Chapter Thirty-One

I left Conquistos too early to stop in at the café for coffee. They literally were not open yet.

What time did the café open? Six o'clock in the morning. That is how early I left for Bakers Mine. Before six . In the morning . On my day off .

The Starbucks drive-through next to the highway opened at four thirty, which seemed absolutely batshit to me, but I wasn't about to look a gift Starbucks in the window—except to order and also to take my drink. Come to think of it, why wouldn't you look a gift horse in the mouth? If it was your responsibility, wouldn't you need to look it in the mouth in order to take care of its dental health, or whatever?

I was thankful for an open Starbucks, was the point.

And then I was on the road. I hadn't driven this stretch before, having never needed to cut up the coast and then drive inland. Nothing I'd ever wanted to do had required me to leave Conquistos and drive toward the mountains. And without the harrowing trial of having to get out of Los Angeles first, it was actually quite peaceful. The landscape changed as the book I was listening to progressed, and I convinced myself that actually, I was entirely calm and totally chill and for sure not worried about seeing Orion. Or not-seeing Orion, and I couldn't decide which was worse ... except I could, and of course it was not seeing him, because I'd rather see him and be rejected by him than not see him at all, and I had no idea what that indicated about my state of mind, but it probably wasn't great.

The trip didn't get dicey until I reached the town where the courier's office was. Things got a lot more real, climbing into the mountains, close enough to Orion that I could hire someone to bring him a package, than it had been in the café while Sammy was telling me I should do it. (She'd sent me that Amy Poehler You got this GIF and promised that she'd have a red-eye waiting for me in the morning before work.)

Not long after that, or way too long, depending on my very subjective experience of time (which was doing some sort of rubber band action), I passed the WELCOME TO BAKERS MINE sign. Then the gas station. The bit of town with the psychic, then the Wash and Brew, the fire station.

Had I really spent days here? Not here-here, but here enough. It seemed so surreal; the last time I'd done more than tear through on my way back to civilization was before I'd met Orion. Before Scraps, and batshit snowstorms, and finding out my dad was a liar, and ancient Lipton, and Orion, and kissing, and trying to chop wood, and kissing, and ...

I'd forgotten how hard it was to fucking find his cabin. It took me two tries, and I was already starting to rehearse what I'd say to the lady at the Wash and Brew when I finally saw the little sideways triangle of tiny reflectors.

Thank fucking god. I made the turn, started driving, and about thirty feet from the highway encountered a big-ass green gate. With spikes at the top.

I pulled up to the little box thing, feeling like the biggest dope who'd ever lived. Did I really think, after that scene I'd fled, he wouldn't have installed some security? Because after all, the man had lived here for three years without ever needing a locked gate, but six days with Des Cleary and—

I forced myself to press the Call button and waited.

It was ringing. And ringing. Since I didn't know what else to do, I just sat there, listening to it ring.

Finally the machine cut the call.

Well, fuckity fucking fuck.

So. He wasn't here. I'd driven all this way for nothing. Right. I should have known.

Still, I waited awhile longer. He'd drive up any second now, probably ... maybe ... hopefully? This was inside the apparent window for his visit. Unless he'd changed plans. Or I'd misunderstood the plans. At least, he was not publicly scheduled to be doing anything campaign related right now, which I knew because I'd checked half a dozen times a day.

He did not drive up.

Or the lady at the Wash and Brew told him I'd called and he'd decided to change his name and move to another country just to avoid seeing me again.

How could you tell what was your insecurities talking and what was a logical argument? These days, how wild was the thought that someone would leave the country?

I debated this for some time before realizing the simpler explanation was that he was in the cabin staring at my sorry, pathetic face on a live security feed, while I sat at his gate waiting for him to drive up and let me in. He was probably even now hoping I'd go away without needing to be asked.

Yeah, you know, that was okay. I could take a hint. Or at least I could interpret a total lack of data as "a hint" in any direction my brain decided to go in. Whatever, it was time to leave.

After a seventy-three-point turn in his driveway, during the course of which I almost backed into a muddy ditch, I drove sloooowly back down the driveway, and sloooowly back down the highway, and sloooowly back past the high school and the fire station.

Which was when I saw it. A big purple truck with a pink PRINCESS license plate holder parked on the side street next to the Wash and Brew.

I'd never really been the guy you wanted trying to navigate a sudden decision to make a hard left turn on unfamiliar streets during the small-town equivalent of a high-traffic time. I couldn't turn left quickly enough without seriously endangering people, so I took the next right instead. (That was the last thing I needed; not only would Orion come out of the Wash and Brew to find me having caused a fender bender, but you just knew it would end up on my Conquistos FC socials somehow. Also someone might get hurt.)

I tried to loop back around, except the street I needed was one way in the wrong direction, so I had to go down to the next one, turn right again, then turn right to get back on the main road, at which point I almost missed the parking lot but managed to turn just in time.

Respect to Marlo: I was definitely sweating enough to risk dehydration.

Instead of rushing in like a pale, blotchy mess, I sat in the car long enough for my heart to stop pounding. I held my face in front of the air-conditioning (hard to believe the last time I was here it was snowing) until I felt more human. And then I calmly got out of my car, calmly crossed the parking lot, and calmly entered the Wash and Brew, readying myself to say, Oh, Orion, well, hello. Fancy seeing you here . Or maybe Of all the laundromat cafés in all the world, I had to walk into yours. No, definitely not, scratch that, for sure not making a Casablanca reference. What kind of fate was I tempting here?

I (calmly) looked around and (calmly) took in the fact that Orion was not, as I'd half expected him to be, doing a spin in the corner surrounded by little ballerinas. I (less calmly) approached the woman at the counter and lowered my voice. "Hi, um, is Orion here? Only I saw his truck outside and thought I'd see if"— I could catch him? No, too creepy —"if he was inside. Is he?"

She eyed me steadily. "And you are?"

Great. "Des Cleary."

"Des-with-an- s ."

I struggled not to jitter from foot to foot. "You got me! Yep. Des Cleary, with an s ; the Des is with the s , not the Cleary, obviously. So is he here?"

"Sorry, you just missed him." She didn't sound sorry. But she didn't sound like she was gloating either.

"‘Missed him'?" I echoed. Was he on his way to another event, then, and it just hadn't been publicized yet? Maybe he was flying out, and he was on his way to an airport. If I could get her to tell me which one, there was a chance I could still, like, follow him there, and have him paged over the sound system—yeah, Sammy would think that was super romantic, except no, when the guy you were awkwardly following was a former soccer star, you really could not have him paged over the airport sound system, so then what was I supposed to do? Wander around the airport asking strangers if anyone had seen a hot guy with hair to his chin who looked like he could play pro soccer?

"Just missed him," she said again, nodding toward the windows.

I turned in time to see the truck, heading back toward the cabin. Only one person inside. "Oh my god." My voice almost broke. Then I spun back to her. "Wait, so he's not going to an airport?"

"An airport?" She looked at me like I'd slipped into Klingon. "I don't think so. Should he be?"

"No, no, he shouldn't be." I started moving toward the parking lot, trying not to run. "Thank you!" I called back over my shoulder as I shoved through the door and sprinted to my car.

He could only be going to the cabin, since nothing was east of Bakers Mine but the mountains and eventually Nevada, so even though I lost the truck before I'd gotten back onto the street, I wasn't worried.

This time I found the driveway on the first try, those little red reflectors or whatever standing out brightly to my arguably mad brain. He was here. This time he was here. Had to be.

The gate again. The box thing with the keypad and the Call button.

I hit it again and tried to look like a guy who was definitely not a creeper.

No.

Answer.

It rang through, then cut off, as it had before.

Yeah, no, nope, I did not drive all the way up here to—

Except I actually had driven all the way up to take no for an answer. Specifically. I wasn't going to sit there hitting Orion's Call button all day as if I had some kind of right to his time. If he didn't want to talk to me, that was his decision.

Right?

I leaned my head back in my seat and cursed maturity. Every instinct in me said to punch that button again and wait. So what if he called the sheriff; at least he'd know ... that I was wildly irrational? That I couldn't be trusted? That I thought trespassing was a great way to show I cared? I stood outside your window and played a song primarily meaningful because we banged to it before you told me to get lost was the kind of thing that only seemed romantic in the last century. These days we had higher standards.

Time to go. I looked out at the gate again, then at the little security box, the numeric keypad to which I didn't have the code, that mocking Call button. My eye landed on the camera, set back over the keypad. It probably didn't even have a microphone. Still, I made some intense eye contact with it on the off chance that Orion was looking into it from inside the cabin.

How do you fit I'm sorry and I get it and I meant everything I wrote, even the part about kissing you being better than kissing anyone else into a look? I wasn't sure, but I tried.

Then I started my car and began the laborious process of turning around. Again. But more carefully this time because if I got stuck in the damn ditch, it would for sure look like I'd done it on purpose, and that was not the type of bookending I wanted for this story. Hi, I'm literally stuck on your property. Again!

Was he watching? Probably. I'd watch if someone was seesawing back and forth in my driveway with the eventual aim of turning their car around so they could leave. Just don't reverse into the ditch, I lectured myself, focusing so hard on where the edge of the gravel was, where the ditch was and where my tires were, that I didn't notice the big-ass purple truck idling in the driveway behind me until I was almost facing the highway again.

For the briefest moment, I felt elation. It was him!

Then I saw another form in the passenger seat and had to fight tears. No, damn you, I came all this way ...

But I'd be a grown-up, and it would be fine and I could pretend my heart wasn't being crushed by a nutcracker. No big deal.

I waved. Like a jackass who couldn't think of anything else to do. And Orion's passenger ... barked.