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Afterwards, we had the champagne and I pulled out the actual food I had ordered for dinner, eating it in bed like royalty, curling up together afterwards, not a care in the world. Fuck, I loved her.
I couldn’t get over how much I loved sleeping with her in my arms. Even if we sometimes drifted apart a bit in the night, we always came back to each other. Just having her in the bed with me helped me to sleep better. It soothed me.
When I woke up to find her with her head resting on my shoulder, her hair fanned out on the bed behind her, one arm tangled with mine, it felt like my heart flew out of me and settled into her. Fuck. I never wanted to wake up with anyone else in my bed, and I never wanted to wake up alone in bed, either. I wanted to be with her, for the rest of my life.
And as I’d told her just the other day, if I knew that I wanted something I wasn’t going to wait around for it or delay.
There was still the Morgan issue, but I would find a way to take care of that. It would resolve itself somehow, it had to. I’d make it work. Nothing was going to stand in our way—if this was what Billie wanted as well. If this was what made her happy, if I could make her happy, then I wouldn’t let Morgan or anything else stop us.
We had a leisurely breakfast in bed, and soaked in the jacuzzi again for a little while, goofing off, just relaxing. I wished that we didn’t ever have to leave, that we could stay just like this forever, but of course we had to get back to reality. If only because we had Christmas presents to deliver to people.
I’d wanted to get something for Morgan. I was pretty sure that Billie could tell. But I hadn’t known how he would take that. We weren’t really even on speaking terms. But I still cared about him, stupid as it was. He’d been my friend since we were kids, since we were about ten years old. It was hard to let go of that, to shake that off, even though I knew he was being an asshole.
Hopefully I could work things out with him. Not just for Billie and myself, but for Morgan and me. I wanted my best friend back. Somehow.
It was about a five hour drive back home, so we had to get going, but I was ready to enjoy this ride. “Let’s take Route 66,” I suggested. It would take us a little longer, but it would be more scenic. And hey, it was historic, how could we not?
“Sounds good to me,” Billie replied. “Fire up the engines, captain!”
Billie was the navigator, but we bickered lightheartedly over who got to pick the music. “Driver picks the music,” I told her.
“No, front passenger is the DJ,” Billie replied, slapping my hand away from the radio controls. “So that you can concentrate on driving.”
We sped past a sign for an upcoming turn off, and I got an idea. I’d studied a bit about Route 66 when I was younger, just trying to learn more about cars and the history of driving in the United States and all that. It was one of the few school projects I’d put a lot of time and effort into. “Hey, there’s a motel coming up, called Blue Swallow Motel. It’s pretty iconic, actually. On this highway, anyway. Let’s stop there, I could use a bit of a rest.”
Billie gave me an odd look, raising an eyebrow. “We’re not even halfway through our trip.”
I pulled off the highway, following the signs. “There’s a restaurant there, we can get lunch.”
Billie shrugged. “All right.” I was pretty sure she suspected my ulterior motives. She was a sharp one. But she didn’t say anything as we pulled up into the motel and parked.
“This is actually on the national register of historic places,” I explained as we got out of the car and Billie admired the large, iconic sign with the blue swallow on it. “A lot of places went out of business after Interstate 40 was built, and so all the traffic that used to come along Route 66 was diverted. But the Redmans stuck it out. The woman, Lillian, her husband bought the place for her and she ran it up until a year before her death. She came out here in a covered wagon and everything.”
“That’s amazing,” Billie said, sounding honestly fascinated. She didn’t know as much about cars and all that history, but she always sounded genuinely interested in hearing about it. I remembered that from when she was a teenager, on the occasions when she would hang out near Morgan and me, and now she would listen to me talk like it gave her genuine pleasure to hear about it.
