Southbound Surrender (21 page)

I shake my head and focus on the road just in time to see a lighted weigh station sign. I turn my signal on and I maneuver across lines to veer into the station.

“Huh?” Piper mutters as she picks up her head.

“Weigh station.”

“At night? Is that usual?” She eyes me with curiosity.

“No, they’re typically just open during the day,” I say, shifting down until I’m rolling slowly onto the scale. I hit the brakes and let Cash Money idle while the scale does its work.

“You think…” She sits up in her seat and leans forward over the arm rests until her head is almost across my lap, peering into the building.

“Do I think what?” I ask, rolling down my window in preparation for the attendant.

“You know…” She whispers and points to her eyes. “It could be another sign, and I want to see it first-hand. This could be a testament to your theory about the universe. This could be another person.”

I shrug my shoulders and steal a kiss before turning to the open window. A middle-aged man wearing a t-shirt and jeans with disheveled hair and groggy eyes appears. He runs an olive hand through his black hair as if it is a habit and not out of vanity. He brings a steaming mug to his lips in slow-motion, takes a drink, and sets it down before finally acknowledging us. His eyes flash up as he begins to talk.

“Good evening, sir,” he drawls with a thick Southern accent that sticks in the muggy air. At least it feels muggy to me, considering I’m used to thirty degree weather in a Wisconsin April.

“Good evening,” I reply as I stare and try not to stare at the same time. It’s dark, and the dim light of the building isn’t doing me any favors. But if I were to take a guess, I think his eyes are brown.

He startles for a second and then looks past me at Piper. “And ma’am.”

“Good evening,” she says softly. She’s still looking in vain, trying to make out his eyes.

“Load is 55,555 pounds,” he reports as if it’s new information to me. I don’t bother to tell him that I’ve known this for two days. He should have noticed the Wisconsin plates, but he doesn’t.

“Right on,” I say, lingering a little longer than usual. But he doesn’t say anything and instead, he lifts the mug back to his lips like a robot. Mug up, drink, set down. He’s probably done this sixty times tonight and might possibly be on his seventh mug.

“Have a good evening, folks. Stay out of trouble,” he finally offers as he leans forward. I catch a glimpse of his dark eyes that I accurately predicted. He studies Piper, looking her up and down. “Especially with that one riding with you.”

“Ugh, gross,” Piper groans under her breath and then sits back.

“Thanks,” I mutter and clench my fists. Now that I’ve got a punch under my belt, my fists are livelier than they’ve ever felt, and I think for a second that this guy could benefit from a quick jab to knock down his creep factor. I take a deep breath instead and blow it out as I roll up the window.

“No clear blue eyes, just a dirty little man,” Piper says.

“No blue eyes,” I confirm as I shift Cash Money into first gear. “Does it ever get old?”

“Does what ever get old?”

“Being beautiful.”

She sighs. “This is the audible version of me rolling my eyes.”

“I bet you’re smiling though.”

“I am,” she admits.

“You know, I’m sure you get it all the time. Studs hitting on you at bars or jackasses like him staring a little too long. It’s got to get tiring to always fend it off.”

“Unless those studs are already with someone else,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Kelly Black, my roommate, looked vaguely familiar to you because you saw him last June at Nitty Gritty in Madison. You broke up a fight outside the bar. Kelly was one of the guys. I was there with Kelly and his girlfriend when I saw you with another girl. Some blonde. You must have been there for a birthday party or something.”

I’m silent as I replay the night back in my mind. The ‘some blonde’ was the nursing student, Maggie, who stayed around for six months too long. I remember Kelly outside, under the awning of the bar with three other guys. “Kelly was about to get his ass kicked by three guys. Hudson and I saved his ass.”

“Kelly wouldn’t have gotten his ass kicked,” she says. “But I’m glad you stepped in.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“What was I going to say? You were with another girl.”

“I dated Maggie for six months too long. I can’t believe you were there and didn’t say anything.” I look over to see her returning my glance through the glowing light of the dash.

“It was too hard. I was devastated to see you with another girl.”

“If only you would have left a number for me to call five years ago.” I shake my head and glance over again.

She shrugs her shoulders. “I guess everything happens for a reason.”

***

It’s a little after midnight as we pull into a truck stop just before Gainesville. I stopped for a quick fill-up at a gas station just a few miles back to make sure we were ready to go in the morning. Piper’s sleeping in the passenger seat despite my best efforts to get her to climb into the back. She insisted on maintaining her status as the Chief Mate of Cash Money, second in command to only the Captain. I argued that those terms apply to ships, but she just shrugged her shoulders indifferently.

She doesn’t budge when I turn off the engine and get the truck settled in for the night so I have to shake her shoulder. I’d be manly and carry her to bed, but the cramped space of Cash Money doesn’t exactly enable such a valiant offer. She barely opens her eyes as I guide her to the back, stumbling over bags before she falls onto the bed. I cover her up and climb in next to her, kicking off my shoes. She snuggles toward me, whispering something I can’t quite make out. Then she buries her head into my chest.

“What was that?” I whisper as I stroke her hair.

“I love you.”

***

I don’t wake up to the toned melody of my alarm like I expect to but instead, to a gentle tugging on the button of my pants. My eyelids slowly peel back to see Piper’s wakeful eyes staring back at me a few inches from my own. The cab is dim with the edge of dawn streaming through the windows. I pick up my phone to check the time: 5:07 a.m. Twenty-three minutes before our departure time. I’m thrilled and disappointed at the same time. The thought of less than thirty minutes with her is agonizing.

She opens my button, unzips my pants, and murmurs, “Good morning.”

Now, if that’s not one helluva way to wake up in the morning, then I don’t know what is.

I rest my head back down on the pillow and study her face in the early sunlight. A streak falls down on her lips, illuminating the curve and pout of her lips, and I think, literally, her lips are sun-kissed in this exact moment. They’re so tempting. I run my finger across the temptation and down her soft neck to the cotton of her t-shirt until my finger is tracing along her breast. I feel her hard nipple through the thin layer and then cup her whole breast lightly.

“Good morning,” I reply.

She shimmies down her shorts to reveal the glorious fact that I somehow have forgotten, that she isn’t wearing any underwear. “How much time do we have?”

“Twenty-three minutes. Probably, twenty-two, now.”

“Just enough time,” she says as she tugs at my pants. I wiggle awkwardly in the tight space until she pulls my jeans and boxers down to my knees. She hovers and begins to swing her leg over me before I stop her. I grab her butt playfully and guide her back down.

“Let me,” I say as I kick off my jeans the rest of the way and maneuver myself on top of her. She holds me for a second before she widens her legs and guides me in. As she rolls her hips into me, I rethink this whole twenty-minute thing. I don’t know if I’ll last that long because Piper feels too good.

Somehow, miraculously, I do.

***

“Next stop, Miami,” Piper calls as she points to the highway sign. The automated voice of my phone navigation confirms.

“It’s going to be close,” I say, looking down at the clock. Traffic outside of Miami is heavier than I expected it to be. The backup was caused by a rolled over truck, and now we’ve got about fifteen minutes to get this load to the dock. It’s closer than both Viv and I would like it to be.

“Man, if we could have those twenty minutes back…” Piper muses.

“Not even a consideration. Ten times out of ten I would choose the same wake-up call,” I say with a grin. “Is every morning going to be like that with you? If so, count me in to being a Piper Sullivan slave.”

She hits my arm and points to the exit. “Does that include doing whatever I demand? If so, I’ve got just the thing: medical school.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me that you’re not having the ride of your life. Every day could be filled with me, diesel fumes, disease-ridden bathrooms, and bullets being fired at your head,” I tease although the reality is that this is the best ride I’ve ever been on and could only dream of a life on the road just the two of us.

“I could handle the first part. The rest I could do without.”

“I can work with that,” I say as I veer onto the off-ramp and obey my navigation app by taking a left. We’re headed into an industrial district near North Miami Beach and have about three miles of city driving to go. As short as the three miles seems in the grand scheme of the sixteen-hundred mile trek down here, I know it’s going feel like the longest. The minutes are ticking by faster than I want as Viv’s voice echoes in my head.

She called this morning. Our conversation went something like this:

Viv: You there yet? Tell me you’re closer than a virgin screwing the prom queen.

Me: Viv, you’ve got to clean up that mouth of yours.

Viv: You’re dodging my question, Cash Money.

Me: Almost.

Viv: How close? Like -

Me: Less than two hours away.

Silence.

Me: I’ll get it there, Viv. Trust me.

Viv: That’s what my first husband told me, and you know how that ended.

Me: What did the other two tell you?

Viv: Just get it there. Got it?

Me: Got it.

I’m about to hang up but then she adds.

Viv: I trust you, kid.

Click.

So I’m wiping the sweat dripping down my brow by the time I calculate that we’re about five blocks away with only seven minutes before noon. I feel like I have a gun pressed to my temple, Viv-style, and subsequently, my stomach is curled into a knotted mess that only an on-time delivery will cure.

“We’ll get there,” Piper reassures me as we idle at a red light. She rolls down her window and presses her elbow against the opening. I don’t bother to tell Piper not to open the windows in a neighborhood like this. Most of the storefronts are boarded up or covered with grilles. Remember when I mentioned that I got to see all the shitholes in America? We’re in one now, and all I can think about is how much deeper we have to go into this hole to deliver the load in the back. We’re headed in the heart of darkness.

I laser-eye the red light, waiting for the tick of green when a scantily clad woman – the kind that wears a skirt so short you can see her butt cheeks – steps into the crosswalk. She stumbles awkwardly in her high heels carrying an oversized bag before she splays out in the middle of the street. Her bag flies open, dumping its contents on the road. I can’t see them all, but I swear roll of toilet paper and a variety of produce tumbles out.

“Damn it!” I slam the steering wheel with my bad hand and immediately feel pain shoot through my arm. The traffic light switches. “The light’s green.”

“I’ll help her.” Piper opens the door and is climbing out before I can stop her.

“Piper, don’t!” I yell, glancing into my rearview mirror. I see a flash of movement at the end of my truck that sends a jolt of adrenaline through my body. “PIPER!”

But she doesn’t stop and is on the street now, running toward the items rolling on the asphalt. She’s gathering them in her arms.

Shit.

I freeze with indecision. It’s of those situations that you hear about in the truckers’ lounge, but usually it’s prefaced with, remember when…it used to be so different back then…. that dumbass. It’s one of those situations that you think can never happen to you because you’re either too smart or too naïve or too lucky. You’re everything else, but one of the guys who gets his load stolen. Or even worse, gets his whole truck stolen. Yeah, it happens, and I’m weighing the possible outcomes of my current debacle as I look in the side mirror again and catch another glimpse of black hair. There are at least two of them.

Here’s the ruse:

Step 1. Thieves or thugs, whatever you want to call them, put a distraction at the front of the truck. Usually it’s a barely dressed woman with either a giant rack or a butt hanging out the bottom of a skirt or both. It’s the second scenario for me.

Step 2. The distraction from step one makes a scene to stop the truck. Maybe it’s a kid who lets go of his “mom’s” hand to run out in the middle of the road or maybe the lady pushes a stroller real slow in front of the truck or maybe she trips and dumps an assortment of crap across the road. It’s the last scenario for me.

Step 3. During said distraction, thugs from step one hijack the back of the trailer and cut the trailer locks open with a bolt cutter or even a blow torch if they’re crazy enough.

Step 4. Thugs from step one enlist cousin thugs, brother thugs, or neighbor thugs pull a truck up next to the trailer.

Step 5. The thugs transport goods, or if they have enough balls, steal the whole thing, cab, trailer, and load.

But here’s the catch about my debacle. Piper’s in the middle of the road helping “the distraction” pick up the contents of her bag. I’m pretty sure that the only thing the thugs care about is the load in the back and not the twenty-something blonde girl in the front of the truck. If I get out of the truck, it’s fair game for the thugs to steal. Not only will the three-hundred grand load be gone, the two-hundred grand truck will be gone right along with the promised business Viv is hoping for. I notice the stunned look on the distraction’s face when Piper starts frantically dumping the items in her bag. The distraction tries to push Piper away, but she insists anyway, igniting the wick of the probable catfight. I shoot my eyes back to the side mirror. There’s the truck from step four. There’s a whole load of thugs in the back of the pick-up truck jumping out.