Wish We Were Here

Chapter 1

SAM

“Did you say you’re going to Miami?”

This is the very first thing the boy says to me at the crowded bar.

He stands behind me, blonde roadkill with bright blue eyes, swimming in flannel and baggy jeans. His windblown hair tumbles to his shoulders. There’s an old, faded scar on his chin.

I attempt to exchange a glance with the attractive bartender I had been conversing with just moments before.

But Sylvia, according to her name tag, has already moved along, busying herself with other patrons.

It’s noisy in here, full of the families of students going to Yale. It’s move-in week, after all.

So I turn around once again on my stool and say, “Are you talking to me?” Even though there’s absolutely no one else he could be talking to.

“Yes,” he says impatiently. “Miami. You said you were going there just now.” He jerks his chin at Sylvia, who’s filling someone’s beer at the tap. “To her.”

I had said that. In fact, I’d been pressing upon her the urgency with which she should return with me to my hotel room tonight, because I was heading back to Florida in the morning.

I just got dumped by the girl I came all the way up to New Haven for in the first place, so why not?

Don’t want to spend the night alone with my feelings, but also don’t want to get so wasted that I can’t vacate my room in the morning.

Figured it was a good enough compromise.

“You were listening in, huh?” I say.

He doesn’t seem embarrassed. He shrugs, the picture of nonchalance. “You’re close to the door. Your voice carries.”

I make a noncommittal noise and squint at the dregs of my beer, turning the glass in my hands like a kaleidoscope.

It’s a million times less interesting, though.

“You know,” I remark casually, “most people would open a conversation with, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Or maybe even offer to buy you a drink, first.”

The guy regards me with, if not open hostility, a suspicion so naked that it borders on hostile. It’s kinda weird considering he’s the one who approached me. He clutches the straps of his worn backpack with both hands, practically white-knuckled as he sizes me up.

“Okay,” he says at last. “Fine.”

He takes strange, mincing steps before he pulls himself up onto the stool beside mine. A grimace briefly pulls his lips back from his teeth. He smells very faintly of rust.

Now that he’s closer I can see his face more clearly: narrow, almost delicate, paired with a ski-slope nose and lips that are neither thin nor generous.

It’s a good face, I think. Attractive. I’m not a hundred percent sure of his age, but I assume he’s a twenty-something.

Between the baggy clothes and the dim lighting, it’s hard to tell.

And something about his face and impetuousness makes me round his age down a few years. Early twenties.

“What are you drinking?” he asks me.

A wide grin tugs at my mouth. “Oh, man. I was just fucking with you.” When he moves to slide off the stool, I hasten to stop him. “No, no. Stay. I’ll have another beer. On you.”

I try to get Sylvia’s attention, and she returns with some reluctance when she notices the new addition at my side. Can’t really blame her. He doesn’t actually look like he has any money to spend here.

“I’ll take another one of these,” I declare, brandishing my glass. “And for, um—” I realize I have yet to ask the kid’s name. I turn to him. “What do you want?”

“Water,” he says.

Sylvia gives him a look of dismay. “Just water?” she asks tartly, and now I’m wondering if he’s even old enough to drink. It’s hard to gauge his age from his appearance alone.

“And a burger. I guess.”

She plasters a smile on her lipsticked mouth and tells us the order will be right up, her dark ponytail bobbing as she whisks away my glass for a refill.

To the boy she gives a tall glass of water in a Coke-branded glass, setting it atop a red paper napkin.

She gives me a quick, flirty smile before working her way down the counter once more.

I guess that means we’re still on. I’m a pretty good-looking guy, or so I’m told—tall, tan, black wavy hair and dark eyes, all features owed largely to my Cuban father—and this seems to earn me a lot of grace in these sorts of situations.

“So,” I say, returning to the task at hand, that task being the strange and grungy boy sitting to my left. “Let’s start with names. I’m Sam Rivero.”

The briefest hesitation before he supplies, “Ash.”

“Ash?” I repeat. I have never met a guy called Ash. Plenty of girls, though, all short for some variation of Ashley. “Just Ash?” No answer. “Well, nice to meet you, Just Ash.”

It doesn’t even get a single laugh out of him. “I guess so,” he says tersely and I suppress a snicker. This kid has the social skills of a five-year-old.

“And how old are you?” When he gives me a blank stare, I dip my head towards his water. “You aren’t drinking.”

“I’m twenty-two,” he says impatiently. “And we were talking about Miami,” he adds, in the event I have somehow forgotten this in the last five minutes.

I scratch the stubble on my chin. I haven’t shaved since I left Florida yesterday morning. There hasn’t been time, what with all the moping. “Sure, yeah. I’m going to Miami. It’s where I’m from.”

Ash opens his mouth and then immediately shuts it, as if restraining himself from asking any sort of follow up questions. Then he says, “I want in.”

“In? You trying to hitch a ride with me?”

“Yes.” He leans towards me. His eyes really are striking: a blend of blue, brown and gold, fringed by lashes the same dark blonde as his hair.

They’re like a blue-hazel, except I’m not sure that’s a real color.

“I need to get to Miami,” he tells me in a low, urgent voice.

“I can pay for everything. Gas, hotels, food—whatever you want. Just as long as you get me there.”

Well, well, well. That does change things. I set my chin on my palm as I consider this. I am so strapped for cash that I’ve been halfway entertaining the idea of completing the twenty-hour drive straight through. Worst case, I would pull over at a rest stop and catch a few Z’s in my car.

And I haven’t exactly been relishing the idea, so what Ash is offering is really damn tempting. Except…

“No offense,” I remark, “but you don’t look like you have the money for that sort of thing.” Actually, he looks homeless.

“I do,” he says. “Trust me.” He waves a hand in a vague gesture meant to encompass our food that is being delivered presently, Sylvia placing my beer delicately before me. “I’ll pay your tab, too.”

This is just getting better and better. He wants this bad. I flash my teeth. “If you’ve got the scratch, why not just fly?”

“I can’t. I have epilepsy.” And he shows me a silver bracelet on his wrist as if to offer proof. It means fuck all to me, honestly, but it’s got that red Star of Life thing etched into the metal tag.

“Huh.” This conversation has sent me all off kilter. “That’s like, seizures, right?”

He nods. “I’ve heard if you have a seizure on a plane, they might have to turn around or land at the closest airport. And since my seizures tend to be brought on by stress…”

I’m picking up what he’s throwing down, I think. Not that I know enough about seizures or flying to tell him one way or the other. Truthfully, this excursion to see my now ex-girlfriend is the first time I’ve left the state of Florida since I was a kid. “Right,” I say.

He grasps the greasy parcel of his cheeseburger and takes a bite, studying me sidelong as I steal a french fry off his plate.

He’s made his offer, and it’s up to me to accept his terms. He’s now much more at ease than when he first confronted me, his skinny shoulders relaxing, the flannel shirt slipping off one.

His demeanor is that of someone who knows what my answer will be, and that answer is an unequivocal yes.

I can’t help but feel a growing curiosity about this stranger.

I have so many questions. How long has he been hanging around at this bar looking for someone to bum a ride from?

Has he been watching for someone who looks like a solitary out-of-towner, a tourist?

Did he wait for move-in week specifically?

Did he frequent this place? Was he a regular?

The answer to that last question seems like a no; the bartender hadn’t seemed to recognize him. But his accent sounds local enough. Yankee, my mom would say.

There is nothing about Ash that says sketchy so much as it screams it.

A vagrant-looking boy who apparently has the cash to fund a road trip—or so he claims. It’s possible he’s lying, but if he is, I’ll find out sooner or later, won’t I?

At a gas station or a hotel where he’ll mysteriously come up short.

At worst I can just dump him somewhere to fend for himself. Get picked up by some other sucker.

Actually, that isn’t true. There are lots of scenarios I can conjure up in my mind that are much worse.

For instance, if he does have this purported cash, where did he get it from?

Some drug lord he shorted who was now out for blood?

And if I say yes, then I’d be getting involved…

that is, if I really thought these sorts of things happened outside of TV shows and movies.

The thing is, until this very moment I have been existing in a weird sort of space where I believe bad things do not happen to me.

Not truly bad things. Sure, my girlfriend dumped me after driving over a thousand fucking miles to see her, and sure, I have some stuff back home that’s kind of shitty if I think about it too much (so I choose not to), but otherwise…

well. I’ve floated through life without doing a whole lot and seeing not much more, and I expect that to continue.

Now I have a potential adventure on the horizon. A big, vibrant distraction. Something interesting is happening to me at last, even if it’s just a hitchhiker asking for a ride in a bar.