Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Twenty-One

   Elliot and I both jerked a head towards him. "What do you mean you don't really drive?" 

  The boy shrugged like it was nothing, "I just don't. I don't know how." 

 "You know how to ride a motorcycle but you don't know how to press a gas pedal?" I asked, incredulous. 

   Even in the darkness, Eli's eyes flared at me, "I just don't drive, alright?" he snapped, a little defensively and a lot noticeable. 

His tone promptly ended the conversation, and the tension didn't disappear for Elliot and I because unlike Eli, we didn't have headphones to let us escape everything in the world. When I looked to Elliot for some guidance, he shrugged it off like he was expecting Eli to be so unsocial. Maybe I was too, but I didn't really want to believe it. I had some hopes, I guessed. 

     Twenty minutes of the same driving scene later, Eli had promptly knocked off the stub of his earphone jack, letting out a stream of his privately enclosed tunes out into the car. Whatever it was, it was way livelier than the song on the radio about a woeful man with a deep voice singing about a lost woman. 

    It took six seconds for him to jab the headphones back into his iPod. He clearly didn't want it to show, but I could tell he was embarrassed. 

   Then, some of the notes had lingered in my head. "Hey," I poked his bare arm, "Was that... Elvis?" 

   "What?" he asked in a a voice that clearly gave him away. "No, of course not." 

I could tell Elliot was skeptical too, and I grinned, "There's nothing to be ashamed of! It's the King. How could you be hiding that from us?" 

   "It's just Elvis, no big deal," he rolled his eyes. 

  "Okay, first off," Elliot interjected, "'Elvis' and 'no big deal' are words that should never be in the same sentence. And secondly --" 

    "--Secondly, it's obviously one of your favorites since you have a whole album on him," I finished for him, and with a locked glance, I could tell that was what he was about to say too. He even looked slightly impressed at my psychic skills. 

  "I do not have a whole album on him," Eli protested, but just as his grip loosened, I snatched his iPod away from him. 

  "Hey! Give that back!" he scowled, his arm reaching forward, and my own extending farther away from him. I leaned towards Elliot, my body being smushed against his, my arms clashing with his driving arms, as I tried to shy away from Eli's hands, desperate for his music back. 

   As I leaned sharply to the left, I could feel the car swerve slightly in the same direction, and Elliot cursed. "Yo, knock it off, you're blocking me from the road! Vienna, I know you've got a big head, but can you move?" 

   "Hey!" It was then that I realized I was truly blocking his vision now, and Eli had began to yank on my clothes. In a swift second, I let the Elvis music pour, mushc to Eli's discomfort. 

   The strummings of a guitar and the lively tune of Burning Love filled the small expanse of the truck, and Elliot and I simultaneously bobbed our heads to it. Elliot turned off the country jam session on the radio and I turned up Eli's music. 

   "You guys are the worst, I can't believe my dad let some mediocre love fest take me -- his own son! -- back to Alburquerque," Eli grumbled, looking out at the window. My only response was me shoving his iPod into his face. 

   "Don't pout, it's not healthy," I teased, "Besides, Elvis? Is that what you've been listening to this whole entire time?" 

    "Maybe," he snapped, looking out the window and refusing to meet my eyes in the dark.