TWENTY-EIGHT
Kieran woke before his alarm.
The sky outside was still gray and the neighborhood quiet.
He stared up at the ceiling, same as always, then got up and headed for the shower. He took his time, longer than usual, more thorough than usual, making sure he was clean. The kind of clean that required deliberate attention to places he didn’t normally think about.
By the time he stepped out, steam filling the bathroom, he was ready.
He fed both dogs, double-checked his bag, and was just finishing his coffee when Rory’s Tacoma honked in the driveway.
Kieran grabbed his bag and headed outside, Hank and Mabel trotting beside him.
Rory was leaning against the truck, sunglasses on, looking infuriatingly awake.
“Morning,” Rory said, grinning.
“It’s barely morning,” Kieran muttered.
“Grumpy before coffee?”
“Grumpy always. Coffee makes it tolerable.”
Rory laughed and crouched down to greet the dogs. Mabel jumped up onto him immediately, but it was Hank who got the real attention, Rory running his hands over his coat, checking him over.
“Look at you,” Rory said softly. “Adventure dog. Where the hell did you go?”
Hank’s whole body wiggled in response, tail wagging so hard he nearly fell over.
“He’s not talking,” Kieran said. “I’ve asked.”
Rory stood, still grinning. “He looks good. Considering.”
“Hasn’t stopped eating since I brought him home.”
“Smart dog.”
Rory took Kieran’s bag and tossed it in the truck bed alongside camping gear, a cooler, and an alarming amount of firewood.
Both dogs hopped into the back seat with suspicious confidence, like they’d done it a hundred times.
“You ready?” Rory asked.
Kieran looked back at his house. At the neighborhood he’d somehow started to belong to. At the two dogs now pressing their noses against the truck window.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready.”
They climbed into the truck, and Rory handed him a travel mug. “Good coffee. Like you requested.”
Kieran took a sip. It was perfect.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re forgiven for the early wake-up.”
Rory pulled out of the driveway, and they headed east.
The drive to Joshua Tree took three hours and was a slow slip between worlds.
They left Encinitas after seven, the marine layer still clinging to the coast. Hank and Mabel were settled in the back seat, Mabel’s nose pressed against the window, Hank curled up beside her, still catching up on rest.
The Tacoma hummed north and then cut east, eventually merging onto the 10 as the marine layer gave way to inland heat, windows cracked enough to let the air move through. Rory’s playlist drifted low from the speakers, an instrumental that didn’t demand attention.
For the first stretch, they didn’t talk much.
Not the uncomfortable kind of silence. Just the quiet of two people who’d learned they didn’t have to perform for each other.
Rory drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Kieran’s thigh, a thumb occasionally brushing back and forth in a slow, absent rhythm.
Kieran watched the landscape shift.
First the sprawl of cities bleeding into each other, strip malls and freeway exits and billboards. Then the gradual thinning, the spaces between buildings growing wider, the concrete giving way to scrub brush and distant hills.
The sky opened up.
That was the thing about leaving the coast. The sky got bigger. Wider. Like someone had pulled back a curtain Kieran hadn’t realized was there.
“You good?” Rory asked, glancing over.
Kieran nodded. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“About?”
“How different everything looks out here.” He paused. “How different everything feels.”
Rory smiled. “Wait until we get past Banning. It gets better.”
They stopped in Yucca Valley for supplies—fish, bread, s’mores ingredients, too many chips. Rory added water and ice. Kieran tossed in beef jerky because apparently beef jerky was required.
They let the dogs out to stretch and sniff around the parking lot, Hank marking every available surface like he was reclaiming territory.
Rory was right about the landscape.
Past Banning, everything transformed.
The hills gave way to wide, flat stretches of desert, pale sand and scattered rock formations, everything washed in shades of tan and rust. Wind turbines appeared in the distance, hundreds of them, blades turning slowly like they had all the time in the world.
Kieran had never seen so many at once.
“It’s right out of a sci-fi movie,” Kieran said.
“Right?” Rory’s hand squeezed his thigh gently. “I always feel like I’m driving into the future when I pass these.”
The air coming through the window was different now, drier, hotter. It didn’t smell like salt anymore. It smelled of ancient stone and sagebrush.
Kieran realized, somewhere between the wind farms and the long stretch of empty highway, that he was calm.
Not the forced kind he usually manufactured when he was anxious. His shoulders weren’t tight. His brain wasn’t spinning through worst-case scenarios.
Hank was home. The dogs were in the back seat. Rory’s hand was on his thigh.
Everything he’d been holding, the fear, the grief, the waiting was still there, but it had loosened. Enough to let him breathe.
Kieran looked over at Rory, one hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, the sunlight catching the edges of his profile.
“What?” Rory asked, catching him staring.
“Nothing,” Kieran said.
Rory smiled. “See anything interesting?”
“Jury’s still out.”
Rory laughed and squeezed his thigh again.
Joshua Tree appeared like a secret the desert had been keeping.
The trees themselves were strange, otherworldly, twisted and gnarled, arms reaching up at odd angles like they were frozen mid-gesture.
“They look like they’re from another planet,” Kieran said.
“They kind of are,” Rory replied. “Only grow in this part of the world.”
Rory turned off the main road onto a smaller dirt path, the truck bouncing over ruts and rocks. They drove another ten minutes into the backcountry, away from the campgrounds, away from people.
Finally, Rory pulled off into a flat clearing surrounded by Joshua trees and boulders.
He cut the engine.
The silence that followed was profound.
No traffic or voices. Just wind moving through the trees, the faint creak of branches, the occasional call of a bird.
“This is it,” Rory said.
Kieran looked around. The clearing was flat enough for a tent, sheltered by rocks on one side, open to the sky on the other.
“This is awesome,” Kieran said.
They climbed out of the truck, and the heat hit strong, wrapping around them, dry and immediate. But it wasn’t oppressive. It was clarifying.
The dogs spilled out of the back seat, immediately setting off to explore.
Rory pulled his shirt over his head without ceremony, tossing it into the truck bed.
“You’re staring again,” Rory said, grinning.
“You’re shirtless.”
“I don’t hear you complaining.” Rory stepped a fraction closer, the heat bouncing off him suddenly a lot more personal than the desert sun.
He caught Kieran’s eye, his voice dropping to that low, familiar gravel.
“In fact, if I recall correctly, you didn’t have any objections to shirts flying before. ”
Kieran’s face burned instantly, his mind flashing to the dark hallway and the smooth, sudden motion of Rory pulling the fabric over his head.
“Shut up,” Kieran muttered, looking away toward the horizon.
Rory let out his low, satisfied laugh. “It’s a hundred degrees, Kieran. Sue me.”
They set up camp together, falling into a rhythm. Rory handled the tent set-up like he could do it blindfolded. Kieran followed instructions, holding fabric tight while Rory secured it.
When they were done, Rory stepped back, hands on his hips. “Not bad.”
“I helped,” Kieran said.
“You did. Barely.”
“Rude.”
They left camp and wandered into the desert, picking their way between rocks, both dogs trotting ahead. Hank had found a burst of energy from somewhere, bounding over rocks while Mabel stayed closer, checking back every few minutes to make sure everyone was accounted for.
Rory pointed out details as they walked, the way certain formations had been shaped by wind, the tracks of a lizard in the sand, a bird’s nest tucked into the crook of a Joshua tree.
“You know a lot about this place,” Kieran observed.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid,” Rory said. “My dad used to bring me camping. Taught me how to read the land.”
They climbed up onto a large, flat rock that offered a view of the valley below. The dogs found shady spots and flopped down, Mabel in one patch of shadow, Hank in another, both panting but content.
Kieran sat, legs dangling over the edge, and Rory settled beside him.
“I’m glad you came,” Rory said.
Kieran looked over at him. “Me too.”
“I know it’s been a lot. With Hank. With everything.”
“Yeah.” Kieran watched Hank sprawled in the shade, tongue lolling. “But he’s home now. And I needed this. To be somewhere that isn’t complicated.”
Rory nodded. “The desert’s good for that. It doesn’t care about your problems.”
They sat for a while, watching the landscape shimmer in the heat, the desert sprawling out below them, the dogs dozing nearby.