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“That is still up for debate.”
“…okay.”
“Let’s just say that my brother and I have similar tastes in men, and we both sidled up to the pool table, and Simon, at about the same time, only, Winter was being a devious shit and somehow, I wound up with a whole tray of beer upended over my head. By the time I’d wrung out my shirt, rinsed out my hair, and knelt under the blow dryer in the men’s room to get it somewhat dry, he’d made off with the guy.”
“So, you just found a way to even the odds.”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn.”
Tripp’s laughter, low and rolling, filled the small gap between their benches.
“Wait…so Winter came after you…and beat your ass….and you still ended up with the guy?”
“Yup, for about three weeks, then he took off with this long-haul trucker we met at the same campgrounds where the haunting took place.”
“Yeah, I’m still waiting to hear how that turned out.”
“Oh, you’re gonna love this. We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and it sounded like something was trying to tear its way through the floorboards. Shanny said fuck it and bolted for a pavilion, Tavis took refuge in a port-a-potty, and Winter said he’d take his chances with the sky gods and sat up against the base of a willow tree until Kass went out and dragged him back in.”
“Where’d you hide?”
“Under the back bunk. Which was an epic fail, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“It brought me face to face with a pair of eyes, at which point, I may have screamed and come scrambling out from under there so fast I scraped up the back of my head and lost a couple chunks of hair in the process. The raccoon I met came scurrying out in the other direction, and with some help from Kass was ushered off the bus without any damage to it. Some of our nerves on the other hand, took time to recover, but long story short, we found all the stuff we’d been pitching a bitch about. Turns out the raccoon had gotten into the storage compartment at some point and found its way into the bus through a hole in the floor that shouldn’t have been large enough for it to squeeze through.”
“Where there’s a will.”
“A couple of us almost needed wills after that thing got through with us.”
Laughing, Zakk finally managed to sit up and shove his hair out of his eyes. Even tinged with red, the moon was still bright enough to cast light on the lumps of their clothing scattered across the ground, but not enough to tell whose was whose. He grabbed for the closest one and slithered into a much too big t-shirt. Oh well, it was good enough at this point.
“Hey, if you think that’s funny, let me tell you the story about Shanny and the Demon Diarrhea….”
Chapter 17
Only birds and angels fly
Fast things had never been his cup of tea. Tripp preferred to leave the speed demon theatrics to Winter, a million and one fears crawling around in his head like fire ants, each and every one of them containing a tiny image of himself in some twisted, mangled position made possible by foolish folly. People weren’t meant to fly, if they had been, they’d have been given wings, god damn it, and yet, rocketing and bouncing over the dunes with Zakk behind the wheel was a bigger thrill than he’d have ever imagined.
Zakk’s laughter echoed over the whirr of the engine, as great clouds of sand flew around them. They’d be picking it out of a dozen places he didn’t want to think about at the moment, shoving at that old worry that was trying to creep in, not wanting it to derail their day.
Weightless, they caught air and Tripp held his breath, waiting for them to land. He’d learned after the first bounce to keep his mouth shut, between the sand flying around, occasionally coating his throat and making him cough and the one time they’d landed so hard he bit his tongue, it was safer that way.
He couldn’t resist laughing though. It was infectious and Zakk was already doing so much of it, how was he not to join in?
They hit the next three dunes like racing over a rocking chair, the up-downs enough to make Tripp’s head spin. He waited for the urge to screamstop, but when he opened his mouth, the word to come out wasfaster.
“Hell yeah!” Zakk howled, gunning the thing. They took an incline like it was nothing, launched over the space between it and the next dune, and landed with tires spinning, only to whip into a curve that left Tripp leaning so far, his head was practically touching Zakk’s shoulder. The next turn sent him in the other direction, like a ping-pong ball at the whim of Zakk’s insanity.
It was wild, it was reckless, it was exhilarating as hell and holy shit….
For a moment they tipped so far Tripp was sure they were going to wind up with his side of the buggy half-buried in sand, but somehow, Zakk righted it just in time to bounce them off a dune and rocket them through the air. They fishtailed on the landing, Zakk eventually getting it straightened out as they headed between rock formations, the deeper sand giving way to hard-packed, rock road.
Zakk slowed down to a crawl here, the change in pace almost jarring, but it was quickly apparent why. Sandstone rock formations of all shapes and sizes dotted the horizon like jagged teeth closing in on either side of them. Whirls of colors, some dark, some light, formed swirling patterns in the rock, caused by mineral deposits and erosion, if Tripp remembered correctly.
