“Oh, yeah. Sounds like he was fine.”

  “Exactly. They do have nine lives, after all.”

  Right then, Bert decided to turn spicy and swat at Marcus’s hand, catching his finger with one of those needle-sharp kitten claws.

  “Ow!” Marcus jerked his hand back. By then, Bert was gone, tearing across the trailer into another compartment, where something promptly crashed. Still shaking out his hand, Marcus rolled his eyes. “Let me go check on him.”

  He disappeared into the back, and a moment later: “Seriously, cat?” followed by an exasperated groan. Then a laugh.

  I chuckled to myself as I crouched to give Ernie some attention. “Your little brother’s all chaos, isn’t he?”

  He licked my hand in response, his tail thumping on the floor.

  As I petted him, I looked around the toy-littered trailer. Apart from all the evidence of the pets enjoying themselves, the whole thing was tidy, and it was swanky as hell. The kitchen was almost as big as the one in my last apartment, complete with a full-sized refrigerator, oven, and cooktop. The appliances were all brushed stainless, the countertops looked like granite—light gray speckled with black, and the cabinets were some kind of warm hardwood. They may have been laminates (though in a setup this nice, maybe not), but either way, they looked great.

  The living area was bigger than I expected, too. The wall that the couch was pressed up against was the back wall, and kitty corner to that, two theater seats were pressed up to an adjacent wall that had slid out, adding a few feet of space. There was easily room for like five or six people to hang out, watch a movie, or work on laptops, and hadn’t he said the couch was a foldout bed?

  The bedroom, I suspected, was the compartment Marcus had gone into after Bert, and the door just before that must’ve been the bathroom. Given the size of the trailer from the outside, the bedroom must’ve been half the entire structure—roomy and comfortable.

  I could definitely see why he’d chosen to go this route instead of hotel-hopping. Even if the price of diesel jumped again, he was still in a good position because he didn’t have to pay rent or a mortgage—he’d said the payments on this thing were pretty low—and parking it in a campground cost less than a night in a crap motel.

  The bedroom door opened, and Marcus emerged, carrying a not-at-all-contrite-looking Bert under his arm. Laughing, he said, “Never a dull moment with a kitten in the house.”

  “I bet. What did he get into?”

  Marcus gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Just knocked over a laundry basket. Which is my own damn fault, because I know he does that and I left it on the bed anyway.” He put Bert down on the counter and opened an overhead cabinet, which instantly had the kitten’s full attention. I understood why when Marcus brought out a bag of cat food.

  As he fed the cat and topped off the water for both animals, he said, “I’ll set up the foldout bed tonight, but is there anything you need between now and then? There’s a Walmart pretty close by if—”

  “No, no, I’m…” I shook my head. “Honestly, this is fine. And I can pitch in for food and gas. It just, uh, won’t be much.” I winced, seriously expecting him to rescind his whole offer.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He bent to put a water bowl down in front of his patiently waiting dog. “There’s a ton of food for when I either want to do a cooking video or just don’t want to”—he gestured at the door and wrinkled his nose—“people.”

  “I get that.” I chewed my lip, then hazarded, “I don’t suppose this thing has a shower?”

  “It does.” Marcus nodded toward the bedroom. “That door on your left is the bathroom. Plenty of hot water, but I wouldn’t push it beyond twenty minutes or so.”

  Twenty minutes? Jesus. Just five minutes under a hot, clean spray sounded heavenly enough.

  He showed me how to work the faucets, and he pulled a thick towel out of the small linen closet. “Take your time, and if I’m not here when you get out, I’m just taking Ernie for a walk.”

  Then he left me to it.

  The bathroom was, unsurprisingly, bigger than I expected. Not one of those enormous things like I’d find in a luxury hotel, and honestly still a bit cramped, but with more elbow room than an RV seemed like it should offer.

  And the shower…

  Oh. God. The shower was amazing.

  I pressed my palms to the walls and let the water rush through my hair and over my back and shoulders. I didn’t even bother telling myself that the sting in my eyes was because of the water. Not with that lump in my throat.

  Showers honestly weren’t a major novelty. Thanks to my dirt-cheap gym membership, I’d at least been able to shower and brush my teeth over the last few months. There were days when that had been the difference between me giving up and trying to keep surviving, and I took whatever I could get.

  But here in Marcus’s trailer, it felt different. It was refreshing and rejuvenating the way those gym showers never aspired to be. Private, without someone in the next stall, but also there wasn’t that dread in my stomach because as soon as I was dressed again, I’d be back out on the street. I was staying here. In this startlingly large trailer. A roof over my head. Air that didn’t smell like garbage. A bed to sleep on instead of my driver seat or—more recently—whatever flat surface I could find.

  I’d eaten an actual meal. I didn’t have to find an overpass or an alley. I didn’t have to leave as soon as I’d finished showering.

  If only for the time it took for us to make our way to Chicago…

  I could breathe again.

  Chapter 4

  Marcus

  I wondered sometimes if Ernie would ever be happy if I settled down somewhere. We’d hit the road shortly after I’d adopted him, and he seemed to love exploring campgrounds and parks. He enjoyed riding in the truck. He was always excited to leave the trailer and check out his new surroundings. Would he get bored in a yard?

  Well, I supposed I’d have to settle someplace with lots of multi-use and hiking trails around. Dog parks weren’t a factor; Ernie was way too nervous around strange dogs, so places like that just made him anxious and miserable. Lesson learned the hard way.

  Maybe I could get him another dog someday. He did like other dogs if they were carefully introduced and he had a chance to relax around them.

  Or, hell, I’d just get more cats, since apparently Ernie loved cats.

  For the moment, he happily plodded along the path, tail wagging as his paws kicked up dust.

  As my dog enjoyed the excitement of yet another campground, my thoughts did the same thing they had while I’d been in the pizzeria’s kitchen earlier—drifted back to Blake.

  I was relieved he’d agreed to join me. I looked forward to having some company, and I liked that he wouldn’t be sleeping on the street going forward. It made me feel somewhat less useless to be helping someone in a dire situation. And my pets liked him, so that went a long way toward making me think he was a decent human being. I trusted animals’ intuition a lot more than I trusted that of people, including my own. One hiss from Bert or growl from Ernie, and I’d have found a reason to rescind my offer.

  But they’d both immediately liked him, and I liked him, and I didn’t want to rescind my offer. How impulsive and reckless was this, though? Was I being completely stupid, taking this complete stranger on as a passenger? Letting the loneliness of months on the road compromise my judgment until I took such a painfully stupid risk?

  And even if he wasn’t dangerous or a scammer, he was a stranger. Someone I hadn’t known existed until a handful of hours ago. Yet here I was, rejigging my entire trip—my entire life, honestly—to get him to his mom’s house. Because what I hadn’t told Blake was that I wasn’t actually due to be in Chicago in two weeks. My plan had been to continue through the Southwest, across Texas, and spend the winter in the South. Then I’d circle back toward the Midwest in the spring.

  But I’d mentally remapped my trip once Chicago had suddenly become a destination of greater importance. Of course I’d be going there on this trip—there was no doing a United States pizza tour without stopping in Chicago any more than there would be without stopping in New York—but not for several months at least.

  I didn’t make arrangements with restaurants very far in advance, and reservations with camping areas were fairly easy to change, especially as tourist season died down. I wouldn’t be screwing anyone over or even inconveniencing them by modifying my trip. I’d just be going miles out of my way—hundreds of miles out of my way—to get Blake to Chicago sooner rather than later.

  This…wasn’t like me. I’d bend over backward for people I knew and cared about. And I was always happy to help strangers. But this? Rejigging my travel so I spent at least part of the winter in the Midwest? So I could get this man I’d known for a handful of hours to someplace safe and familiar?

  I ran through some names of friends who I could call to use as sounding boards, but I knew every last one of them would tell me the same thing, if not in the same words: “Marcus. My dude. You’re about to get scammed, murdered, or scammed then murdered. What on earth are you thinking?”

  The answer to that was that I didn’t quite know. Aside from the part I kept circling back to as the only possible explanation for why I was doing this: because even with my pets to keep me company, the road was fucking lonely.

  That’s still no excuse to do something this impulsive.

  Maybe not, but I’d already committed. I didn’t see myself backing out, especially if that meant sending him back out to look for an overpass to sleep under tonight.

  I shuddered at the thought. As Ernie and I followed the winding gravel road back to our camping space, I just hoped I wasn’t making a mistake.

  Outside the trailer, I stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned to Ernie. He sat down and gazed up at me, tail wagging. He sat even straighter and wagged even harder when I reached into my pocket, because after all these months on the road, he knew the routine.

  I tossed him his treat, which he snatched out of the air with a loud snap. Then I opened the door, and he trotted inside and sat down again to wait for me to take off his harness and leash. Once I’d done that, he got his second treat, at which point he’d usually go chill in his dog bed.

  This time, though, still crunching on the treat, he trotted over to the couch, jumped up, and flopped down beside Blake with his head in his lap. Blake’s other leg was canted slightly, with Bert tucked in the crook of his knee, and the kitten batted gently at Ernie’s floppy ear.

  Blake patted Ernie’s side. “Well, hi.”

  “I think he likes you,” I said as I hung up the leash.

  “Apparently. That’s what I’m here to do—steal your pets’ affection.”

  I snorted. “There’s plenty to go around.” I was tempted to snap a photo, but this morning was still fresh in my mind—had that really just been like two hours ago?—and I didn’t want to make Blake uncomfortable. Explaining it away as just wanting a picture of my animals being friendly didn’t even seem like enough.

  I had a feeling there would be plenty of opportunities for similar pictures over the next couple of weeks, though, and maybe that was enough time for Blake to be okay in front of a camera.

  And as I watched him petting my dog and entertaining my cat, some part of me worried that I wasn’t just putting myself at risk—my boys were part of this equation too. If someone robbed or hurt me, well, that was my own fault. But what if they hurt my dog or my kitten?

  The thought nauseated me. At the same time, though, I couldn’t see Blake hurting so much as a whisker on either animal. I didn’t know a thing about him, but I could feel that truth in my bones. The fact that Bert had gravitated toward him spoke volumes; he’d been wary of me when I’d found him, and though he happily cuddled with me and followed me around now, he was still standoffish with people he didn’t know. Not aggressive, not hissing, just skittish. One of many reasons I’d started walking him on a leash had been to get him around other people so he’d be less scared, but it was still a process.

  With Blake? Instant affection.

  And Ernie was timid about meeting new people, too. Friendly and eager, yes, but nervous in that way some dogs were after they’d been mistreated in the past and desperately wanted to believe this new person wouldn’t do the same. After some pets and reassurances, he’d be completely relaxed and happy with his new best friend, but that could take anywhere from an hour to a few days. And there was always that initial moment of timid “Please, please be nice to me.”

  With Blake? It had taken minutes, if that, before Ernie had decided he was safe and friendly. Now he was chilling on the couch with his head in Blake’s lap.

  That all had to mean something. Right? No one was slick enough to fool two animals with hyped-up survival instincts, were they?

  Well, I’d try to be cautious, but little by little, I was relaxing into the idea that while my decision had been uncharacteristically impulsive, it was, so far, playing out just fine.

  “So, um.” I reached into a compartment behind one of the theater chairs and pulled out a map. “I guess we should figure out how we’re getting to Chicago.”

  I moved to the small kitchen island, and as I spread the map out on the counter, Blake said, “I’m sorry, buddy. I need to get up.” There was a jingle of tags and a clatter of dog nails on the floor, followed by the familiar thump and sigh of Ernie settling into his dog bed. A moment later, Blake appeared beside me, having relocated Bert from the crook of his knee to the crook of his elbow, where the kitten batted happily at the strings on his hoodie.

  Blake gestured at the map with his free hand. “Old school, huh?”

  I shrugged. “Eh. I already spend a lot of time with my face pointed at a screen. Also this map is bigger than my laptop.”

  “What about construction and detours?” He tapped the map. “Last I checked, these antiques don’t really account for stuff like that.”

  I laughed. “I always check for that stuff as I get closer. This just helps me plan the bigger picture.”

  He grunted in acknowledgment. “Do you at least do the math with your phone? Or is there an abacus around here some—”

  “Pfft.” I snorted. “I was an engineer in my past life. If there’s a piece of technology available to make math easier, I’m first in line.”

  “Glad I’m not the only one.”

  “Definitely not.” Shifting my attention to the map, I put my finger on Albuquerque. “Okay, so, I was planning to get on I-40 and head to Amarillo. There’s a little town a few miles south of there that’s supposed to have an amazing pizza place. And then I guess from there, we can go up through Oklahoma and Missouri toward Illinois. But I’m thinking if we head north through Santa Fe, we can go to Denver instead, and from there, head toward I-80 and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Blake looked at me, eyes wide. Even while he still absently dangled the hoodie string for Bert to play with, he was focused on me. “Are you… You’re not rerouting your whole trip to get me to Chicago, are you?”

  “I, uh…” The sudden heat in my face was probably a dead giveaway. “Well, I mean, my trip isn’t exactly set in stone. I’ve changed directions a few times. Bad weather. Something I decided I wanted to see.” I shrugged again. “That’s the beauty of what I’m doing—it’s flexible.”

  That sounded convincing. Didn’t it?

  His brow pinched. “But you’re… I don’t want you going out of your way for me or anything. I can always get off somewhere and get on a bus or something.”

  “It’s fine!” I insisted. “Honestly, I’m happy to have the company for a bit. Though, uh, it might be a slower trip with me than on a bus or a train. I usually spend a few days in each city, and not every city I go to is off one of the major interstates. So this”—I gestured at our surroundings—“is not an express route.”

  As soon as I’d said all that, I regretted it. For all I’d been trying to talk myself out of doing this, I was suddenly and irrationally afraid he’d take off right now, going back into town for a Greyhound ticket.

  To my surprise, though, he watched me for a few seconds, then let his gaze drift to the map, all the while still entertaining my kitten. “I’m not in a hurry,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want to impose, you know?”

  “You’re good. Like I said, I’m happy for the company.”

  He met my gaze again, uncertainty etched all over his face. Slowly, a smile grew, and he looked down at Bert, who had started trying to murder a crease in his sleeve. “I appreciate it. And really—I’ve got time. So whatever route you want to take…” He half-shrugged, which jiggled one of the hoodie strings. Bert launched himself at it, very nearly zapping Blake’s chin with one of his tiny claws. Blake jumped, but he didn’t drop him, and he chuckled as he steadied them both. “How about we don’t attack my face, hmm?”

  Bert pulled the string into his mouth and chewed on it, looking every bit the tiny baby who wanted us to believe he was a ferocious predator.

  Blake just laughed and rolled his eyes. To me, he said, “All right. Let’s figure out where we’re going.”

  I’d had very few people in the trailer, and no one but my pets had actually traveled with me, so I expected it to be weird, having someone settling in for a few days. After several years of living with roommates, I’d loved having a space that was entirely mine. Those years with roommates had served me well, though—so far, I found myself adapting easily to someone else and their things.

  It helped that Blake was very conscientious of the space, and he seemed to be falling all over himself not to encroach. His two bags were tucked in the corner between the theater seats and the couch where he’d be sleeping. His laptop peripherals stayed on the end of the table, along with his drink and charging cell phone. When he’d realized I had a small washer and dryer, he’d somewhat timidly asked if he could use them, quickly assuring me he was happy to use the campground’s laundromat.