Page 97 of All Roads Lead to You

I kept glancing at him, unable to take my eyes off him. With his big body in the bucket seat, he was curled up on his side as much as he could. His head rested on his pillow, hair blowing in the wind.

I itched to touch him with this overwhelming need to protect him, but I didn’t want to wake him up.

The drive was quiet and as desolate as the surrounding desert. I kept the music off for the same reason I didn’t want to touch him. This trip wouldn’t be the same as it had been from here on out. Death was good at that. It ruined all in its wake. It always left people behind, shattered.

Logan shifted in his sleep and woke up. “What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “It’s just past five thirty. We still have almost five hours to go.”

He sat up and nodded as he cupped his hands over his face, lighting a cigarette.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

He huffed a humorless laugh. “Like I got hit by a sledgehammer. Is it too early for a beer?”

“Nah, I’m driving, so crack one open. There’s no one and nothing for fucking miles except for some trucks.”

Logan undid his seatbelt for a second, reached behind him in the backseat, and opened the cooler to grab a beer. He sat back down, buckled up, and popped the tab on the can, drinking about half of it back.

“Still cold,” he said.

I wish I had wise words for him or something—anything to help him.

He took a drag, blowing the smoke out the open window, staring at the desert life.

“You know what you and I don’t have?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“History. Memories. Good ones, I mean. Nothing like what I share with Hunter.” He looked back at me with pain and regret in his hazel eyes. “That’s all my fucking fault.”

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to have regrets and focus on the here and now.”

“Who else is going to have regrets? The dead? They don’t care anymore. Someone’s got to carry that weight. How else are we to improve if we don’t have regrets?”

He had a point.

“Maybe I should’ve tried harder to reach you. Not everything’s your fault. You don’t need to carry those regrets alone.”

Logan reached for my neck and gave it a squeeze before resting there, trailing his thumb up and down behind my ear. “Thanks for being there. I’m not sure what I would’ve done had I been alone.”

“Don’t thank me. I’ll always be there for you, no matter what.” He shouldn’t have to thank me for being a decent human.

It was nearly ten at night, and it was pitch black outside, except for the stars and our headlights. The temperature had cooled down enough that we could turn on the car’s fan and roll up the windows.

“Man, I wish I could see out there. I bet it’s amazing,” I said.

He shined a flashlight on the map. “We’ll see it tomorrow. Follow Highway 64 before it turns into 180. Our camp will be on the right. We should see signs of it soon.”

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the campgrounds on the southern rim of the Canyons and found our reserved spot. It took a while, being dark and all, but we got there and parked the car.

We were both exhausted by the time we pitched the tent, so we didn’t bother with a fire. Instead, we snuggled into each other on our sleeping bags to keep warm as the night grew colder. Hell, Logan was my personal electric blanket.

And this was how we slept all the time now. Could I call Logan ‘Snuggles’ if I snuggled into him just as much? We just had this need to touch each other at all times. It made me feel loved and wanted.

“Goodnight, Snuggles,” I whispered to a quietly snoring Logan.

Yeah, I’d never stop calling him that.

---