the sun rise if the weather lets me, and the gold in the sky just as it is peeking up is my new favorite color. It took a few tries, but I even painted some of the rooms in my house that color." It had actually taken more than few tries. I kept finding colors that were close but not exact until the wall was covered in splotches of tester colors, but I was finally able to get the color I want when I got a custom mix and now it looked gorgeous.

"I like the sound of that," she said softly. "I don't get to see many sunrises; I sleep in too much!"

"I get to see them on most days, I have a weird work schedule."

"Oh, me too. Sometimes I start writing and I can't stop and then it is the next day and I don't even know what happened," she admitted.

"I'm glad you found something that you could get passionate about."

"Me too! I always loved writing, but I'm surprised it has taken off so well."

"So, are you going to let me read any of what you've written?" I had to ask with a grin.

"No!" she said, covering her face in embarrassment. "Stop embarrassing me!"

"What about some of the older stuff?" I pressed.

"All right, that you could probably read. Those are actually doing well too, since I have ummm... a larger following now." She blushed but breathed easier.

"Sorry about teasing you," I said softly.

"It's ok, I deserved it as often as I've done the same thing to you," she acknowledged. "But don't think I won't get you back."

We kept up the small talk till the rain stopped, so she was more relaxed. When the clouds cleared, we had a gorgeous view of the stars as well, so the drive was more enjoyable. 

"Maybe driving through the night just gave us a different kind of view," she said softly, while looking up through the windshield.

"We made the right call," I agreed. The rain had cleared up nicely, and with almost no other cars on the road, the night sky was one of the prettiest I'd seen.