Page 65 of Nuts

I took a step toward her, and then paused. “You and I have a lot in common. We both like tinkering with bikes. We enjoy the freedom of being on the road. Hell, we could take road trips on the weekends and have one hell of a lot of fun. So, anyway. There’s this age thing between us. But. The more I think about it, nine years isn’t that much. Not really.”

I inhaled a lung full of courage and stepped to the end of the bed.

My heart sank at the sound of her light snoring. After admiring her for a moment, my mouth curled into a smile.

She was a beautiful woman.

And, there was always tomorrow.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Joey

After we packed everything into the saddlebags and secured them, Percy pointed across the street. “Diner over there. Let’s eat, and then we can hit the road.”

The sun was peeking over the tips of the mountains in the distance. I shifted my eyes from the sunrise to him. “Sounds good.”

“You okay?”

I drew a deep breath of the cool air, and gave a nod. “Just enjoying the scenery.”

“Makes two of us.”

He hadn’t so much as glanced eastward, and what was behind me was nothing more than a parking lot filled with pickup trucks and an occasional car. My scenery was awesome. His scenery sucked.

He grinned. “You ready?”

“Yep.”

“If we eat and hit the road, should be there by late afternoon. It’s less than 600 miles.”

I looked forward to our time on the road, but the thought of meeting my cousin made me nervous.

“Sounds good.”

We rode across the street and parked the bike where we could see it through the windows.

Percy opened the door. “After you.”

I stepped inside and looked around. The diner was a step back in time, for sure. Two elderly women wearing aprons appeared to be the only waitresses. One, coffee pot in hand, turned toward us.

“Any seat you like,” she said. “Want coffee?”

“Two, please,” he responded.

We chose a booth opposite where the bike was parked and sat down. A small chrome box at the end of the booth with a series of buttons on the bottom was mounted at the end of the booth, by the window.

The letters A through K and the numbers 1 through 10 were on the face of the buttons.

I leaned toward the box. “What is this?”

“Juke box,” he said.

“It plays music?”

“It’s old school as fuck. If it still works, that’s what it does.”

I flipped through the pages of songs. After glancing at three pages, one caught my complete attention.