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“Yeah. He’s on the football team. He and Titus both. Last season, Titus set the record for yards run in his position, and Cali set the record for yards kicked.”
“That’s an athletic family.”
“Apparently,” Marcus said with a painful ache in his eyes.
“I take it that you don’t attend university?” I asked, assuming that he was around my age.
“I wasn’t blessed with the natural ability that so many people in this town have. If it was in the water, I certainly didn’t drink it,” he said offering a smile.
“No, but I’ve tasted your pastries. You don’t need to play football when you can make stuff that tastes like that. I know people who would kill for one of your chocolate croissants,” I said genuinely.
Marcus blushed. It was enough to make me think that he was interested in me. It only took a moment of picturing him naked before realizing that I saw him more as a brother then someone I would want to get into bed with. Cali, though, just thinking about him felt like someone was squeezing my heart. Was this what it meant to ache for someone?
“I appreciate you saying that,” Marcus said, pulling me from my increasingly elaborate fantasy of Cali. “Baking pastries is how I relax.”
“I would trade an arm to be good at anything as much as you are at baking. I couldn’t tell you how to boil an egg.”
Marcus laughed. He must have thought I was joking. I wasn’t. Growing up, we always had housekeepers and chefs. For a short while, we even had a food taster. It’s a little hard to learn how to survive on your own when there is an endless supply of people who are paid to do things for you.
Switching topics for the remainder of our forty-five-minute drive, he told me about growing up in a small town. It was very different from how I grew up in New York. I asked him if he had ever caught fireflies in a mason jar. He laughed and said that he had.
“The next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you and your friends would fish down at the creek.”
He looked at me embarrassed.
“No, seriously?”
“You don’t understand how few things there are to do here. But, have you ever tried it? It’s actually pretty fun.”
“I guess. It’s got to be better than awkwardly pretending that you don’t have a crush on any half-decent boy that your parents set you up on a play date with.”
Marcus looked at me with realization.
“So, you’re into guys?”
“If by into, you mean desperately longing to have one in me, then yes,” I admitted with a smile.
“That’s cool,” he said, seeming to mean it.
“Clearly you’ve never been into guys,” I laughed.
Marcus looked away without responding. There was something he wasn’t saying. Maybe if I had had any opportunity to refine my gaydar, I would know what it was. The only other guy I knew who was into guys was Dillon, and he had as hard of a time hiding it as I did.
When we arrived back at the bed-and-breakfast, Marcus asked me if I would need anything now that I didn’t have a car. I told him I would be fine. He then gave me his number and told me to call if I needed anything. I was grateful.
I was trying to be independent and self-reliant, but the truth was that I didn’t know what I was doing. What was I going to do now that I didn’t have a car? More than that, what was I going to do without cash?
If you’re trying to take the kind of trip that I was, you can’t rely on your father’s credit card. Credit card purchases can be tracked. If I used it, my father would know exactly where I was.
Alternatively, you could take the family car that doesn’t have a tracking device in it, pocket a few stacks of cash that your father keeps hidden around the house, shut off your phone, and go whatever you want.
That was the option I chose. But I also kept the cash in my car thinking that’s where it would be safest. Should I have thought about that before allowing Dr. Sonya to take it for a drive? Clearly. But how could I have guessed that my car and all of my money would end up at the bottom of a mountain pass?
What was I supposed to do now? I had no car, I had no cash, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Dr. Sonya had someone else scheduled to check into my room tonight.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have any options. If worst came to worst, I could always use my credit card or call home. But I didn’t want to do that. For once in my life, I wanted to show my father that I wasn’t completely helpless. I could take care of myself. But the more time that passed on my little adventure, the more I started to think that I couldn’t.
Entering the bed-and-breakfast, the faces of four people immediately turned towards me. They looked like two sets of couples dressed for an adventure vacation. Wearing hiking boots and with large backpacks on the floor next to the couch, I reasoned that these were the visitors that Dr. Sonya had said would be replacing me. I wasn’t sure what to say to them, so instead of saying anything, I hurried past them to my room.
