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“Exactly. I vote we sleep in the car.”
“Don’t be a baby,” I say, plugging the address into my map app. “It’s only twenty minutes away. We could be in bed by 12:30. It’s…” I trail off. “Huh.”
“Huh? What’s huh?”
The road on the map looks about the width of a bike lane and is on a country road off another country road off yet another country road. “Well, it looks a little rustic. And there’s no phone number. But that just means there’s probably plenty of room.”
“That just means the owner is going to shoot us when we come pulling up his driveway at midnight!”
I shrug. “We’ll be fine. Come on, you’re the one who said you wanted to be country. What’s more country than shotguns?”
Rhett squares his jaw, considers if being called “chicken” is worth whatever we’re going to find at the end of this country road, and then relents. “If it gets you to stop calling hotels like a tourist on crack then fine. But after my new Hellcat gets her taillights shot out we’re driving straight to Chicago.”
“Deal. But it’ll be fine,” I say again. “Trust me.”
My confidence wanes the closer we get to the hotel. The road goes from a brightly lit highway to a scarcely lit two-lane road to a dirt country road that’s as dark as a serial killer’s wet dream. I navigate us on the map, taking us from dark, icy fields to thick woods by a series of turns. We don’t see anyone.
We’re driving through a black forest when the final turn comes up at last. “You’re gonna want to take the next right. It’s coming up. It’s here. Stop. STOP!”
Rhett slams on the breaks so hard my phone goes flying out of my hand and gets lost by my feet.
“What’s the matter?” he demands.
“You’re supposed to turn here!” I say, digging around for my phone, finally unearthing it beneath my backpack. I check the screen and swear. “We lost service.”
“We’ve lost a lot more than that,” Rhett says. “Namely our minds.” He glances out the window. “Come on. Let’s just drive through. We’ll get there before dawn. I promise I’ll be fine.” He punctuates his sentence by yawning aggressively. I look at him pointedly. “That doesn’t count,” he says.
“Toward what? My trust in you?”
“Toward all of the above.”
“Well I don’t care. We’ve gone this far. It’s right down this road.”
“What road? ‘Cause if it was once here, I think it may have grown over.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, peering out the window. “It’s here somewhere.” I pause when all that leaps out at me is darkness, trees, and dark trees. I squint my eyes and search harder.
“Okay,” I admit finally. “So it’s hidden. Maybe a little overgrown.”
“All the snow doesn’t help,” Rhett says.
“This is why you should have gotten a truck. Thought that’d be your first choice anyway, Country Boy.”
Rhett doesn’t look amused. “I wouldn’t have told you that if I thought you were going to make fun of me.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I say. “Do you think this car can make it down the road?”
Rhett hesitates and then shrugs. “It has four wheel drive. I don’t see why not. There’s not that much snow yet. But I don’t think there’s even a road here to get on.”
I open my door.
“Where are you going?” he asks quickly.
“To look around. It’s got to be here somewhere.”
“You’re going to go out there?” Rhett asks, aghast. “There might be wolves.”
I roll my eyes and push the car door open. “Well then you’re gonna have to come rescue me.” I get out of the car and immediately regret it. It’s cold, like bone-cutting, hypothermia-inducing cold. And I left my big, cozy winter coat in the car.
