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I take a breath, letting myself trust Riley and myself as I apply a little bit more pressure to the accelerator until the speed of the car increases slightly.
Riley smiles proudly, clapping his hands and cheering as we roll down the road, my muscles loosening as my confidence increases. Not ready to take the car out near other cars, but I can't resist the wave of pride that washes over me at finally hitting this milestone and how grateful I am at Riley for pushing me and encouraging me.
Never once has he ever held me back from doing anything, only giving me a helping hand. The tools I need to take care of myself. I'm almost too excited to think of what else I have left to learn.
“We’ll keep going for another five minutes, then I’ll take over.”
“How far arewe from this place?” I ask, boredom filling my words as I slump my head back, my feet crossed at the ankles up on the dash.
Riley gives an amused chuckle. “Maybe twenty minutes.”
I groan. “Oh my God! This is going on forever!”
“You never liked family road trips, did you?”
I level him with a look. “You know of my family. Does it seem like we took a lot of family trips?”
He nods to himself, figuring out the stupidity in his words. “Fair enough.” He eyes the radio, which is turned off. “Why don’t you play with the radio? Children love that, right?”
He grins at his remark, and I slap him on the arm. “Hey!” But I proceed to play with the radio anyway, turning it on and flicking through the stations in need of something. I could always use my phone, but there is something classic about a radio, the randomness of it.
“No. No. No. No,” I say, flicking through the stations as an array of music sounds throughout the car, until it finally lands on a classic road trip song, or so I think.
“Wooo!” I cheer and clap, sitting up in my seat and tucking my legs underneath me, turning the volume up on the radio as Riley raises his brows.
“Bon Jovi? Didn’t think you were into that stuff?”
Bouncing in my seat to the music, I yell over it, “I’m into all kinds of music!”
“I’m realising that.”
My bouncing soon migrates into shimmying and holding my fist in front of my mouth like a microphone, as I can’t help but belt out the lyrics for‘Livin on a Prayer’.
She says, we’ve gotta hold on to what we’ve got
It doesn’t make a difference if we’re ready or not
We’ve got each other and that a lot for love
SeeingRiley’s smile grow to full on grin, my own smile grows too, and I get closer, singing to him with a playful twinkle in my eyes.
We’ll give it a shot!
He surprisesme by slapping his hands on the steering wheel to the beat, belting out the chorus with me, laughing and smiling with the car filling with nothing but ease and happiness. Any worries about Hunter or my parents or my future are gone for just a moment. I'm enjoying every single second of that moment, watching Riley laugh and sing, wishing it could last forever.
It isn’tlong until we are pulling up outside of the cabin, but it certainly doesn't look like a cabin, and it makes me wonder what the fuck Logan’s parents do for a living.
Before us stands a modern style house with glass walls, perched in the middle of the lake, with a dock leading from land to the front door of the house. The expanse of water stretches out behind it with another dock further down the lake with mountains and trees surrounding us.
It's so breathtakingly beautiful, but another look around and I notice we are the only cars here. I turn back to look at Riley, who appears to be noticing the same thing as he turns his frown on the vacant space around us, the same question in both of our eyes as we look at each other.
“Where is everyone?” Riley asks, as if either of us has the answer, and I merely shrug.
“Maybe they’re just late,” I suggest as I pull my phone from my pocket, only then noticing a string of texts, and I instantly kick myself for putting my phone on silent.
Ava:Hey! Sorry, but I don’t think we can go. Charlie has been sick all night and we don’t feel right leaving him like this.
Logan:Hunter is in a mood and won’t go. I don’t wanna go without him and I don’t wanna leave him alone the way he is right now. Hadley and I are staying in.
