Chapter 8

“I’m fine to drive,” I tell him as we regroup around the car.

“Cool,” he says. “I’m fine to not.” He sets his bag of snacks on the roof and unzips his sweatshirt, then pitches it through the open window into the passenger seat. “I’m really more of a navigator, anyway,” he says once he’s back in the car.

“Navigator? What, ‘Go straight for three more hours’?”

“I didn’t say it was hard, I just said I’d do it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You think you can handle it?”

“What?”

“Trying to go straight for that long?”

I level my best blank look at him. His mischievous smile says we’re not talking about my driving, and that he’s pretty proud of his clever question. I mean, I’m officially “out,” at least to my family and most of the music department. I’m reasonably open, if that means my hips swish whether I want them to or not and I wear more earrings than most guys at school.