Page 209 of Ride With Me

“Oh fuck, it was on fire, wasn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Damn, how fast did it go up?”

“Fast enough that the only thing I had time to grab was my backpack,” Keely explained. “Fortunately, it was packed because the campsite I’d planned to stay at required a bit of a hike and I hate finding out after nightfall that I’ve left something somewhere I can’t easily get back to.”

“Yeah, that can be a pain in the ass,” Taz said. “It’s like heading to the docks to do some fishing and realizing you’ve forgotten your tacklebox.”

“Pretty much,” Keely said. “Only in this case I’d have been hiking down a winding trail with a flashlight that could have used a battery change.”

“At least you avoided that, I suppose.”

“Yeah, my tent and the rest of my camping supplies went up with the van, but it’s summer, and my hammock was in my backpack so at least I haven’t had to sleep on the ground.”

“Why not just head home?”

“Because I hadn’t found what I was looking for yet,” Keely explained. “So, I didn’t see any reason for that to mean the end of my trip. The weather is nice out here, it’s not like the winters suck the way they do out east, so I figured why not have a few more adventures before heading back to regroup.”

“How long ago was it that your van burned?”

“Three weeks,” Keely said. “And to be honest, I’m sort of over the whole sleeping in a hammock thing. It was hella fun when I was a kid, but by day thirteen I’d fallen out twice, gotten tangled more times than I can count, and hadn’t had a full night sleep in over a week.”

“And what number would tonight be if you hadn’t run into me?” Taz asked.

“Twenty-two.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll enjoy a night spent on a mattress.”

“Enjoy it, I’ll worship every minute of it and you too if you want.”

“Oh, I want,” Taz said for the second time since Keely had wandered into his life.

As they rolled down the highway towards the nearby motels, Taz hoped that with luck and some creative enticement, he’d be saying those words for many days and miles to come.

THE END

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