Philautia || Amour Éternel Series BOOK ONE ||

Fourteen - Callie

"Right, but would it have killed you to get one with functioning air conditioning?" she complained, flipping the dial back and forth in vain.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Princess," he replied. "I wasn't aware you had certain traveling requirements, given that we are about to start roughing it."

She stuck her tongue out at him and made a face. He started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot carefully. Crescent City itself wasn't that busy. It was a small city - it didn't really even count as a city with fewer than 10,000 residents - and the roads were remarkably empty. They passed a series of small stores along the main road as they drove toward the highway. The U-Haul location was near the on ramp leaving town.

"Returning a truck and a trailer," Shannon told the man who greeted them at the counter. "I drove it up from Los Angeles."

The man clicked a few things on the computer and took Shannon's license to copy. He worked at a snail's pace and Callie took the opportunity to look around the small retail space. It was in need of a paint job ten years back and the furniture didn't look like it had made the journey across the decades well. The cheap plastic seats were cracked in places and the coffee table sitting in the corner was stained with hundreds of rings. The newest thing in the room was an old Mac that easily would have blended in well in a classroom in the early 2000s. She didn't dare touch anything for fear of what diseases she might pick up. 

"I'm gonna go get the bikes out of the trailer," she told Shannon, itching to get out of the room. 

He nodded and she walked to the parking lot. The trailer itself was older and worn, with rust patches clearly visible and half of the logo for the company had been sheared off. Shannon had done a masterful job of traveling incognito. Callie unlocked the trailer and walked inside to begin unhooking the bikes and wheeling them out. She had her bike sitting in the lot and was halfway through getting Shannon's untied when he appeared at the door to the trailer. 

"We're ready to head out whenever," he told her, his voice echoing in the metal space. 

"Take this," she said, guiding his bike out from the darkness of the trailer. "I haven't gotten anything from the truck yet."

He took his bike and put the kickstand down. "It should just be our two packs. I didn't bring anything else."

"Awesome. I'll get them and we can go," she said with a smile. The sooner they got on the road, the less time she had to spend worrying about whether or not she had picked up VD from the door handle in the store. She handed him his pack before sliding hers on and slamming the truck door shut. "Let's get going."

Shannon got on his bike and kicked it on. Both engines roared to life, purring happily as Callie and Shannon got themselves situated. "We'll stop at Redwood National Forest for lunch," he called over the noise. She nodded and motioned for him to lead after she put her helmet on. 

An hour later, Shannon pulled off into the parking lot of a run-down food truck. The lot was mostly empty and an elderly couple was sitting at a picnic table under a wind-worn umbrella eating burgers. The ocean breeze tossed Callie's hair around as she took her helmet off and put it on the seat of her bike. Shannon walked up to the truck and ordered two burgers as she sat at an empty table and looked out at the ocean. The beach was deserted and the only noises were the sounds of birds calling and the waves crashing against the shore. 

A few minutes later, Shannon sat two plastic baskets of food on the table and sat down opposite her. "Two cheeseburgers and fries," he told her as he put two bottles of water down in front of her. "Drink. Don't get dehydrated."

She smiled and took the bottle closest to her, twisting the cap off as she watched birds fly overhead. "Did you plan this?" she asked.

He chuckled and squirted some ketchup onto his fries. "Nope. Never been here before."