Page 130 of The Turning of the Tables

Quincy, telling me she didn’t want me to go, but if I was going to go and get my man, I should drive safely.

Ward wishing me a safe trip and telling me if I changed my mind, the offer of a job stood.

Hart, telling me I probably wanted to avoid spending most of my day in Ohio. Oops.

Too late, I sent back.

Which waystation hellhole are you in?he asked me.

No idea. The first one.

They like to name them all in the midwest,he informed me.Midwesterners are weird.

I felt a smirk pull at my lips.Noted, I sent.

You driving the whole way today?he asked me.

I don’t think I can,I told him.My body is very angry with me.I didn’t know why I was telling him that. But apparently Hart and I were becoming something approaching friends.

Don’t push it,he said.Post-driving muscle soreness is a bitch.

It made me feel better that Hart also didn’t enjoy this drive.

More advice? Avoid Chicago.

I switched over to the map.How?I asked him.

Get off 94 and take 294. It’s fucking insane to drive through Chicago if you don’t have to.

Thanks.

No problem.

I set the phone back on my chest, trying to decide if my back had eased enough for me to go inside to explore the exciting food options presented by the Ohio Turnpike authority, when it buzzed again.

I looked at it.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,Hart had sent.

I was hoping to avoid near-death experiences, I informed him.

Har har, asshole. Seriously. Take care of yourself. And good luck.

Thanks.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the fact that I’d managed tomake friends with a bunch of people right before I decided to move a thousand miles away. And then I wondered if it was going to take me another decade to make new ones.

I hoped not.

My stomach growled again.

I decided to wait to text Quincy and Noah again until I’d stopped for the night, which was probably going to be somewhere else in Ohio. At least the plazas were twenty-four hour, which meant that, in theory anyway, if I decided to sleep in my car, I probably wouldn’t be murdered while I was unconscious. Also, I’m a pretty big guy, and if being six-three and over two-hundred pounds is good for anything, it’s that people don’t generally try to start shit with you.

It was startingto get dark-ish when I pulled into an Ohio Turnpike plaza named ‘Blue Heron.’ It was more than halfway through the state, which was… well, pretty boring, honestly. I didn’t have much experience driving across the country, but I assumed that was probably the consequence of being on a turnpike more than it was being in Ohio. There had been some pretty boring parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania, too—until I hit the mountains in Pennsylvania, anyway. But those had given way to Ohio, and it had all been pretty flat from there.

I limped my way into the plaza itself, twisting a little to work some of the strain out of my back. It didn’t really work. I wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of sleeping in my car, but I didn’t think I had enough money to waste it on hotels, given how expensive all the turnpikes and the gas were going to end up being.

One more thing that I hadn’t factored in.