They Left Me Behind on the Road Trip, So I Got on a Better Ride novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Four Seats
On day three the Jeep dies, Brody hands Frankie a six-hour bus ticket, and at the empty stop in Torrey she sees the other four at a pool party, ends it by text, and sits down beside an old woman in a red hat just as a black car pulls up and a man in a suit says, "Grandma."
Our last road trip before college graduation died on day three, on the shoulder of I-70 outside Green River, Utah.
Brody's Jeep coughed twice and stopped, and steam rolled out from under the hood.
There were five of us. Me, my boyfriend Brody, my best friend Shay, and the Lyle brothers from my street back home.
Now there was one car left.
Jace's SUV had five seats, but the back row was full of coolers, tents and Brody's golf clubs.
Four seats.
Brody didn't even look at the others.
He walked over to me with his phone out and turned it so I could see the screen.
A bus ticket. Green River to Torrey, two transfers, six hours.
"You don't get carsick, babe," he said. "Sorry to dump this on you. We'll head on to Torrey and wait for you there."
He'd bought it before he asked.
Shay pushed off the guardrail. She was still pale from yesterday.
"I can take the bus instead. Seriously, Frankie, give me the ticket."
The boys cut her off at the same time.
"You were throwing up all day yesterday," Brody said.
"Don't be dramatic," Jace said. "Sit down before you pass out."
Jace's little brother laughed, because Jace had.
Then Jace hauled my suitcase out of the back and rolled it to the curb of the gas station lot.
"She's tough," he said. "She never complains about anything."
Everybody looked at me.
I had known Jace since we were six. He'd taught me to ride a bike on that street.
I had been with Brody for two years.
"Okay," I said.
Like always.
Shay mouthed sorry at me through the back window as they pulled away.
Brody was already looking at his phone.
Before I got on the bus, I held my left thumb up against the sky and took one picture of it.
My dad taught me that when I was nine.
One frame of your own thumb before every new place, so you always know where a story starts.
He shot weddings for twenty years. He died when I was sixteen.
I still had his camera.
The bus smelled like old fries. The second bus had no air conditioning.
I texted the group chat at every transfer.
"In Price."
"In Richfield. Almost there."
Nobody answered.
At six in the evening the last bus let me off in Torrey.
It stopped in front of a gas station with a hand-lettered sign on the door.
"Closed for family emergency. Back tomorrow."
The lot was empty.
No SUV. No Brody.
I called him four times. It rang out every time.
Then I opened Jace's story.
A swimming pool, bright blue, a city spread out behind it in the evening light.
A grill with smoke rising off it. A table full of ribs and corn.
The four of them were squeezed in around it, grinning, holding up red cups.
Shay was at the edge of the frame, not smiling.
The caption said, "St. George baby!! Pool day at Shay's aunt's."
St. George was four hours the other way.
I scrolled to the next slide.
Brody, shirtless, cannonballing into the pool.
The one after that was a video. Jace's voice, laughing, off camera.
"Somebody text Frankie and tell her the bus got a flat tire."
"Nah," Brody said. "She'll figure it out. She always does."
They all laughed.
I stood in the empty lot with my suitcase and watched it twice.
My thumb was on the screen, ready to type okay.
I looked at it for a long time.
Then I typed something else.
"No. We're done. Don't call me."
I sent it to Brody.
Then I left the group chat.
The app asked if I was sure.
I was sure.
There was a bench by the gas station door, the only shade in Torrey.
An old woman was already sitting on it.
She was small and wiry, in a denim jacket covered with old park patches, and a red felt hat with a wide brim.
An old camera hung around her neck on a cracked leather strap.
She had a whole pie on her knees in a cardboard box, and a plastic fork.
She'd been watching me the entire time.
"That was a good text," she said.
"You read it?"
"I read your face. Same thing." She patted the bench. "Sit. It's peach. A diner in Richfield sells them, and I bought the last one out of spite."
"Spite against who?"
"A man in Denver who thinks I should be playing bingo."
I sat down.
She handed me the fork and kept her fingers.
"They left you," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"They went to a pool party," I said. "I'm supposed to be tough."
She snorted. "Tough is a word people use when they want you to carry their bags."
The pie was warm from sitting in the sun. It was the best thing I'd eaten in three days.
My phone buzzed in my lap.
Brody.
"Are you serious right now? Over a bus? Don't be like this, Frankie."
I turned the phone face down on the bench.
The old woman nodded once.
Out on the highway, a car slowed.
It was a black Audi sedan, so clean it had never seen a road.
It pulled into the lot at exactly the speed limit and stopped in front of the bench.
The driver's door opened.
A tall man got out in a dark suit and a tie, in the middle of the Utah desert, in May.
He took off his sunglasses.
He didn't look at me at all.
"Grandma," he said.
The old woman took the fork back out of my hand and pointed it at him.
"I'm going to Bryce Canyon, Sawyer," she said. "And she's my photographer."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend