“I’ve got a bike at my parents, and I wasn’t sure if he’d let me take him for a ride on it. There’s this video floating around Facebook of this big ass dude on his bike with a cat tucked into his jacket. I have major envy right now, so I want to teach Milkshake to do that with me.”
For the next hour, we talked about nothing and everything all at once. Jackson also gave Milkshake a crash course in giving high fives based on a tutorial on YouTube, but after a while, my stubborn boy had enough and fell asleep.
“You know, I was kind of dreading this, but it’s fun so far. I’m sorry we couldn’t bring the Mini, though, baby. It’s just it’d have taken us longer to drive home after we made sure it had enough charge for long sections of the trip.”
“It’s cool. I’m disappointed we couldn’t do it, but we’d miss Christmas if we’d driven it, so it just didn’t make sense.” I was joking, but only just.
For the next hour, we played games as I drove along, and I discovered a new fact about my man. He was a great wingman to bring along on a road trip.
He’d organized the stuff in the car, he’d made sure we had snacks and drinks, he’d bought me a neckroll in case my neck got stiff. He’d even brought pillows so that when one of us wasn’t driving we could have a nap in comfort. He’d also plotted out stops for us to head to for breaks, booked us into pet-friendly motels for the three nights we’d planned the trip to last for, and he kept an eye on how our gas situation was doing.
“So, your battery lasts for one hundred and forty-five miles. I don’t know how we’ll get it back once you graduate, but I’m sure there’ll be a solution, even if it’s a two week road trip. I think it makes sense for us to break it up into three days of driving. Doing it solidly for like thirty-six hours is just too much.”
I had to agree with him on that one.
Everything was going well until we hit hour number four on the road.
“Whoa, did we miss a dead buffalo or something?” he asked, putting his hand over his nose and mouth.
“Where are we going to get a buffalo out here?” I choked out, rolling down the windows and hoping it cleared out whatever had come into the truck.
After a minute of the fresh air, though, it was apparent that wasn’t the case.
“Why won’t it just end?” he gasped, sticking his head out of his window and gulping in air.
As he brought it back in, he stopped and sniffed Milkshake. “Uh, Sasha? I think Milkshake’s turned rotten, as in his milk is sour.”
Pulling onto the hard shoulder, I put the truck in park and glanced warily at my cat. “Did he poop?”
Jackson moved his leg so quickly to check, he almost caught Milkshake’s head. “Thankfully, no. I think maybe the motion of the vehicle on the road’s just stirring up whatever that stink was.”
Chewing on my lip, I looked in the back for his litter tray. “Would it be dumb if we set the tray up for him to use on the side of the road? We’d have to be careful as we drove with the litter in it afterward, but it might help him for now.”
Waving a hand, Jackson passed me my cat and got out. Opening the rear passenger door, he began digging through a bag.
“I planned for this, baby. They also have these harnesses for cats, so I got one and an extendable lead. It said online that if he didn’t go initially, to put some litter down on the side of the road to kind of prompt him into going.”
Blinking down at Milkshake, whose head was turning from side to side, I muttered, “I think that knock to the head knocked something loose, buddy. This guy’s whacked. Think we can lose him?”
I wasn’t expecting him to reply, which was just as well.
Instead, Jackson came back to his door and held his hands out. “Pass him over.”
What followed was a lesson in insanity.
Watching a hot guy putting on a harness and attaching an extendable lead to a cross-eyed Siamese cat wearing a helmet and glasses, was something I could honestly say I’d never even thought I’d witness.
Yet, here I was, watching it all happening right in front of me.
And then it got weirder because he placed Milkshake on the ground and began walking with him over the sand and gravel, patiently letting the cat decide his own pace.
One by one, trucks and cars passed, some swerving slightly when they caught sight of the large man walking a weirdly kitted out kitty. If only they knew he was boss-eyed under the glasses.