Early May
"Okay, where the hell are we going?" Connor resituated himself on the truck's bench seat.
"Just trust me."
"Okay, yeah sure." He nodded with a flat-lined grimace. "You're finally going to murder me... this is how I go."
Jake broke into a smile. "Shut up, I'm not gonna kill you."
"Oh, even worse then..."
Connor stared out at the road in front of them—an unfamiliar route that neither of them seemed to have traveled before. Jake had had his phone silently on navigation the whole time on the seat beside him, but he had never actually been out this far from home and the amount of time they had spent on this road was starting to make him nervous. The screen said they only had five minutes left, but a part of himself still prayed he wasn't accidentally taking them to Pennsylvania.
"There's worse?" Jake looked over, trying not to distract himself from thinking they could be lost.
"Yep."
"What's worse than that?"
"You're going to feed me asparagus." He shook his head. "I knew I shoulda never told you about that..."
Jake cracked into laughter—real genuine laughter that he felt in his soul because Connor's witty remarks and sarcastic comments had come to grow on him.
"You're an idiot."
He furrowed his brow as he drove further into the middle-of-nowhere, the contemplation that they were lost embarrassingly close enough to admitting to Connor. It took Connor looking over to him with a serious face to think that maybe he had already figured that much out.
"Oh, forgot to tell you... I have to be home in twenty minutes."
That is not what I expected you to say.
"What?"
Looking at the disappointment that dawned on Jake's face, Connor broke into a grin. "I'm fucking with you. You really think my mom cares?"
"Well... I actually have no idea what your mom is like."
"Oh..." Connor frowned. "Right... well anyways, yeah she doesn't care."
"So you just do whatever you want? No curfew? No hourly text updates? No neighborhood stalking you if you don't respond within ten minutes?"
He shook his head. "Nah, she doesn't care. She's not really home much, if you couldn't tell already. I've been on my own since I was a kid."
What?
"Really?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"You never had like a babysitter or something? She just left you at home alone?"
Jake would have been surprised, but the look on Connor's face was even more so.
"No, no." He corrected him. "When we lived in Cleveland, my aunt stayed with us for—well most of my childhood. But, she overdosed when I was eleven... and then we moved in with my grandparents a couple years after that, so I guess I haven't been completely alone my whole life... it just feels like it sometimes."
"Jesus." Jake hadn't realized he muttered out loud until Connor looked away.
"Sorry." He closed his eyes in what seemed to be regret. "That was oversharing."
"No, no." Jake shook his head because he didn't want Connor to feel like he needed to censor anything. "Keep going... uh... what's the rest of your family like?"
Connor shifted awkwardly in his seatbelt.
"Well, um... dead. Mostly."
Jake cringed. Mmm, miscalculated that one.
"Sorry. I'll just shut up."
Connor smiled, but it wasn't happiness, it was forgiveness laced in pity.
"It's okay. It was really ever just my mom, her sister and her parents. Never had any cousins or anything."
He tried to look like he didn't care by looking out the window.
"I never got to know my dad, and who knows what his family was like. He was supposedly a real character, so maybe it's better I didn't get to know him. Not that that ever stopped my grandparents from thinking I'd end up just like him."
"Mmm."
I know what you mean.
"Whatever, honestly. He sucks. He'd probably hate me if he knew me anyways."
"That's stupid."
Jake looked down at his GPS and noticed that they were almost there. He could see the sign out front of the driveway they should be turning into, but no line of cars on the road like he had expected there to be. Why aren't there any cars?
"I mean not really– wait, where are we?"
Jake slowed down to turn into the gravel driveway, a simple gate closing them off from the drive-thru booth that would have been ahead. But instead there was a sign posted on the front of it. 'No Power. Closed Until Further Notice.'
"Shit."
"Is this a drive-in theater?" Connor smiled curiously.
"Yeah... a couple days ago it said they were showing like three movies tonight... I've never been to one, I just thought we'd check it out, but..."
"They're closed."
"Damn, that sucks." Jake motioned his hands out to the gate. "I really was going to do something new, and it closed on us."
"Well..." Connor sighed. "What else haven't you done?"
"I think it would be easier to list things I have done."
"Have you ever gone scuba diving?"
"Con– where do you think we are right now? Florida?" Jake sat back in his seat as they sat idly in front of the closed gate.
"We could go fake scuba diving in someone's pond."
Jake smiled and leaned his head back against the back window. "No, absolutely not."
"What about a pudding slip-n-slide?" Connor pointed to Jake like it was the best idea he could come up with.
"You act like we have the resources for literally any of this."
"Well, what do you have?"
"Well, anything we have inside the truck right now, along with the couple of blankets, sweatshirt, bottled water and bug spray I have in a bag in the back."
"You even remembered the bug spray." Connor looked at him in adoring mockery. "Look at you, boy scout."
"Shut up." Jake grinned, closing his eyes to think about other solutions.
"Have you ever..." Connor drew out the 'r' on purpose. "Had a parking lot party?"
"Umm... no?"
Connor's shrug said 'well then,' even when he didn't open his mouth to say a word.
"Aren't we kinda missing other people?" Jake opened an eye over to him curiously.
"I guess, but I think we could throw a hell of a rager between the two of us."
Connor shrugged again, obviously not one hundred percent set in his idea. Jake honestly didn't think it was the worst idea, but anything that fell outside of his already set plans took convincing.
"So, like, we just find some abandoned parking lot and eat shit food and dance to 2000's music?"
Connor began smiling, although he didn't turn to look at Jake. "Ideally."
"I'm down."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Well lucky for you, I have a great playlist that's got tons of Taylor Swift..."
"Aaron... broke my aux." Jake mumbled in embarrassment.
"How do you even–"
"He literally tore it in half."
Connor nodded once, solidifying his thought.
"Well... um... in that case, I guess you'll have to sing."
"Nope." Jake grinned as he began backing out of the driveway they had been sitting in, placing his hand back on the bench seat as he looked out the rear window.
"You still owe me a song."
"No I don't, I let you listen to whatever 90's pop came on in the car last week."
"That's not the same." Connor stared at him while laughing, his smile wide as he looked at Jake.
"Pretty much is."
"I'll settle for a dance battle."
"I can't dance worth a shit." Jake grumbled as they made it back out onto the main drag.
"I know, I saw you at prom."
"Of course you did."
"You know, you still never told me what—"
"We're not talking about prom."
Jake shook his head to dismiss the topic as he started driving back down the unknown road from which they came. He didn't use the GPS this time. It didn't matter where they ended up, all they needed to do was pick up dinner from the first fast food joint they could find and get lost in a town where nobody knew them to have a two-person parking lot party.
