The snow started coming down hard again when they stopped for dinner in the town of Ravenna, Ohio. Drake rushed and rushed and rushed and rushed Lulu to finish eating and get back to the car before they were snowed in in the dark fast food parking lot.
“If you wanted to rush, we should’ve done drive-through,” she protested innocently, taking her time finishing her fries.
“Wishing we had. Come on!” Through the window he could see snow building up around the tires of the rental.
Lulu pouted getting out of the booth. “Can’t it wait? I’ve been in the car all day.” She stretched and rolled her neck to emphasise her point.
Both of them were feeling tense and achy. Every hour added to their time in the rental only made them feel more like they were becoming petrified where they sat. But the sun had gone down well over an hour ago, and the snow was falling fast.
Drake had been backing away toward the door, and said with a taunting grin, “I’m getting sick of your music. So, if you wanna stay back now, that’s fine by me.”
Lulu threw her napkin onto the table and pushed out of the booth. “Fucking hell. Fine!” She rushed out after him and took his arm to walk down the short but slick steps of the walkway.
He pulled her close, keeping her arm tucked under his. So close that he could feel the warmth of her exhale as the air drifted up toward his cheek. He leaned in the slightest bit so that it would last just a little longer before fading into the freezing air.
When they arrived at the car, Lulu let go of his arm and rushed for the passenger side door. “Hurry up,” she chided, tugging at the handle. “I thought you were in a rush!”
Drake only laughed and sauntered over to the driver's side. “My bad, I thought you were driving for this leg.” He pressed the key fob to unlock the doors, and Lulu jumped in so fast, it had looked like she skipped the act of opening the door, and instead phased through it. Drake popped his open, taking his time, then leaned down and said, “So you’re not driving, then?”
Shivering, Lulu asked, “You really want me to?”
Drake shook his head and seated himself. “No. Not in the slightest. ‘Specially not now.”
He started the car’s engine, and when the headlights came on, all they saw was white. The headlights reflected off of the falling snow and back into the cabin in a near-blinding fashion.
“Good call,” Lulu said. “I’d get us killed in this.”
“Yeah,” Drake breathed, considering his options. “I might still.”
“What do you wanna do? Still gonna give it a shot?” As she asked the question, she plugged her phone back in and queued up her music.
Drake read the time off the dashboard. It was almost seven, but he wasn't feeling tired yet. This was definitely helped by the tall black coffee he’d downed with dinner, and he felt they could at least try to get another hundred or two miles before calling it quits for the night and checking into another seedy motel.
He shifted the gears into drive and pulled out of his parking spot. “You’re not gonna fall asleep on me, are you? I need something other than your music to keep me awake.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said as she started cozzying up in the corner of the seat with his sweater serving as her pillow.
Drake rolled his eyes and then the car onto the road. He leaned forward so that he could see the road ahead, with his chest practically pressing against the wheel. The wipers were wiping at full speed to keep the snow out of his view.
“Sure you got this?” Lulu asked.
“Positive. It’s just a little snow.”
A car came up slowly on their left. Lulu poked her head up and saw the passenger of the passing car was also questioning their driver, with the driver shooing away her concerns with a wave of the hand.
“When was the last time you were up here?” Lulu asked, this time with a little more unease in her tone.
“Uuuhhh…Fuck. ‘23, maybe? I don’t know, it was for some convention.”
Drake kept pace with the car on his side. With their combined headlights beaming on the snow ahead, it was like driving in the middle of the day through a cloud of fog. If there was another car ahead of them, even if it was only twenty feet, they had no way of knowing.
Lulu checked the speedometer. Fifty-five miles per hour.
She followed up her question with, “When was the convention? Winter?”
“No,” he strained to say, trying to stay focused on the road. The back tires skidded, and they swung an inch left, then right, but Drake was able to keep the car steady. “It was a summer thing.”
“Okay…” Lulu hung on tight to the “Jesus strap” above her window. “So when was the last time you were up here in winter?” she corrected.
The car skidded again, but Drake still managed to keep it straight. “Probably nineteen?”
Lulu tightened her grip.
The car on their left pulled forward, then maintained a steady speed next to them. Lulu checked the speedometer again.
Fifty-eight miles per hour.
“Wanna slow down a bit?”
Drake shook his head in quick little juts. “I’m good. Getting slowed down enough as is.”
The car beside them dragged slowly, giving Drake’s rental a few inches’ lead. Traffic message boards warned to “SLOW DOWN”, but even those were mostly unreadable behind the layers upon layers of snow, and the lights that made it through to the windshield refracted through the half-melted flakes on the glass. Before they could attempt to read the sign, it was long behind them.
“Why don’t we just pull over? Let’s find a hotel and just call it a night.”
“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Drake insisted and pressed the gas pedal a little harder. “The key is maintaining a steady speed. As long as I just keep it steady, we’ll be okay.”
Once more, the car beside them matched their speed.
Drake added, “Not like this guy who wants to race apparently.”
Lulu leaned forward to look through his window. The woman in the passenger seat was properly freaking out.
“Drake-”
“Lulu, we’re fine.”
The other car pulled forward.
“Drake!”
“Would you cut it out?”
The rental jerked hard to the right with a metallic booming sound that overpowered Lulu’s music, and was followed up by the screeching of tires. Drake and Lulu were thrown hard to the left as the car spun out. Lulu held onto the Jesus strap for dear life, and Drake summoned all the former knowledge of how to drive in upstate New York. They could have pulled out of it, except for the fact that the other car was neck and neck with them, spinning out beside them so close that they could see the wide eyes and mouths open in terror of their partners in death.
Passing cars in the opposite directions honked their horns. People screamed. Music blared and tires screeched. Drake stomped repeatedly on the brake pedal in rapid bursts and they unlatched from the other car. The two of them broke off into opposite lanes, but it wasn’t enough to straighten their paths.
Drake spun the wheel hard to the left, then quickly back to the right, trying to straighten them out. It was a nearly impossible task with Lulu screaming in his ear that she was going to throw up. It was worse when she rolled the window down, and looked like she was about to fall out when he spun the wheel to the left again.
Then the car ahead of them took a sharp right turn. It cut in front of them, headed straight for the shoulder. Drake said fuck it to the rapid pressed on the brake, and threw his foot down hard, pressing it against the floor.
The rental slid across the slick pavement. He turned left one more time and clipped the right headlight on the rear of the other car, then skidded past it, into a snowbank on the left shoulder.
The two of them were thrust forward and caught by their seatbelts. The airbags never deployed. They didn’t have to. By the time they almost intersected with the other car, their speed had reduced to only ten or fifteen miles per hour. It was solely the weight of the car on the icy road that kept them going, and the snow bank was fresh enough to soften the blow without destroying the car.
Still, both Drake and Lulu had gone pale with terror. Had their lives flashed before their eyes? Maybe, but they didn’t have enough time to process that if it had happened. All of it happened so fast, and then there they were: in a snow bank with Taylor Swift singing about “The Lucky One.”
Lulu laughed first.
Drake saw the smile grow, then joined in when he realized that, no, they weren’t dead.
“Holy shit,” Lulu said.
“Yeah…Holy shit,” Drake agreed.
“Hotel?” Lulu asked.
Drake ran a hand through his hair, pulling back the skin on his forehead. “How about a drink first? We got enough?”
Lulu threw her head back, unable to contain her joy at being alive. “Fuck it. Even if we don't, we deserve it.”
* * *
It took them an hour to get the car back on the road and crawl to the next exit. There was a bar not far out of their way, and they could see a sign for a motel just down the road. The neon “Vacancy” sign was still on, beaming in their direction like a searchlight.
In the lights coming from the bar, Drake could take in the damage done to the rental. There were dents and scratches all along the driver’s side, and the right headlight was completely busted. It was bad, but not something that his insurance couldn’t cover, or that would ruin his good mood from surviving the incident. Was Lulu’s happy-go-lucky attitude starting to rub off on him?
Drake helped Lulu out of the passenger seat and said, “Why don’t we check in first? Just to be safe.”
She almost slipped when both feet were on the ground, but Drake was there to catch her. “Whoops!” she laughed. “We’ll be fine.”
They stood, staring at each other with challenging gazes to see who would call out her irony first. It was called a draw with an awkward laugh from both of them, and an unspoken acceptance that they’d take their chances in the bar first.
Lulu led them, and Drake jumped ahead as they approached to get the door for her. As he pulled, the wind blew hard against the door. He had to use both hands to get it open.
“Come on, strong guy,” she teased. “You wanna get me drunk, or what?”
The gust of wind calmed, and he got the door open. “You are something else,” was all he could think to say.
“Oh, lighten up. You’re allowed to cut loose a little after all that.” She led the way again, bringing them to the bar of the Irish pub.
There was a medium-sized crowd for that time of the evening. And it was the types of patrons they expected to see in a roadside Irish pub in Ohio; not the youngest crowd, but at least not the types who demanded strictly Irish gigs to be playing over the speaker. The music playing was from a classic rock station. Not exactly Drake’s preferred era, but better than what Lulu had been subjecting him to. Looking Glass and King Harvest would suffice for the night.
Drake pulled out a stool for her. “I am cutting loose. But I don’t need to get drunk to cut loose.”
She dropped an arm on the bar, and her cheek fell into her fist. “Even with a hot date like me?”
Drake rapped his knuckles and grinned. “You think you’re being charming, but the car is just one more thing I wouldn’t have to deal with if I never met you.”
“Or you’d be stuck in a ditch on I-80 with no one to help you out,” she retorted.
“I’d be able to call Triple-A.”
The bartender approached them and held out two menus. Before he spoke, Drake said, “We’re good on menus. Just here for a drink. Can I get a Guinness?”
“High Noon?” Lulu asked, and Drake stepped in. “Seriously? At a pub?”
“What’s wrong with a High Noon?”
“No. You just don’t-” He groaned, then changed his order. “Two Guinnesses.”
The bartender was already picking up two tall glasses with the Guinness logo printed on them when he asked Lulu to see her I.D. Satisfied that she wasn’t a minor, he turned around to fill their glasses.
“I’m picking the next round,” Lulu said to Drake.
“We’re not doing a ‘next round’. We’re going to the hotel.”
“Well, I don’t like Guinness. And it’s my money.”
“It was my ass. Besides, High Noons are fine for getting hammered at bachelorette parties or celebrating…whatever girls like you celebrate. We’re not drinking to get drunk. This is a ‘Thank the fucking lord we’re not dead’ kinda drink.” The bartender slid them their drinks, and Drake raised his up.
“We cheers,” he said, waiting for Lulu to bring hers up and clink the glass.
“We tap,” he tapped – or, more like banged – his glass down on the bar, and Lulu followed suit.
“Then, we split the G.” Drake brought the rim to his lips and downed the Guinness, watching closely how much was left in the glass, then dropped it back down onto the counter.
“What’s splitting the G?” Lulu asked.
Drake shrugged. “I fucked it up, but you’re supposed to drink just enough that the beer levels out with the ‘G’ on the glass.” He’d overdone it, with the line of foam a centimeter under the label. “Go on, try it.”
Lulu gave it her best shot and tried not to gag, forcing herself to swallow it. When she couldn’t bear another sip, she slammed the glass down on the table. “Oh my God, that’s the worst. It’s like I’m drinking just straight soggy bread.”
This comment did not go unheard by some of the other patrons or the bartender. But, “It looks like I did it.” Her splitting was dead on, perfectly in the center of the G. So, those who saw, including the bartender, didn’t mind her insult.
“Not too bad,” Drake said, genuinely impressed at her first attempt.
“Thank you,” she said with a faux-curtsy in her seat, and pushed the Guinness in his direction. “You can have the rest. I’m having a High Noon.”
“No no no,” he said, pushing it back. “I’m not having two. You finish that.”
Having heard their back and forth, the bartender brought Lulu a High Noon without being asked. She cracked it open and said, “You finish it. We gotta cheers again, anyway. We didn’t toast to anything.” She held up her can.
Drake responded by burying himself in his Guinness.
“Come on!” she insisted. “It’s bad luck if you don’t.”
At that, even the bartender shared his two cents. “She’s right.”
“Thanks. But I think we were dealt the bad luck early.”
“Not too late to turn it around. Come on. We’ll cheers to a better drive tomorrow. You really wanna risk that one?”
“Fine.” Drake finished off the first Guinness, then clinked the second glass against her can. “To no more distractions.”
“Maybe just a few,” she replied. “As long as we’re still in the City on time.” She tapped the can against the bar, then drank.
“Fucking hell, Lulu.”
With a mouthful of hard seltzer, her eyes widened as a way to ask what was wrong.
He continued, doing his best to match the energy she was setting, “You gonna cause a stick like that over superstition, then still fuck it up?”
She swallowed, her eyes still wide with innocence. “My bad. Wanna try it again?”
Drake smiled.
The bartender brought him his third glass, this time a lager for something lighter, and brought Lulu another hard seltzer. But at this point, she was one drink behind, so she had to catch up. Then that meant that when she started her third drink, he had nothing in front of him. And it wouldn’t be polite to leave her drinking alone, so he ordered another. This time, Lulu chose for him, and he shared a hard seltzer with her, and the fruity drinks made them both feel like they were back in Miami.
At some point, as the crowd was growing in the pub and the music was getting louder, Drake and Lulu found themselves on drink number five. Or was it six?
The scene was nothing like either of them was used to in Miami, Lulu especially. For Drake, going out and partying at a bar was a rare event. But when either of them went out, it was never to sing late ‘70s soft rock songs with people in their sixties.
Yet here they were, as the time neared nine thirty, with Drake singing to Lulu, “Brandy! You’re a fine girl! What a gooooooood wife you would be!” He didn’t know if he substituted the name of the woman the song was named after with Lulu’s, but they were probably too drunk to care or notice, Drake hoped.
With a number of the other patrons dancing with their partners, it only felt appropriate for Drake and Lulu to hold each other. His hands were on her hips, and her arms were draped around his neck. They were celebrating not freezing to death on the side of the road, after all. There wasn’t anything else going on between the two budding friends whose foreheads were nearly pressing against each other, other than a totally platonic mood for revelry.
When she brought her big, ocean blue eyes up to his, it was just so she could remember who she was dancing with amid the haze of the alcohol.
When he brushed her curly blond hair out of her face, it was just so she could see her surroundings better. Not so he could memorize every curve of her face in the swirl of alcohol infused lights.
When their lips drifted closer together, it was only because they were losing their balance. And his hand somehow found itself on her cheek, with his thumb slowly brushing her temple…
“We should probably get to the hotel,” someone whispered.
“Yeah…” they breathed simultaneously.
Drake pulled away first and grabbed her sweater from her seat at the bar, and met her at the door. They stumbled out of the bar and through the parking lot. He held her hand tightly the whole way to the car and helped her in, but neither of them said a word.
He then walked slowly around the hood to the driver’s side, breathing deeply, as if he could fully exhume the alcohol in his system through his lungs. The motel was less than a quarter mile away. They could make it there safely. The snow wasn’t even coming down as hard anymore. In half an hour, he thought, he’d probably be sober enough to get back on I-80–
No. Stop that. Motel. Gotta get to the motel.
Drake opened the car door slowly, telling himself he was sober enough to drive, and forcing himself to act like it.
“You okay to drive?” Lulu asked sleepily with a hiccup.
“Perfect.” Drake searched his pockets for the keys. They thankfully hadn’t been lost in the bar. In fact, after a quick check of his pockets, nothing had been left behind. Everything that was supposed to be there still was, excluding his phone.
Lulu rolled away from him and cuddled up with his sweater. “Let me know when we get there. Or if we crash.”
Drake put the car into drive and crept out of the parking lot. He sat at the intersection for a full minute, making sure that no one was coming. When he was sure there was no one else on the road, he slowly pulled out and rolled at twenty miles per hour down the road. His hand was kept at the ready over the center console just in case they swerved.
But they made it to the motel parking lot without any reason to hold her thigh. When he woke her up, he did so without any physical touch.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Still wanna check in?”
Lulu grumbled and reached for the door before opening her eyes.
The lights were still on inside, and unlike the motel the night before, this one actually had someone at the desk.
The two of them semi-staggered to the clerk. They were both on the same page about trying to act sober, even though the clerk saw through the charade.
As Drake spoke to the clerk to book the room, Lulu tried to connect to the hotel’s free wifi.
“Did you want one or two beds?” the clerk asked, and Drake rushed to answer, “Two.” He glanced down at Lulu. She was clearly hammered. And so was he. He could already imagine how much he’d loathe himself if he woke up next to her in the morning and they both still smelled like the previous night's mistakes.
“Two,” he repeated, a little softer.
“Okay, two beds.” The clerk typed into his computer. “And a card I can charge it to?” He held out his hand.
For a moment, nothing happened. Lulu was still buried in her phone.
Drake nudged her.
“Yeah, just a sec. Hey, do you have wifi I can connect to?”
“Wifi is for guests only,” the clerk said.
“I’m gonna be,” she replied. “I just need to check my balance.”
The clerk took on an obviously uncomfortable look. “I’m sorry. You need to be in the system to connect.”
Drake stepped in then to clarify. “She just needs to be connected to pay. What about staff wifi?”
The clerk shook his head. “I’m not allowed to do that, man.”
The response was sobering. Drake stepped closer and leaned over the counter. “You know it’s freezing outside, right?”
“Drake, it’s-”
The clerk wasn’t a bad person. It was just how the motel operated. He couldn’t subvert any of the computer’s systems, but he could be a decent human being. “You can connect to my hotspot if you need to,” he offered.
Lulu pulled Drake away from the counter. “That’d be awesome,” she said.
In another moment, the hotel clerk had a hotspot up and gave Lulu the password. Once connected, she opened her banking app and checked her balance.
Instead of presenting her digital debit card to the hotel clerk, she dropped a hand on Drake’s arm.
“What’s up?” he asked in a low voice.
Lulu bit her lip. She read the balance over and over again, then eked out, “Thanks. We’ll just…”
When she didn’t finish her sentence, Drake asked again, “What’s going on?”
There was no way she could cover the cost of a room. After the second round at the bar, she’d stopped thinking about the motel entirely. It wasn’t just the excessive drinks she wasted money on, but the jukebox app, and a game of pool if she remembered accurately. And at this point, she’d be hard-pressed to convince Drake to leave her alone long enough to accept another FanGirlz request and find a place to complete it.
She began to shake. It was barely perceptible; the clerk didn’t notice, but Drake felt it on his arm. He looked down at her phone screen and saw what was going on.
Looking down, Drake said to the clerk, “We’ll get out of your hair.” He took Lulu’s hand and stepped toward the door.
Lulu pulled back, stuck in place. She said, looking completely zoned out, “Can I use a restroom?”
Drake waited, glancing from Lulu to the clerk, and ready to fight him if he didn’t at least let the girl do her business.
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Staff restrooms are right around here.”
Before going where the clerk pointed, Lulu told Drake, “Just wait in the car. I’ll be right there.”
Drake watched her round the corner with the clerk. He stood there motionless for about fifteen seconds, then backed up two steps, then turned. He looked over his shoulder once, wondering if she was actually coming back out. Her career choice in regard to their current situation wasn’t lost on him.
He returned to the car and turned the heat on low, holding himself tightly in the front seat. Drake kept his eyes locked on the front door of the motel. He waited, locked in on any movement. Eventually he turned down the heat to conserve gas, or not kill the battery. Whatever it was that the heat was affecting – Drake didn’t know cars. He was a graphics guy.
Inside the motel, just around the corner from the front desk, was a staff room. And inside the staff room was a small bathroom stall.
Lulu sat on the toilet, forcing herself to pee. She didn’t actually have to when she asked to use the restroom. She just wasn’t ready to go back into the cold. So she sat on the toilet, forcing her bladder, and scrolled through the FanGirlz app.
The requests were all impossible to complete in a setting like this. Even the one thirty-dollar request that involved urination was too much for what she could accomplish in this cramped space. She would need a bathtub for what this creep was asking. Unfortunately, the other requests weren’t any better, or easier. Nope, she was fucked for the night, with only twelve dollars and thirteen cents left to her name. And not just fucked for that night, she realized. How were they going to pay for gas in the morning? She was their only source of money until they got to New York, and they couldn’t even get a place to sleep. But that also meant that they couldn’t keep driving into the night until fumes weren’t even enough to run on.
Lulu sank into her palms. She wept.
There was a knock at the door.
“You almost done?” the motel clerk asked from the other side.
Lulu wiped her face and flushed the toilet. “Yeah,” she said, her voice cracking. “Just a sec.”
She washed her hands, washed her face, then dried both hands and face with a paper towel and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked at her hair; the full, voluminous, and curly right side, and the shaved left side. She ran her hand against the bristles on the shaved side. It wasn’t a bad look. In fact, she thought it looked kind of hot. But at the same time it itched. It was hot on someone else. Someone who didn’t shave it because they were paid to.
Lulu composed herself then opened the bathroom door. The motel clerk was waiting, sitting at the table in the staff room. He jumped up when she came out, and made to look like he was straightening his blouse.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “By the way, are you…”
Lulu paused halfway across the room. The door was right there, and she was more than ready to return to Drake and the busted-up rental car.
The clerk chuckled to himself, then finished, “You’re not on, um…your name’s not Lulu, is it?”
Sucking in her lip and blushing was all the answer he needed.
With his hands stuffed into his pockets, the clerk stepped gingerly toward her. “I’m a subscriber. Not trying to be a creep or anything, but…” one hand came out of his pocket like he was going to reach for her, until he couldn’t decide if that was the right move or not. “I could probably get you into a room. The beds aren’t that bad here.”
The clerk’s hand fell onto her arm.
Lulu stood stock still. The clerk was young, probably younger than her. He was scrawny, but he was taller. And the motel was quiet. There was no one else in the staff room; she hadn’t heard anything from any of the rooms, and, well…
It would be cold in the car.
The clerk’s hand rubbed her shoulder.
* * *
Drake woke when the car door shut. He jumped up and looked over at the passenger seat. It was empty.
“Back here,” Lulu said.
He turned around and saw her sitting up in the back seat under a blanket. Then he checked the time on the dashboard. Just past ten o’clock. Still early in the night.
Drake rubbed his face. “What took so long?”
Lulu reclined across the back seats. “Too much to drink,” she said.
“Where’d you find that?” he asked, thumbing the blanket.
Coldly, she didn’t reply at all.
“Alright. Well, sleep tight. Hope you stay warm.” Drake fell back down in his reclined seat. If they were to sleep in the car overnight, then so be it. It would be cold, but he could manage. For a few hours, at least.
He closed his eyes and found it easy to drift back into sleep. The alcohol was still messing with his lack of vision, giving him that state of vertigo as if he were falling in place. Thankfully, his fatigue was overpowering the vertigo. What didn’t overpower it was Lulu’s whisper.
Her voice drifted into his ear. “Drake.”
“What?” he groaned back.
“I’m cold.”
She said the words, and he could visualize the fogged breath passing her lips.
“Me too,” he said. “I don’t have any more sweaters.”
There was silence for a moment, then, “Can you come back here with me?”
Drake turned over. When he did, he saw her eyes were wide open. Waiting.
He suffered through the momentary cold as he left the front seat and reentered the car through the back seat door. Lulu made room for him to crawl in behind her, then draped the blanket over both of them. Drake pulled her in close, closer than they had been when they were drunk and dancing. His arm crossed her chest. His hand rested just under her breast. She pushed back against him. Her breath hitched when she felt the conflict in his groin. She could almost hear him biting his lip when the squeak escaped her lips. He breathed out slowly, and the feel of his air on her neck almost made her convulse.
She knew what he wanted. And at this point, there is no lying anymore. Drake couldn’t lie to himself, and I cannot lie to you to defend him. And most importantly, Lulu wasn’t going to say or do anything to discourage him from acting on his wants.
And that was exactly why he didn’t act.
Drake fought the inebriated indulgences and forced himself to remain composed. This was not the time nor place.
“Goodnight, Lulu.”
“Goodnight.”
She relaxed her body and felt his gradually ease.
The car was still freezing, but they shared enough heat to get through the night. At least, they got through a few hours. The light that came through their window a little while later was not from the rising sun, but a flashlight.
Drake reacted to the light burning through his eyelids, but was truly awoken by the knocking on the window. When he saw the badge and body cam on the winter jacket of the man outside the car, he felt more awake than a double espresso could ever get him.