Love At First Gear Ch 02

A cell phone alarm woke them both. "Ugh..." Mack couldn't move much without crushing Ashleigh in the tiny bunk bed. Somehow they had both slept for hours with the TV on. The bunk heater was still running on full blast and the bunk was humid and almost unbearably hot now.

How did I sleep through all of this

, he wondered as his fingers fumbled for the bunk heater's controls.

Mack groped around until he found his phone and tried with fingers uncoordinated by heavy sleep to silence the alarm. As he picked it up he saw what time it was. "Shit..." he mumbled as he began trying to untangle himself from Ashleigh. Groggily she sat up in the bed. "Do you have to go?" she asked him.

"Yeah, I need a shower first though, I bet you do, too. And some breakfast..." he trailed off as he searched for his shirt. His stomach growled. Hers answered.

"Do they have showers here?" she wondered aloud. She had never spent much time around truck stops and, like most people who don't drive trucks, had no idea how they worked.

"Oh yeah, it's free because I buy so much fuel. You can get one, too." Pulling up the truck stop's app he made quick work of reserving two showers.

If she stays with me for long, I'll have to work double-time to rack up enough shower credits.

Thankfully the truck stop wasn't busy at this time of day. He had noticed that very early in the morning most truck stops became a madhouse as the early bird truckers all vied to get showered and out of the lot first thing in the morning. Later all the night owls got up and did the same. If you managed to hit that little window between you didn't have to wait for things like showers and food. He was an expert at hitting those little windows after all these years. Waiting was not his forte, and being around people was sometimes challenging.

Mack helped Ashleigh to find all of her clothing and soon they were walking across the ice-slicked parking lot to the truck stop once again. He tried to pretend he didn't see her wince as she started walking.

I have to be more gentle next time,

he admonished himself,

if there is a next time.

He held tight onto her arm to keep her from slipping. The temperature had dipped even lower overnight and the trucks that had sat all night sported icicles dangling from their mirrors and grills, and every overhang on each truck glittered with ice. "You probably saved me from frostbite," she mused aloud as they half-walked half-slid to the truck stop door. He grunted in agreement, but thought he might have actually saved her from something worse than just losing a few toes.

Ashleigh didn't know what to expect from a truck stop shower, but she was pleasantly surprised to find that beyond the open doorway labeled "truckers only" the truck stop was pretty swanky and clean. Leather couches were positioned around a giant TV, and a few older men sat watching the morning news. Mack lead her down a hallway lined with doors and she watched as he punched a code into one of them. He swung the door open wide for her presenting her with a view of the sparkling white shower inside. "This one's yours," he said. "Oh wow, this is nice," she exclaimed.

"Yeah, not all of 'em are, but this one is," he said as she stepped inside. "I'll meet you back there by the couches when I get done, and hey," he motioned for her to come closer so he could speak without anyone overhearing, "if you get done before me and anyone asks, just tell them we're married so they leave you alone." Ashleigh nodded. "Have a nice shower, honey," he said loudly as he shut the door, hoping the other drivers wouldn't think it was odd that they didn't share a shower.

She turned and took it all in. It was an entire private bathroom, gleaming white and very clean. She had her own toilet, sink, and shower, plus a hair dryer, the little bar and bottles of hotel soap and shampoo, a couple of towels, and some complimentary mints. It far exceeded her expectations of a truck stop and she was surprised that she knew so little about a place that so many people used every day.

Soon she was stripped down and scrubbing away the grime of the road and the night before. She used all of the complimentary shampoo and conditioner on her long hair and scrubbed until the tiny bar of soap was just a sliver. Satisfied that she was clean enough that Mack wouldn't mind being cooped up in a truck with her all day, she stepped out of the shower and dried off with the complimentary towels. She eyed the hair dryer. It would be nice to dry her hair in this cold weather, but she knew Mack needed to get back on the road. Maybe tomorrow, if they did this tomorrow, she could warn him she would need time to dry her hair. For now, she quickly braided it to keep it from freezing into hair icicles.

She hadn't thought to grab clean clothing, so she put her old clothing back on, brushed her teeth, grabbed a couple of mints, and headed out to wait by the couches as instructed. Mack was already there, standing in a corner and watching the news. He saw her out of the corner of his eye and grinned as she approached. "Ready for breakfast?" She was starving and her stomach growled again in response. "We have just enough time we can eat in the restaurant, probably." He grabbed her hand and lead the way.

They seated themselves in a booth and a waitress arrived almost as soon as they had sat down. The restaurant was surprisingly busy. Ashleigh wondered if all of these people were truckers, but she soon saw the restaurant had its own door and another parking lot full of cars filled the expanse of land in front of the truck stop.

She studied the glossy menu the waitress had handed her. It was standard American breakfast fare: Eggs, ham, sausage, toast, pancakes, waffles, hash browns, biscuits, gravy, bacon, and even Eggs Benedict. She picked a variation of Eggs Benedict the restaurant called Eggs California; Eggs Benedict with avocado instead of the slab of tough Canadian bacon that always took a steak knife to cut through, while Mack ordered an al a carte breakfast of pancakes, six eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, hash browns, biscuits, and gravy. She wondered if his cardiovascular health was as good as his apparent physical health, but she didn't feel comfortable asking him that. They had only known each other for roughly 14 hours and it seemed a little rude to even slightly criticize his food choices, even if six eggs plus ham, bacon, and sausage did seem like overkill to her.

They waited quietly for the food. He scanned the restaurant and the parking lot, and sometimes looked at maps on his phone. Sometimes his gaze fell on her. When it did, he just grinned. He never seemed particularly worried about anything, but he was definitely in a better mood today than yesterday. She grinned as she thought about her role in his good mood.

Before long their food arrived steaming hot and again obliterated her expectations of a truck stop. "I can't believe the food is so good at a truck stop," she muttered between bites of her Eggs California. He grunted. "We pretty much live out here so it better be good, or we won't come back. There are a lot of truck stops to choose from." She nodded as she chewed. What he said made sense to her.

Even though he had three plates to her one, he was done before her and had paid for everything before she was even finished. He ate quickly, but not sloppily like she would have thought someone who ate so fast would do. "I'll be right back," he told her, "I'm going to grab some sandwiches for lunch." She kept nodding and chewing, trying to catch up and eat her whole breakfast before she made him late to work.

Just as she set her fork down and pushed her plate to the middle of the table he walked up with several grocery bags full of food. She looked at him in surprise. "Is all of that... lunch?" He shrugged, "Lunch, snacks, and dinner. I've never been where we're going before and it looks like there's nothing around there."

That hadn't occurred to her before. She quickly dabbed her chin with her napkin and got up to follow him back to the truck. "What do you do when you're somewhere like that?" she asked as they stepped out of the glass door labeled "Truck Drivers' Entrance."

He rearranged the bags and offered her his arm again. He walked across the icy parking lot with ease, despite balancing the groceries on one arm and her on the other. She struggled for every step and watched as the truck drivers around them seemed to be struggling as much as she was.

"That's why I have a fridge and a TV. And toilet paper," he added with a snort. She was mildly horrified. "So you just, rough it?" she didn't love the idea, but she had been hitchhiking the night before, and it was still better than that. "Yep," was his only reply. He thought about saying, "if you don't like it you can always stay here," but he didn't want her to decide to stay behind. The thought made his wolf rise within him again and he just managed to quell it before she could see the dark look on his face.

At the truck he helped her in first, then handed up the bags of groceries. Soon they were inside the warm bunk packing the fridge with sandwiches wrapped in brown paper, cups of cut fruit, and little clear plastic boxes of cake and banana pudding. Another bag held protein bars and chips, and the last held a tin of instant coffee, pickles in vacuum-sealed bags, and a bag of baby wipes. She held it up and gave him a bemused look. "Baby wipes?" she raised an eyebrow as she said it.

"Yeah, no shower tomorrow, so, just in case you need to, you know," he blushed, "freshen up, I guess." He didn't like the idea of her wiping his scent away, and the fact that she no longer smelled like him, save for her dirty clothes which he was sure she was about to change, annoyed him more than he wanted to admit.

I'm not an animal

, he thought, then,

yes, I am.

She slid the wipes into a cupboard beneath the fridge for safe-keeping. "That's sweet that you thought of me," she told him. He shrugged.

Always with the shrug

, she thought. She pulled some clean clothes from her backpack and quickly changed while he got comfortable in the driver's seat. Once she was ready to join him the truck lurched forward and he gingerly made his way out of the frosted aisle of trucks.

She toyed with the satellite radio in the truck as he navigated to the freeway. It was all new to her. The semi was loud, and you could feel everything on the road inside of it. It wasn't as smooth as a car, and every dip and flaw in the road made the truck rattle as its 18 wheels ran over it. She eventually found a radio station neither of them objected to, and soon they were cruising along through the bright, frosty morning. The day passed in relatively loud conversation. She nearly had to shout for him to hear her over the road noise of the ice-roughened interstate. The traffic moved along at a slow but steady clip as people made their way along the frozen roads in their little cars and sometimes even bigger trucks. After a while she pulled her laptop out of her bag and took advantage of his truck's wifi to begin searching for jobs.

"Whatcha up to?" he finally asked her after several minutes of silence. "Job hunting, I guess." He nodded. She bit her lip. "I don't know how I'm going to get a job when I'm basically homeless, though... I hadn't really thought about that. Hmm."

He was quiet for a minute and then piped up with, "you could go to trucking school and be my co-driver." They both laughed. "Well," she started, "I would still like to finish my PhD, but that doesn't start until the spring. But if that doesn't work out, maybe you'll be seeing me on the road." He grinned.

After a while he piped up again. "What if you, well, that might be too forward of me." He had a funny way of speaking to her Midwestern ear. "Mack, I never asked you where you are from." She figured he must be Southern, because no one else seemed to be concerned about being "forward" these days.

He laughed. "Figured me out, didn't ya?" He grinned for a little bit but didn't answer. She kept looking at him, waiting for an answer. The grin slid from his face as he answered her. "I'm from Alabama, but don't tell anybody that."

Her brow furrowed. "Why not?"

He exhaled through his nose and thought for a few seconds before answering, "People think we're all dumb, inbred, and racist. I don't talk to my family anymore, haven't for years, because, well, yup."

Her frown deepened. "Mack, I don't think you are any of those things." He was grinning again, "Maybe not two of them," he retorted. She quirked an eyebrow, silently questioning him. "I am dumb as a stump," he said earnestly. She guffawed and returned to her laptop. "You are not 'dumb as a stump,'" she snorted. She typed a few words then stopped. "What would be too forward, anyway?"

He shifted in his seat as he tried to find the courage to say what he had almost said before. "Oh, don't worry about it," he tried to deflect with a wave of his hand. Now she was really curious. "No, tell me." He shook his head. "It was a silly idea and you probably wouldn't want to do that anyway."

She paused. "Mack, you fucked the shit out of me last night and now you want to be shy?"

He choked. She waited while he collected himself. "Damn, woman..." was all he managed to get out between gasps of air. "Okay, shoot. Well," he started after he had finally stopped coughing, "what if you got one of those work-from-home jobs, like the online counseling stuff people do, and you could just... stay in the truck for now. Like, just until you figure something out, yunno, you don't have to stay forever or anything, unless you want to, ah fuck..." he trailed off again.

Unless you want me to tie you up in the bunk and breed you over and over,

the wolf supplied. The GPS began chiming at him that he had missed the interstate junction.

She mulled over his offer as he made his way to the next exit, got back on the freeway going the opposite direction, and made it to the junction he had missed the first time. "I don't have a license to be a therapist, but maybe I could find a work-from-home job doing something else, if you're serious."

This is crazy,

she thought,

we've only known each other for a few hours! He can't be serious! I can't be serious! Am I serious? Do I have any other options?

He seemed to be deep in thought, so she went back to her laptop until he spoke again. "I mean, we just met, so, maybe you won't want to stick around after a couple days with me. But if you got an online job you could do that anywhere if you did decide to get off the truck."

She nodded. "It's a smart idea, Mack."

The truck was quiet for a long time as she continued her search and he focused on getting them to their destination. She found lots of jobs she qualified for and spent the rest of the morning updating her resume and sending it to every last job she could find. By lunchtime her eyes burned from the strain of staring at the laptop screen in the glaring winter sunlight. She blinked hard a few times and finally closed the laptop screen as Mack pulled into another truck stop, much smaller than the last one. "Fuel" is all he said as he stopped the truck and hopped out.

She stretched in her seat and decided to join him outside. "After I fill this sucker up we can go inside and use the restroom," he informed her, "or you can go now if you want and I'll go after." It was still bitingly cold outside but she wanted to stay outside a little longer. It was nice to stand up after sitting all morning.

As they waited for the truck's expansive fuel tanks to finish filling another truck pulled up on the other side of the pump. A man lumbered out of the cab and made his way towards the trash can in the center of the fuel island. He grinned at Ashleigh as he deposited several water bottles full of piss-colored liquid into the trash can. "Fuckin' animals..." Mack muttered as the pump finally clicked to a stop.

Soon they were back on the road, but Ashleigh didn't feel like touching the laptop after spending so many hours on it already. Her eyes still hurt, so she relaxed in the passenger seat and was startled when she realized the truck was slowing to a stop and she had been asleep.

She looked around and took in an old rest area. There was nothing left but a foundation where the bathrooms had been, but the grass was dotted with snow-covered picnic tables and trash cans.

"Those are some 'renovations'", Mack grumbled as he hit the brake. The truck squeaked and let out a blast of air as he brought it to a stop. "Lunch?" he asked her as if he hadn't even noticed she'd been asleep for hours. He glanced at the clock and corrected himself, "More like early dinner, I guess."

"Sure," she answered, and they retreated to the bunk. Just like the night before they sat on opposite sides of the bed, the meal spread out between them. She picked at her sandwich, and he devoured three before he got up and dug around in his camping equipment, producing a small electric kettle, which he filled with bottled water. He made himself a thermos of instant coffee while she finished eating her lunch.

Finally, Mack broke the silence. "I must have worn you out last night," he said mischievously. She grinned and nodded at his thermos. "I must have worn you out, too." It was his turn to grin. "Not even close."

She mocked surprise. "I'll have to try again later, then."

Laughing, he chided her, "hey, behave yourself now, I still have to drive this truck and focus on not wrecking it."

After a short silence, he said, "I guess we're just going to have to pee in the bushes here," while gesturing out the windshield. "I swear there was a rest area here last month. Maybe it's been longer than I thought, since I was out this way." Other than the cold, it didn't matter that there was no real privacy. All the other drivers seemed to have gotten a memo that Mack missed so they had the rest area to themselves.

They ran from the bushes to the warmth of the truck. Ashleigh climbed into her seat and waited for Mack to start the truck again, but he didn't. "Are we stopping here today?" she asked, but he shook his head. "No, I have to take a thirty minute break every day. That's the law." That made sense, she supposed. "What do you do for thirty minutes?" she was genuinely curious. Although her father owned a lumber mill and dealt with truckers all day, she'd never been able to question one about the intricacies of trucking life. Nor had she wanted to - most of those men reminded her of the grinning fool throwing out his collection of urine samples at the last truck stop. Mack shrugged as he thought about his usual lunch break activities, "Eat, take a leak, and wait."

She waited for a minute before breaking the silence again. "We could do... something else."

His head snapped up to look at her and there was something strange in his eyes. Something almost animalistic. A muscle worked in his jaw. "No..." he finally muttered, "once we get started I won't be able to stop, and then we'll miss our appointment." She gave him an exaggerated frown, but remembering the night before, she wondered if he really wouldn't be able to stop himself. "Okaaay," she agreed.

He immediately changed the subject to something they had heard on the radio earlier in the day, but she could tell for the rest of the day he was different. Not grumpy, exactly, but not as happy as he had been earlier in the day. She regretted flirting with him and resolved to try not to do it during his work hours again.

The atmosphere in the truck was odd for the rest of the journey, almost as if one of them had offended the other. Mack tried to make pleasant conversation, but all he could think about was throwing her in the sleeper and ripping her clothes off with his teeth. He cringed at the mental image of himself as a stereotypical predatory werewolf. Thankfully the journey was short, and by the time two hours had passed they were pulling into a gravel lot full of trailers just like the trailer they were pulling. "I don't think there's actually anyone here," Mack announced. He stopped and read his tablet, said, "huh," and then found a spot to leave his trailer. "I guess they don't care where I put it, so this is good enough." He jumped out of the cab and she listened to all the new sounds as he disconnected the trailer from the truck. She couldn't see what he was doing from here, and even though she was curious, she didn't want to bother him anymore than she apparently already had.