The Road That Leads to Us (Us 1)

“Oh, no,” he shook his head, “one of my friends broke his leg getting down one time. We never let him live that down.”

“I bet.” I giggled and grabbed another piece of toast.

I would probably regret the amount of food I’d eaten later, but I was so hungry I didn’t care right now.

“So,” Oscar wiggled his brows, “I heard y’all stayed in the honeymoon suite. Good night?”

I snorted and beside me Dean choked on a bite of egg. I might’ve been peeved with him, but I didn’t want him to die (death by egg would be tragic), so I reached over and beat his back so he coughed up the egg.

“Thank you.” He croaked out, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

To Oscar, I said, “We’re not together, together. We’re friends that are on a road trip together.”

Oscar harrumphed and leaned around me to eye Dean. “From one guy to another,” he started, “this one,” he wagged a finger at me, “is special. Don’t be stupid.”

Dean paled, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

Oscar nodded to himself and went back to his meal.

We finished eating, but before we could leave, Marjorie, the owner, handed us each a paper bag filled with snacks.

I peeked into the bag and saw that she’d included an apple, banana, and some cereal bars.

“That was nice of her,” I said to Dean as we stopped by the car.

“It was.” He agreed and pulled the map out of his back pocket so he could lay it flat across the car. “I guess we should figure out where we’re headed next.” He mumbled the words more to himself than me.

This funny mood of his was grating on my nerves.

I stepped up beside him and stared at the map—at all the places we could visit. There were so many possibilities.

He smoothed his hands over the map, getting rid of any creases and wrinkles.

He glanced at me with this devilish smile. “I think we should both pick this time and then have a duel to determine which place we go.”

“Only you would use the word duel in a sentence.”

He grinned.

I huffed, “Fine.”

“We close our eyes,” Dean said, “and on the count of three we pick.”

“Okay.” My arm grazed his from our close proximity.

“One,” he counted.

“Two,” I said.

“Three.” Together.

I jabbed my finger at the map.

I opened my eyes to see where we’d each landed.

“Cullman, Alabama.”

“Fitzgerald, Georgia.” Dean said. “You know,” he pondered, “that was kind of anticlimactic.”