Chapter Twenty
Drew wanted to pay no heed to the hand on his shoulder and the voice calling to him. It was too early, he knew that much.
“Still sleeping,” he mumbled.
“I can see that,” a soft voice joked in his ear, “since you’re using my arm as a pillow. But we’ve got a long journey ahead of us. Time to get on the road, Drew.”
As much as he wanted to, it was hard to ignore that voice. Blinking his eyes open, he turned over, meeting Sam’s alert eyes. “How are you so awake this early?”
“Years of practice,” Sam replied dryly. “Come on, up and at ‘em.”
“Ten more minutes?” he asked, stretching and yawning.
Sam’s fingers tickled under his arm and he jumped, shoving him away. “What am I, five?”
“I don’t know, sleepyhead, are you? Come on, you can snooze in the car.”
Grumbling, he got up and trudged across to the bathroom. By the time he had washed his hands and splashed water across his face, he'd woken up a bit. Sam had both beds made and was sitting by the door, the backpack next to him.
When he caught sight of Drew, he smiled. “Come on, we’ll stop for coffee at the first place we find. It’ll help.”
“Another hour of sleep would help,” Drew pointed out. “But I guess we have places to be.”
“And promises to keep,” Sam added.
“Mangling poetry this time,” Drew joked as they left. Sam returned the key while Drew stowed the backpack, and himself, in the car. The ground was still wet from the overnight rain but the early morning sun was bright and he suspected it would warm up quickly. They’d be riding with the windows down.
Sam got into the driver's seat and they left.
“About last night…” Sam started to say.
“Thank you,” he interrupted, before Sam could say anything else. “I don’t think I’d have gotten back to sleep.”
“Yeah, but…”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he added softly. “It could just be two people getting some comfort from one another, enjoying one another.” He didn’t want Sam to feel bad. “You didn’t need to do that. I asked you, pushed you.”
“I wanted to. I’ve been itching to kiss you again since that first time.” Sam finally got a word in edge ways and it was Drew’s turn to fall silent.
“So it’s not just me,” he said, when he recovered his voice.
“No, not just you.”
“And at least it’s not complicated,” he added, the sarcasm so thick it was cutting.
It surprised a laugh from Sam.
“Oh, hey. Coffee,” he said a moment later, and they turned off the road.
They ate breakfast in the car, pulled into a lay-by. It was an odd medley of coffee, sausage rolls, and donuts.
“Don’t you cops live on this stuff?” Drew joked between mouthfuls when Sam was grumbling about convenience food.
“Not on the ETF we don’t. Have you ever seen me eat anything that’s not oatmeal or eggs for breakfast?”
“Bacon, that one time,” Drew said.
“That was lunch,” he corrected easily. “I’d been up since five.”
“Yep, you’re the ultimate early riser. How you’re not mainlining coffee twenty-four seven, I don’t know.”
“Speaking of coffee,” Sam said, taking a sip of his and grimacing. “What do you do to yours to make it so special?”
Drew grinned. “That would be giving away trade secrets. They’d never let me work as a barista again. Oh, freedom.”
“You’re not one of those hipster coffee people drawing love heart designs in the foam, are you?”
He choked on his next mouthful and Sam reached over, patting him on the back.
“I’m no hipster. I also don’t have a single artistic bone in my body. I did try, but even the simple stuff, like smiley faces, wound up looking like scary clown faces. Customers complained.”
“I thought they used stencils for that stuff, not free hand.”
“Oh, I did,” he replied, punching Sam lightly in the arm when the other man laughed. Their lighthearted conversation was a nice contrast to their recent sharing of stories.
All too soon they were back on the road, Drew checking the map and tuning in a local radio station for news and weather forecasts.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” he asked around midday.
“No, I’m good. It would be a real shame if we were pulled over this close to our destination.”
“Hey! I’m not that bad a driver,” he jokingly protested, while glancing quickly behind them in case Sam’s worry about a traffic stop was more of a prediction.
“The road’s mostly clear,” Sam reassured him. “I haven’t seen anyone acting suspicious or tailing us.”
“That’s good.” He peered out the window, watching a field of cattle. Half the herd seemed to be lying on the grass. More rain on the way, he guessed. “I hope Diego’s there.”
“Do you have another way to contact him if he’s not?”
“I could try that email again. But he probably wiped it after what I sent through. Even more likely with Russell knowing I’d sent it and probably sending someone sniffing around to find out who it belonged to.”
“But you don’t think he’d have found him?”
“Diego’s too careful.” That was something he was sure of.
“And you’re sure we won’t be walking in on a property mined and booby-trapped, with Diego armed to the hilt?”
The first time Sam had asked, Drew had laughed for a full five minutes. Even now Sam’s words brought a grin to his face.
“Like I told you, we’re a hundred times more likely to find him locked in an impenetrable bunker. Diego’s only a warrior when you put him behind a keyboard.”
“Have many times have you two met?”
“Just twice. At conventions, lots of people around. We mostly kept in touch online.”
He knew it seemed strange to Sam, who was used to forming bonds by being in close-contact, stressful situations, and not through the anonymity of the internet.
“I trust him,” he added.
“I know,” Sam replied. “You’d never have sent him the information if you didn’t think he knew what he was doing.”