Author's note:
This chapter of 3WotR contains no sexual activity. If that is your motivation for reading, please check back next week.
We've reached the end of the 3 weeks on the road. If you wish to stop reading at the end, this is technically the completion of the story. However, there is an epilogue next week, a chapter that provides a glimpse of life after the trip.
As always, thank you for reading, for your comments, votes, and feedback. I hope you enjoyed reading 3 Weeks On The Road.
###
It was an early morning the next day. No sexual activity upon waking up meant we got ready a hell of a lot earlier than usual, and Jessie barely touched her food, pushing it around on her plate before opting for toast and water due to her upset stomach.
Then I paid the hotel bill, we packed up the Suburban, and it was back on the road. We had ten hours of driving ahead of us, and this close to our destination, I was practically itching to get in the driver's seat.
Iowa was only slightly more picturesque than Nebraska. The terrain seemed hillier, more rolls and dips in the road than the flatlands we'd crossed yesterday, and the adorable farmhouses seemed a hair closer together, but other than those two differences, it was corn and long grass baking in the heat, and a succession of sweaty stops at gas stations populated by haggard looking truckers and perspiring families. We looked no different.
Iowa seemed to be a place that people crossed instead of visited.
The girls spent most of the day on their phones, conversing with Harper back in Denver. He'd called us every day since the riot, and every time he saw my wounded face on video chat, he offered to pay for airplane tickets and a driver to get the SUV back. He and Danny and their wives had been hungover and recuperating that day, had woken up to the sound of car bombs, and had wisely stayed indoors.
For the first time in my life I regretted by responsible sobriety.
I wondered where Tori was. If she'd gotten caught in the action or witnessed it safely from a window. I hadn't heard of anyone getting arrested for shooting two dozen violent assholes - something the mayor seemed like he would trumpet in his press conferences - so it was safe to assume she'd been well away from the thick of it.
I couldn't really know though, and wouldn't ever know. The meal I'd shared with her was the last time I'd see her, given that this was a country of the hundred and fifty million people and I lived like ten states away. I could find her. If I wanted.
IF I wanted.
I reached over and took Jessie's hand, squeezed it. She looked up from her phone and gave me a melancholy smile.
Wisconsin seemed more close than Iowa. Iowan fields rolled, the land has more rises and dips than Nebraska, but it was still flat farmland. Back in Wisconsin, there seemed to be more windbreaks, more dense copses of forest standing sentry along the roads and between fields. The long, stretching views of cornfields were broken up by greenery, and towns seemed to pop up a little more frequently along the highways.
We drove through a rain squall heading back into Milwaukee, the sky turning the color of iron and drizzling heavy drops down onto the windshield, spray kicking up behind the tires of the vehicles we passed. An appropriate end for the trip. The weather inspired reflection, and induced in me more than a little regret at seeing the end of a tumultuous trip.
It had been fun.
And it had hurt.
Milwaukee was wet but out from under the oppressive cloud cover that had been dropping rain, blue skies above and sunshine sparkling through the dripping trees, heating the darkened placement up to the point that in a few places it started to steam.
What a beautiful city.
MY beautiful city.
A sense of anticipation grew as I turned down familiar streets, the houses more and more recognizable, more and more rundown. A turn, a turn, another turn, and there was the dead end sign. I turned left into the driveway, and clicked the garage door opener. The wide expense of white metal rose slowly, and I put the vehicle in park behind Jessie's ancient Monte Carlo.
"Home sweet home."
"We should learn to play that one!" McKenna said excitedly.
Jessie snorted and got out. "I'm not even thinking about performing again until we finish up the project and get paid."
We grabbed what we had in the cab of the SUV and I unlocked the door into the house. Cool and climate controlled. Ashley had kept it clean, no raucous parties. Dusty, still, and achingly familiar.
