Wanderlust

8- The Call

“Okay, so now that we switched the license plates, we are on our way west.”

“It’s four now, so I think we can drive until like, nine maybe.” I suggested as Thomas stuffed that pocket knife into his pocket again after exchanging the license plates on the SUV with another black SUV that was parked not too far down the road.

“Sure, that sounds fine.” Thomas agreed with me.

“Alrighty. So how did you get the keys to this SUV and not have to hotwire it?” I asked curiously as he drove- he insisted on driving- down the road to get onto the highway to go west.

He smirked. “It was a teenage girl and she figured she’d just stop in the mall to say hi to her boyfriend who works at one of the stores. I overheard the conversation she was having on the phone when I was walking down the aisle. It was almost too easy.”

I nodded and crinkled my nose. “That’s why it smells all girly and perfumey in here.”

“Yep.” He smiled. “But it’s big and we can put the seats down in the back for a bed if need be.”

I nodded. “It’s nice, but I feel really bad for that poor girl.”

“She left her keys on the car and her doors unlocked in a busy mall parking lot. I don’t feel too bad for her. Although, she was kind of hot.”

I rolled my eyes at him and hugged my knees to my chest in the passenger seat. “I still feel bad for her, she’s probably freaking out right now.”

“She’ll get over it, with a car like this, I’m sure Daddy can just buy her a new one.” He assured me.

I sighed, not wanting to sound like a big baby about complaining about breaking the law so I just dropped the subject. “I hope somebody takes good care of my baby.” I whined, finding a new topic to complain about.

He laughed. “I don’t think this will help you, but you will probably never see that car again.”

“You’re right.” I snapped. “That was completely unhelpful.”

“Why is it so important to you anyway?” He asked curiously.

I shrugged. “I’ve had it since last year and I’ve been rigging it with stuff ever since.”

“Rigging it with what kind of stuff? Are you a drug dealer or something?” He joked.

“Yes.” I replied sarcastically. “I sell weed and LCD from the back of my pink Bug, you caught me.”

He laughed and now that I wasn’t driving, I had free reign to watch his smile, and I think that it got prettier since the last time that I’d seen it. “Okay, but seriously, what did you rig it with?”

“Those blankets and pillows and the stuff that was in the trunk, and I had maps in the doors of every continent, state, country, ocean, city, I grabbed the main ones that we may need, but most of them, I had to leave behind.”

“Were you planning on running away or something?” He asked, again in a joking manner.

When I remained silent, looking out the window, he realized that he’d pegged it on the dot and suddenly, the smile was gone from his face.

“Oh.” He said quietly.

“I never was really going to, though.” I muttered, keeping my eyes trained on everything outside of the window. We were out of Akron now and moving through country roads again. “I just want to see the world, I guess.”

“Well, if I had a mother who locked me in closed spaces as you explained, I would want to run away too.” He defended.

“It’s not like she starved me or anything, she’d just lock me in the study or something like that and have a maid bring me food. It was still agonizing, but nothing illegal.”