Road Trip

Chapter 8

One trip to the local mall, and two hours of shopping later we were in the lobby of a Marriott hoping they had a room. That was the one drawback of this fly by night plan, we had no reservations anywhere. It wasn't an issue at the moment, but it could be if we went to any touristy areas that were full of spring breakers.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked a young man at the front desk as we approached. It was a deserted lobby, hopefully a good sign for getting a room. According to his name tag, his name was Todd.

"Yes, I was hoping you had a couple of rooms available, preferably adjoining." I said.

"Let me check the availability." Todd said.

"Actually." Blake interjected. "We just need one room, double if you have it."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "We do?"

"Yep, doctor's orders. We're a team, we do everything together," she said with a smile.

I sighed. "Sorry Todd, just one room."

"That is fine sir, we do have one available with two queen beds."

Once we were settled up with the front desk, we took our bags and piled into the elevator, pressing the button for the 4th floor.

"Did Doctor Merritt really say that or are you just trying to fluster me again?" I asked Blake. She was hard to read sometimes, so I couldn't tell.

"Does it matter?" she asked innocently.

"I don't know." I really didn't at this point. The elevator door opened, and we walked down to the room. It wasn't anything fancy, just a standard hotel room with two queen sized beds, a desk and TV. All we really needed for the night. "Which bed would you like?" I asked.

She opened her mouth to say something, my bet was that she was going to try to make me blush again, but then she just smiled and said, "The one by the window please."

"You got it." I dropped my stuff in a neat little pile near the closet and lay down on the bed for a minute.

"Ethan? Are you okay?" she asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

The truth was, I wasn't sure. Her appearance had thrown the whole trip for a loop and kept bringing me back to my previous trips. On the other hand, she certainly made the trip more fun, it was nicer driving with someone than driving alone, and she was great to hang out with and talk to. She was also smart and had a great sense of humor, so the conversation was varied and ended up going off on random tangents that always entertained me.

All of that in the first day of driving.

I laced my fingers behind my head and looked over at her. She was looking at me with worry in her eyes. "Honestly, I'm a little scared. Obviously, I told you about my other trips, and getting dumped. That was one of the reasons I decided to take you with me, because I wanted you to continue your trip too, even if it was a different one than you expected."

I could see her smile at that. "Thank you for bringing me, really. If I hadn't run into you, I don't know what I would have done. Probably just got on a bus back home and been miserable."

"Exactly, that is what I had done on my trips, and I didn't want that for you. Doc told me to pay it forward, so that was what I was wanting to do."

"So, you took me because the doc told you to?" she looked hurt at that.

"Nope. As soon as you mentioned coming, I wanted to say yes. But I was nervous about it. I just asked doc if it was all right because I wasn't sure if that was what she had in mind for my trip."