A Lantern's Light | A TMF Fanfic

Chapter Two | The Road's Way

Hailey sat in her family's car, her face pressed up against the car's window which cooled her cheek. She stared off out at the passing scenery. Their route was very rural, so it was mostly fields and farmland they drove by. She hummed, hearing the music the car played. Her dad had ended up controlling the radio, and some band Hailey recognized to be named Phish was playing. She would be hard pressed to name the song, but her dad had played their music enough over the years that she could tell when a song was theirs. As she gazed at the grassy golden green fields, she daydreamed, not about anything in particular, but more the general thought of camping that laid ahead. It wasn't something she talked about often, but she had a passion for it. It wasn't anything compared to her musical obsession, but it still held a place in her. This site they were going to her dad used to take her to a lot when she was young, and she was looking forward to seeing it again.

Refocusing her vision, the scenery outside of the window faded out, and instead her gaze fixated on the window's reflections, in which she could see Jake -- who was in the seat behind her -- texting on his phone. With the addition of Bethany, the seating arrangement Sean had laid out changed a bit. In the middle row sat Hailey, Bethany, and Milly, with Hailey on the far right, Milly left, and Bethany in between the two of them. In the back row Jake sat behind Hailey, with Sean right off to his left, and Luke and Zander snuggled up in their own corner.

Deciding to make conversation, Hailey turned herself around to Jake, and questioned, "Who are you texting?"

"Huh?" Jake asked, shooting his head up at the sound. Once he processed the question, his face dropped, "Oh..." and looking back down at his phone, he grumbled, "Just Drew."

"You don't seem too happy about that," Hailey stated, taking notice of the singer's off energy.

"It's nothing..." he sighed, "He's just giving me some heat about doing this whole camping trip."

"Really?" Hailey asked, imposing surprise. In reality she wasn't that shocked at all. That seemed just about right.

"Yeah. He says he's mad because we had talked about maybe hanging out this weekend, but it's not like we actually came up with any ideas or made any plans," Jake complained, his volume slightly rising, "And we already hang out most weekends. Anyway, I told him that the campsite doesn't have any cell service, so we won't be able to text once I get there."

"Oh, Jake, the campsite does have cell service," Hailey informed, not wanting Jake to think he couldn't get in contact with someone if he needed to.

In response, Jake's face scrunched, and he put his phone down, crossing his arms. "Well, he doesn't need to know that."

Now Hailey felt genuine surprise. She wouldn't have thought that Jake would lie like that. Not seeing a worthwhile continuation to this conversation, Hailey turned herself back around to sitting in her seat regular again. She falled back into the same pattern, her face leaning on her window, and her gaze absorbing the rural scenery once more.

~

Zander rubbed his face into his boyfriend's ruby red sweatshirt, feeling the soft cotton-polyester blend tickle his nose. Rather than talking, Zander and Luke opted to just lie together and listen to music, resting. Before the two boys started dating, if they were ever in the situation where they were listening the music together, usually it would be Zander who decided what music was played, and he knew it would still be very easy for him to get Luke to agree to classical songs, but after they started dating he felt a little guilty about it, and knew he should probably compromise more. Now, rather than just listening to classical music, they would often listen to instrumental covers of more standard songs. As far as musical tastes went, Luke was a bit of a mixed basket, but Zander knew he had a liking towards Disney songs, so he found a small collection of instrumental covers of those, and threw them onto their playlist. Accordingly, as soon as the music of the last song they were listening to faded out, Zander heard the soft first keys of a piano cover of "Reflection" come on.