Chapter 16

I pull over when we get to it. And we do a lotmore of the whole kissing thing.

It’s after nine o’clock by the time we roll back through Vegas. This time we stay on the highway; we’ve got a solid three and a half hours yet ahead and I’m starting to get a little tired of the car. My legs aren’t so long, but by the time we get back to Inland I’ll be about ready to unfold them.

Which is partly why, after we speed by the fourth billboard advertising some casino’s twenty-four-hour, ninety-nine cent steak-and-eggs breakfast, we agree to stop at the state line again on our way back out. “We don’t have to hang out,” George says. “But I’m hungry, that’s cheap, and I’ve had to take a shit for like the last two hundred miles.”

I laugh. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Well, it’s not very romantic, is it?”

“Not very,” I agree.

“Not very,” he says again. “But now we’re at the point where it’s coming, romance or not.”

“I get it,” I insist, laughing again. “So we’ll stop.”