On the Road
REG COULDN’T remember a time when he hadn’t run on a mental checklist. When he’d been small, it had been simple.
Get up, make sure Chance was up.
Get Chance breakfast in time for own shower.
Get to shower, get everything done in five minutes.
DON’T FORGET TEETH!
Pack Chance’s backpack.
Pack own backpack.
Find out who’s dropping us off.
PRAY IT’S NOT SAL
And so on.
As he’d grown, the checklist had gotten a little more complex.
Get up.
Text Mom to make sure everybody’s still alive.
Text Dean or Val to make sure everybody’s still alive and somebody didn’t just lie to Mom.
Try not to think about Anthony.
Shower.
Try not to think about Anthony in the shower.
Finish shower.
Brush teeth.
Wonder if Anthony is wondering about ME in the shower.
Stop wondering that so you can get dressed.
Eat fruit, fiber, and caffeine to keep digestion regular.
Wonder if Anthony has to worry about his own digestion.
Wonder if digestion comes up after two people have shared a shower.
Debate asking Val, Sal, or Dean the digestion question.
Decide not. Definitely not Sal.
Think about asking Chance, but decide not to. Chance either has too much information or faulty, worrisome information, and the day is already full.
The list usually started when he opened his eyes, and he had about half his day settled before his feet hit the floor.
This day’s list had… glitches.
Get up. Hit the shower.
Wait, is Anthony already in the shower? Oh my God. Anthony is in the shower. He is probably naked.
How can I hit the shower if I too will be naked?
I need to hit the shower.
I need to hit the shower, get dressed, go out and make sure everybody has food, and we have lunch packed, and we have a route planned.
Oh fuck, I was so up in my head I haven’t planned a route! Shit shit shit shit what was I thinking!
Do I need to text Dean about the route? Wait. He’s here. Why are we meeting in Vancouver when Blaine, Washington, is closer to the border crossing? Should we both plan to meet Val in Blaine?
Where’s phone. Did I remember to charge my phone?
Holy shit, what was I thinking. Shoving four adults in an SUV and taking them on a four-day trip? How will I pay rent?
“Reg!” Anthony called sharply. “Reg, are you with us?”
“Sorry,” Reg said, sitting up in bed and trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. “I was just planning our day.”
“I can see that,” Anthony said, coming out of the bathroom wearing only a towel around his waist and using his other towel to dry his healthy brown hair. “Your eyes are bugging out like a cartoon character’s. Calm down. We’ll hash out some shit over breakfast. You good?”
“Yeah, uhm… oh.” Reg blinked.
“Oh what?”
“I only have two towels.”
Anthony grinned lazily, a certain amount of self-confidence curling out of his smile. “Don’t worry. You go get in the shower, and I’ll put the towels on the rack by the door. I promise not to look.”
Reg’s ears actually burned. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“No, thank you—you’ve been more than hospitable.”
“I didn’t even check to see what clothes you brought,” Reg muttered.
“A balance—two pairs of shorts, two pairs of jeans, good socks, clean underwear. I’d say no holes, but you don’t have any with holes, so that was easy.
Our denim jackets because it’s getting chilly up near Canada right now.
We both had extras, so I grabbed one each for the boys, and some scarves and such.
Don’t worry, Reg. I may not have grown up with five-hundred-million siblings, but I have figured out how to be responsible for more than myself. Trust me.”
Reg nodded. “Okay,” he whispered. “Sorry. Just, you know, not used to—”
Anthony padded over to stand in front of him and then leaned over, placing his hands on Reg’s shoulders. He smelled like steam and Reg’s shampoo and clean man, and suddenly any worries about his daily checklist flew right out of Reg’s tiny little mind.
“We’ll cover your list of questions over breakfast, Reg. Trust me. I like a nice priority list myself, and we didn’t go into nearly enough detail. It’s fine. We’ll cover it together, okay?”
Reg nodded, staring into those dark eyes, and tried to breathe.
Anthony gave him a smile—not that devastating grin, but something a little subtler.
“I really liked waking up next to you,” he confessed. “We’ll have to try it with more nakedness sometime.”
Reg nodded, not even aware he was doing it, and when Anthony placed a careless kiss on his forehead, all awareness whatsoever disappeared.
Then Anthony was gone, heading for his own knapsack, calling over his shoulder, “But you do have to get a move on. I tried to time us so we could hit the showers before Dean and your mom!”
Oh shit. If nothing else did, that got him out of bed and moving.
brEAKFAST WAS a full-court-press affair—a farmer’s breakfast, with sausage, eggs, cheese, toast, fruit, and giant travel mugs of coffee. Dean listened to Reg’s input about meeting in Blaine instead of Vancouver and nodded approvingly.
“Sorry, my own brain wasn’t up and running last night.
You’re right. Blaine makes more sense. Let me ask Val if there’s a smaller town there, somewhere we can meet and switch passengers and not catch any attention from border patrol—Val’s our gold standard.
We’ll talk with Dad, back and forth, and if one of us is out of reach of the other, let him relay info.
Let’s not stick to any one route. We don’t know what’s going to be closed for roadwork or whatever.
” He glanced at the boys, who were busy eating like only teenagers could.
“Let’s say five days. I know Google says we could do it in three or four, but…
.” He huffed out a breath. “I would have eaten the headrest of my car if we’d tried to make that trip in three days when I was that age. ”
Reg nodded. Dean would have lost his shit. So would Sal—and possibly Chance, although Chance had been one of those wonderful children who had fallen asleep the minute the car hit sixty.
“We’ll plan on five, and that way, we can stick to side roads and give Portland a miss,” Reg said practically, and Dean sucked air in through his teeth.
“That’s too bad,” he ruminated. “Portland’s wonderfully weird.”
“Yeah, but maybe not the safest place right now,” Marcus said, although he sounded melancholy too, and Reg met eyes with Bailey, both of them wondering exactly how much havoc Dean and Marcus had raised the last time they’d blown through Portland.
Judging by the annoyed look in Bailey’s blue eyes, Reg would put money on it being a lot of havoc, and of Dean and Marcus never saying a word about it.
Was it any wonder Reg worried?
“Play it by ear,” Dean said, shoving a piece of toast with egg on top into his mouth. “I know those aren’t your favorite words, Reg, but we need to be flexible. Guys?”
Ilia and Reynaldo glanced up from their almost clean plates of food as though coming out of a trance.
“Excellent breakfast, Mrs. Royal,” Reynaldo said politely. “I’ve never eaten this much in the morning before.”
“Same,” Ilia said. “I’m going to have to have second naps after this.”
Reg’s mom smiled and dropped a casual kiss on Ilia’s head and then Reynaldo’s. Probably not strictly PC, but both boys seemed to open up, like flowers to the sun, and Reg figured they’d both been surrounded by enough maternal love for some casual affection to not blow their minds.
“You boys are welcome at my table any time,” she said gently. “And I’ll be sure to tell your mother and your aunt that you both behaved very well.”
“Thanks, Miss Julie,” Reynaldo said, but Ilia had that sad, wary expression in his eyes that said he was worried—very worried—about betrayal from that quarter of his life, and Reg glanced unhappily at Dean, who grimaced.
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Dean said. “I don’t like the idea of you guys heading into a trap any more than you do.”
Reg nodded, reassured—but more so by the idea that he wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t paranoid than by Dean’s statement of intent.
Sometimes it was nice to trust your own instincts.
A quick twenty minutes later, Reg, Anthony, and the boys were loaded into the SUV, with a wistful look from Bailey, who apparently had been excited about driving his new-to-him vehicle that week.
“If you go with Dean and Miss Julie,” Anthony offered, “you can pick up my truck and drive that.”
Bailey perked up. “I’m from Texas,” he said. “What kind of truck?”
“Ford F-150 Extended Cab,” Anthony told him proudly, pulling the keyring out of his pocket. “White, big wheels, nice rims—I swear, it wouldn’t get you beat up in Texas.”
Bailey gave Dean an almost relaxed grin. “Now see?” he said, as though finishing another conversation. “That’s the way to make it up to a guy.”
“I’ll remember that,” Dean said dryly. “We appreciate it, Anthony. And I’d say guard the car with your life, but I’ve wrecked vehicles before.
I’d rather you guard your lives with your life and give us plausible deniability in case anything happens to the car.
We can declare the thing stolen. It’ll be fine. ”
Anthony and Marcus were both covering their eyes with their hands, and Ed grunted.
“Son, you do know there are times for subtlety, don’t you?”
Dean stared at his father. “No, Dad. I have never known how to do subtlety. I don’t want them to get hurt, and I don’t want to be on the hook for the extra car payments if that thing ends up going into the ocean near Seattle.”
He gazed soberly at Reg. “Don’t drive into the ocean near Seattle,” he said, quite literally.
Reg nodded, because Dean had always been literal, and nobody expected him to stop now.
“Priorities,” he said, perfectly serious.
“The boys and Anthony first, me second, the car third. I got it.” He hugged his brother, not noticing the slightly stunned expression on his face, and then went to hug everybody else, including Connor, who had gotten up that morning with the boys, the better to take Catherine for a walk before driving to Anthony’s house, which was closer to the gun range.