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He gathered up some socks and piled them on the bed with the rest of his gear. “We’ll be perfectly safe—the foundation sends groups down all the time. I’ll send you a link so you can check it out for yourself, okay?”
“All right, but I just worry.” She let out a sigh, then gasped. “Do you need to get shots or anything? Did you check the travel advisories from the State Department? Make sure you don’t carry too much cash!”
As if he had enough cash for anyone to bother stealing. He chuckled at her exaggerated worries. “I promise, Mom, I’ll be fine. I’ll always be with other members of our team, but I won’t be answering my phone for a few days because I won’t have coverage down there. I don’t want you to worry if you can’t get ahold of me.”
She took a couple of deep breaths. “What day will you be back?”
“I’ll be able to call you by Sunday morning,” he said, though the schedule said Saturday afternoon. Better to be a day early than have her worrying if they happened to get back late. “And I’ll text you contact information for our group leader. She has coverage down there, so you can contact her if there’s an emergency.”
“Oh good! I’ll—”
It took him at least five minutes to strictly define which situations she could classify as emergencies, followed by an interminable recap of his older brother’s latest accomplishments.
“I’d better go,” he said in an attempt to end her gushing. “Tell Matt I said hi.”
“Aren’t you going to call him yourself?”
Clenched teeth held a cynical answer on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it and forced cheer into his voice. “He’s so busy. I wouldn’t want to bother him.”
She pushed back, as mothers did. “He’s not too busy to—”
“Just tell him hi for me, Mom. I have to finish packing.” Throwing his few things into a duffel would only take a second, but she didn’t need to know that. The disappointment was clear in her voice as they finished their goodbyes and hung up. That was nothing new.
Five minutes later Noah threw the duffel over his shoulder and left on foot for the nearby parking lot where Jane had told him to meet her, determined to leave his wallowing behind. This would be a great and inexpensive opportunity to serve others, visit another country, and possibly make some new friends. Small groups were much easier for Noah to navigate, and he was tired of being alone.
“Alone.”
Grace’s voice echoed in his head as he waited to cross the street. He’d made plenty of mistakes in his life—one of which, he now acknowledged, was being too hard on Grace and holding that grudge for so long—but he was determined to stop looking back.
“I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner.”
Why had she asked him out? Pity. She knew enough to peg him as the loner he was.
Well, time to change that. He banished Grace’s voice and rounded the last corner, spotting Jane and Chad near a fairly new-looking fifteen-passenger van ready and waiting in the parking lot, though Noah was ten minutes early.
Unlike Matt, who was consistently late. It drove Noah crazy—a constant reminder that his brother’s time was more important than Noah’s.
He headed for the van, watching as Jane and Chad loaded a bag of soccer balls into a rooftop cargo carrier. Chad saw Noah first and hollered a hello. “Bedding is going in the back,” he said, “so put your bag in the van. There are only ten of us, so there should be plenty of room for gear.”
Numbers and anxiety swirled through Noah’s head. Ten people. Twelve driving hours today, an overnight stop at a stranger’s house tonight in Tucson, six more hours in the van tomorrow, nine virtual strangers sharing his space, five nights on the floor in a country where he didn’t speak the predominant language.
What if they can’t stand me?
What if I can’t stand them?
What if—
Pulling out an old anti-anxiety trick, Noah inhaled and focused his thoughts on his feet as he approached the van, wiggling his toes in the new socks he’d splurged on and noting how the old running shoes formed to his soles. He let out his breath and pushed the anxiety with it.
Silly, he thought. It was such a simple exercise, it shouldn’t be able to calm him so quickly, but it usually did, even when he didn’t believe it would. A few seconds of thinking about his feet, and he felt a little better. Silly but effective.
As he threw his duffel into the back seat of the van, he noticed a couple of guys collecting their gear from a dark-gray sedan parked nearby. He took another intentional breath and approached the car. “Need any help?” he asked.
The thinner of the two guys emerged from the trunk with a case of water bottles and handed it off to Noah with a friendly lift of his chin. “These go in the van. Maybe under a seat or something.”
Relieved at the casual nonintroduction, Noah stashed the water and turned to find the second guy on his heels with another case. “Sorry,” Noah said, stepping out of the way.
“No worries.” Tall and broad-shouldered, the second guy stashed the water next to Noah’s and stretched out a hand. “I’m Alec. You’ll have to forgive Garth,” he said with a smirk at the first guy. “He’s not too social.”
