The long road home.

Morley

Morley is a surfer dude, the singlest most surferish surfer dude you'll ever meet and that is no exaggeration, he is every stereotype combined in one guy, yet somehow it makes him unique. He invites us into his single cab Ute, which if I'm honest doesn't really have enough room for three people and I have to sit between the two guys with the gear stick between my legs. Yep, it's only weird if you think about it and believe me, I didn't choose it.

"So where are you dudes headed?" Morely says.

"We are trying to find Sam's perfect beach." I say.

"Uggh, aren't we all." He shakes his head, "I caught a real good one up Baja California, sick waves, sick sand, he looks at me "Friendly locals, and cuisine to die for."

"Why did you leave?"

He shrugs, which due to the limited space in the Ute causes me to shrug as well, "You know how it is," he looks from the road at our completely blank faces, "Well, how it is, is a tourism company gets in there and starts making offers and it's still alright, but then another one shows up, and then another one and suddenly they start building massive hotels and the whole place gets ruined because there's ten million people queuing for an ice-cream where once there were just waves and sand."

Sam and I both nod, kind of unsure how to react, we drive in silence for a bit.

Sam, looks at me, and I look at him, messages flow through the air between us, "

"Ugh cool."

Morley drives us along the coastal highway, and we move through coastal towns. Morley looks out at each of the beaches and dismisses each in turn; like us he's picky, determined to find the perfect place.

Nothing is awkward with Morley, obviously having no money we have nothing to eat, but he doesn't seem to mind us low-key tabbing off him. The only problem with his food is that most of it consists of some sort of Mango derivative.

The only thing that is scary about Morley is when pictures of our faces appear on television screens, at first I am constantly expecting the police to appear after an anonymous tip off, yet he doesen't, and after four or five days I start to relax, and then suddenly my next worry begins, and this time it' worse; What if he gets charged with us.

If I'm honest I don't really know what the agents of the law are after us for, but I'm pretty sure it's something big, and Morley by association could become some sort of a suspect. One day he brings it up; We are staying at a campground, in a small cabin with all the windows open to escape the heat.

"So you guys are like wanted criminals aye?"

Sam, jumps up and slams the door shut, "Where did you hear that?"

"You've been on the news on and off for the past couple days, and your reaction just there, that proves it."

"As you can see we're really bad at it," I say gesturing to Sam.

"Hey that's not fair, I was making sure no-one else would hear us."

"The windows are still open," I remind him.

"Grrrrr," he says.

"Grrrrr."

"Okay cut it out you two," Morley says- looking like he wants to laugh, "What did you do anyway?"

Sam looks at me, I look at him, he shrugs and I open my mouth, "We don't really know,"

"You don't know."

"Yep."

"I bet that's what they all say."

Sam joins in, "No, truly all we wanted to do was find our beach and then all of a sudden- bang we're in the front of every T.V screen, newspaper and probably twitter feed."

"Hey, slow down," Morley says pulling out his phone, "You're not that famous..." he presses the shutter button and the phone camera clicks "...Yet."

Sam opens his mouth, and I mostly seize up, we're like wild animals totally afraid of beng exposed to the outside world.

Then Sam stands up, his face is hot, he's angry; "Delete, that, right, now."

Morley's face twists, "I could get rich from this picture..."

"Morley please," I say slowly moving toward him. Ready to pounce.

"I could get famous, I could get on T.V, hey I could even meet Ophra!"

Sam balls up his fists and punches the wall, real hard. He leaves a bit of blood on it; "Morley If you don't give me that phone, I swear I will make you hurt so..."

And then Morley starts to laugh, and keeps laughing, Sam and I look at each other, then back down at Morley, "Haha you should've seen your faces, oh my gosh look at this."

He holds his phone up, and I stare at the screen there's only one picture on it- of him and it takes me a long moment to realise that his camera was pointed the wrong way.

"Morley you are an idiot," I punch his shoulder.

"Owww."

Sam sits down, looking kind of sulky. "That wasn't really funny."

But then I ruin everything and I start laughing, "Does your hand hurt Sam?"

He turns his head away and sniffs, "A little."

Something in his face just cracks me up even harder, and Sam yells "shut-up, shut-up, shut-up," until he's laughing too.

All three of us roll around the floor, laughing our faces off, I guess we're not completely same but then again we'd just escaped probable prison, soooo. "Hahahahahaha." I continued to giggle slightly even though we had stopped laughing.

Morley knocked on the door and handed Sam some ice for his hand, "Sorry about that dude, you really care about this stuff eh?"

Sam smiles, "It's all right, I never liked this hand anyway."

Hey crew, -and you Lina if you get this far :) This chapter and the next few are complete first drafts, usually I take a look over the chapters before I upload them, but these ones I have just written then published, I hope you enjoy them i feel we are gaining momentum.