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Taking his direction, I carried my bag and a couple others over to Victor’s trunk. Kota knew exactly what would fit where, and helped us jigsaw piece it together the way he wanted.
When the cars were loaded, we all gathered around Kota, waiting for instructions.
Kota passed North some papers. “Here’s a copy of our reservation for the campgrounds, the address, and a map I printed off from the website.”
North glanced at the map. “Hunting Island? Not sure if I like this place.”
“There’s no hunting going on where we’ll be. There’s a campground near the beach that I hear is quite nice.”
I perked up. “Beach?”
“It’s winter, Sang,” North said. “No swimming.”’
I huffed.
“Who’s riding with who?” Kota asked.
“I’ll take Sang,” North said. “Easier to keep an eye on her.”
I glanced at Nathan, but he said nothing. Maybe the ride over wouldn’t be a big deal. It was just a car ride—I had all week to get closer to him.
Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne were coming along on their own so we didn’t need to wait for them. In the end, Gabriel, Luke, Silas, and I ended up with North. Kota, Victor, and Nathan were going to take Victor’s car.
“Neener neener,” Gabriel said to Nathan. “We get Sang.”
“It’s two hours,” Nathan said. “All three of you will be cramped in the back of the Jeep.”
“We’ll be fine,” Luke said.
I giggled, excited about being on a vacation with them for a whole week. No school. No Volto. Just us in the middle of nowhere. I was having fun already, distracted by what was going to happen this trip. It lifted some of the doubt in my heart. Remember what Mr. Blackbourne said, I repeated to myself. Just tell them, at the end of it all, I want to stay with them.
Silas rode shotgun while North drove and I sat between Luke and Gabriel in the back of the Jeep. It was tight in the back, with our thighs touching and our butts squeezed together. It got warm quickly, and we stripped off jackets and sweaters down to the T-shirts we wore underneath.
It made me wish I’d worn jeans instead of thermal pants.
Soon, we were off. I saw little of the trees as the Jeep flew down the roads. No one said much at first. Luke and Gabriel were gazing out their windows. Silas had his head against the headrest and appeared to be snoozing. North was focused on the road. Since it was early morning, the roads were pretty clear as we followed behind the BMW.
I was worried that the stuff on top would slide around, but North took turns with caution and braked early around stop signs.
The moment we were out of Summerville and on an interstate headed south, Luke yanked out his phone. “Hook me up, North.”
“I don’t want to hear that techno shit this early,” he said.
“I loaded up a bunch of songs that Sang likes.”
North huffed, tensing his hands on the steering wheel as if he wasn’t going to say anything.
Silas sat up and opened up the center console, finding a cord that was hooked up to the stereo system. He passed it back to Luke.
“You guys spoil her,” North said. He slid a glance at Silas. “You know that, don’t you?”
Silas shrugged. “It’s her vacation. Let her have fun.” His phone started to ring. He answered it, listened, and hung up. “We’re stopping for coffee.”
“Fuck yeah,” Gabriel said.
Victor took the next exit, pulling into a Starbucks. North followed.
We weren’t there long, but in that time, I downed a mocha Frappuccino, a half of a slice of pumpkin bread that I split with Luke, half a coffee cake that I pinched from Kota and a bite of North’s egg muffin when he begged me to eat something with protein in it.
By the time we were on the road again, I was bouncing.
Luke flicked through different songs to find one I’d recognize. I hung over his shoulder, watching as he flipped through lots of music. “Got us covered for the whole trip,” he said. “Won’t have to use Internet once.”
“No Internet on the island,” North said.
“I said that,” Luke said, and turned the volume up on his phone.
Soon, Gabriel, Luke and I were bouncing around in the back seat to Korean pop music.
North made a face, and then stuck his finger in his ear, wriggling. “What is this?” he bellowed back at us.
“K-Pop,” I said loudly over the music.
North gave me an eyeball in the rearview mirror. “You like this?”
“I like a lot of things,” I said. I started shaking shoulders. It was really the only move I could do in the limited space. Luke and Gabriel echoed my moves.
“I don’t know if I can take this the whole way,” North said, reaching for the volume control.
Silas’s hand shot out, blocking North before he could touch the volume. “No. Please,” he said. “Don’t make her stop.”
North frowned. Silas nodded toward the rearview mirror. North gave Silas a questioning look, then glanced back at us in the mirror before returning his gaze to Silas. “You fucking pervert.”
Silas raised a dark eyebrow. “What? Pervert? Do you see her face? She’s so happy.”
“Oh,” North said and sat back. “Never mind.” He moved to adjust the mirror.
Silas put a hand over North’s to stop him and grinned. “If you don’t mind, leave it. It’s my vacation, too.”
North rolled his eyes, but he didn’t touch the mirror again.
My cheeks were already warm but they were on fire after listening to this. I stopped bouncing around so hard in the back seat, but it was hard t
o completely stop when Gabriel and Luke were still having fun.
“Sing,” Gabriel told me, mouthing the words.
“I don’t remember the lyrics,” I said. “Maybe the next one.”
The next one I did know. I blushed, unsure if I should start singing when North was already annoyed with the music. When Gabriel and Luke started singing next to me, I started low. It was another Korean pop song with fast lyrics. I’m sure I got most of the words wrong though no one could hear me because Gabriel and Luke seemed to be making up their own lyrics. Eventually, I was laughing so much, I had to stop.
Between the laughing and all the coffee and sugar, my heart was racing.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. We were having fun and no one seemed worried.
We were going on vacation.
I’d never been on vacation and was suddenly determined to make the best of it.
HUNTING ISLAND
After another thirty minutes, North couldn’t handle the noise anymore and switched the music to rock, but turned the volume down.
We were already sweaty in the back and had stopped bouncing around. Luke had his shirt off. Gabriel had stripped down to a tank shirt. I wished I could take my T-shirt off like one of the guys. North did his best by rolling down the windows to give us fresh air.
“Maybe I should wear jeans,” I said. “I’m all sweaty.”
“You’ll want the thermal pants tonight,” he said. “Maybe even over the jeans.”
It was taking longer than I expected to get there. At the beginning, I didn’t think it would feel like such a long car ride and started to wonder if I should have joined the other car and be around Kota. I wanted to have fun, but I still had something I needed to do.
Victor’s car was ahead of us and we were following. North poked his finger at his phone, but the GPS kept losing us, despite us staying on the same stretch of the state road for several miles. He focused on a map Kota had given him instead.
I leaned forward a little, propping my elbows up on the middle console, studying the map and trying to figure out our location. “Why did we get a map if we’re following Victor?” I asked.
