Kaazu’s a smart man. He knows that Cliff and I are close, despite pretending otherwise. We’ve been lucky over the years, stealing quick moments when no one was looking, and we were always careful.
But even so, I know Kaazu knows that we care for each other, even if he doesn’t realize the extent of our relationship. That’s why he’s such a prick, making us duel against each other so often for fights. We never gave him the satisfaction of pulling punches though, much to his disappointment, since it would’ve earned us some wicked punishments.
“Friends are important,” Trucker goes on, obviously tired of waiting for me to answer. “I could be your friend. I’d be real friendly,” he adds, tossing me a wink.
My pervert alarm dings again, but he just looks so damn cheerful, so I know I’m misreading things again. My knee-jerk judgement of people is always negative. I can’t help it. I’ve seen too much shit. All those performers who smile and dance and play a part? They all have claws, and I’ve been scratched one too many times to think that anyone is as nice as they seem.
My eyes fall to the cell phone lit up on his dash. “Hey, could you do me a huge favor and call someone for me?”
His mouth pinches to the side in thought. “Who?”
“My good for nothing ex,” I lie, because that seems to work best with humans. “He’s a real prick.”
“Ah,” Trucker replies with a knowing grin. “I got you, darlin’. What do you want me to say?” he asks, reaching forward to pluck his cell off the dash. Males of every breed like to swoop in and save the day. It feeds their hero complex.
Just like I have with others along the way, I coach him with something simple to say. After rattling off the number for him, Trucker quickly places the call. “Hey, buddy,” he says into the phone, still cheerful as ever. “I saw your girl over in New Mexico. Nice collar. Guess she ain’t your girl no more, huh?”
I hear Kaazu’s angry and garbled voice come through, but just like I told him to, Trucker ends the call and then blocks Kaazu’s number.
I can’t help but feel a little smug. I know that these phone calls that I’ve been orchestrating are driving Kaazu nuts.
“Thanks,” I say, my heartbeat a little quicker than normal. Hearing Kaazu’s voice does that to me.
“Happy to help out a friend,” he says, stressing the word again. “Maybe you can help me out too.”
I whip my head around. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Doing that cheerful, creepy ass perv hinting.”
He cackles, like the very idea is preposterous. “Whoa, whoa, little lady. There you go with slipping down the gutter again! You gotta do somethin’ about that mind grip of yours.”
I narrow my eyes, studying the chirpy motherfuck. I just...I can’t fucking tell. “I’m getting more sleep,” I grumble.
If anything, I’m hoping that if I doze, he’ll at least stop talking to me. All of his questions are bringing up memories and thoughts of Cliff, Kaazu, and my childhood, and I’m just too tired to handle it.
I close my eyes, wondering at the likelihood of getting another hundred miles out of this hitch before I have to hike. I’m not looking forward to more walking. At least Chatty Cathy is putting miles on the odometer.
“Sleepin’ again?” Trucker asks with surprise.
I cross my arms in front of me and rest my head against the window. “Yep.”
He lets out a long crestfallen sigh but doesn’t say anything else. If I were the type to give a fuck, I’d feel a little bad. After all, he has been driving me for over twelve hours, and he’s been nothing but nice. He even called Kaazu with a fake tip for me, thinking that he’s helping throw off a bad ex-boyfriend.
He’s probably just a lonely dude who doesn’t have many people to talk to. Unfortunately for him, I left behind all my fucks to give with Cliff, so I don’t care that I’m disappointing him. If he keeps trying to get me to talk or confusing me with his non-pervy propositioning, I’m going to lose my damn mind.
I’m just beginning to fall into a nice white-noise nod-off when I feel the truck slow down. Cracking one eyelid open, I see that we’ve pulled into a gas station.
“Gotta fill her up,” Trucker tells me with a close-lipped smile as he parks at a pump.
“Okay.” I wait while he gets out and starts the process of gassing up, but then my rumbling stomach takes me outside.
Hopping down from the truck, I land on the balls of my feet and straighten up, looking around. It’s late morning, and there are a few other truckers stopped as well as several cars. I make my way inside the gas station and head over to the counter. “Bathroom?”
The woman behind the desk grabs an obnoxiously large wooden stick with a chain attached at the end of it, a lone bathroom key dangling off it. “Here.”
After three weeks of bumming it, the stick doesn’t even faze me, but seriously, what’s with humans being weirdly obstructive with public bathroom keys? If I’m going to steal it, I’ll do it, stick and all. It’s not even really a deterrent. If anything, she just armed me with a pretty solid weapon. It’s a biohazard at the very least.
I take the stick, refusing to think about all the other people who have touched this thing after...touching their things, and I head outside to the bathroom. I do my business quickly because this single toilet room is rank and has very questionable stains on the walls. I wash my hands before heading back inside and returning the stick to the employee.
With my stomach rumbling again, I search the aisles for the cheapest, most filling thing I can buy, aka a protein bar. Again. I would punch a priest right now to be able to eat a massive plate of pasta. But the last fifty bucks I have feels like an hourglass running out of sand, and I know that I have to be careful.
With a sigh, I choose two bars and head to the counter. I can grab my water bottle from my bag and fill it up in the water fountain outside. It won’t taste the greatest, but it’s free at least.
After paying, I walk out, already tearing into the wrapper, quickly stuffing the first protein bar into my mouth. I eat the whole thing before I even make it to the parking lot. I’m pretty fucking sick of eating protein bars, but at least it’ll help the growling hunger in my gut.
As I’m tearing into the second wrapper, my combat boots screech to a stop. I stare at Trucker, who’s currently driving away. Without me.
“Hey!” I start sprinting for him, and we lock eyes as I run perpendicular to the truck, trying to catch up. “What the fuck?” I yell. Everyone around looks over, but I don’t care.
Trucker leans an elbow out of his open window and holds out his hand in a shrug gesture. “Well, whaddya expect? You shoulda been friendlier and sucked my goddamn dick!” he hollers back.
I keep running, but he turns out of the parking lot and onto the highway, so I’m forced to stop before I get nailed by a car. “I knew it!” I scream at his retreating tires. “I knew you were fucking propositioning me, you asshole!”
In reply, I get a finger out the window, and then he’s gone, settled in the traffic and too far away to see. Huffing, I stand in the middle of the gas station driveway until a car honks at me to move. “Oh, go pop a tire,” I snap before stalking back toward the gas station.