The lights in the holding block never turned off throughout the night, but after an hour or two, it didn’t matter. Six feet apart, neither Lulu nor Drake expected to get decent sleep if they slept at all. And all things considered after his speech, neither of them minded too much about the quality of whatever sleep they managed.
Drake was the first one fully awake at around six in the morning. He was awoken by a cop who came in early every day to use the department’s gym and showers. When the officer passed by the holding cells, Drake initially thought he had company. The cop was still dressed in his civilian clothes: joggers, a heavy blue sweater, and tennis shoes. His wool cap and shoulders were caked with snow, and his nose was a bright red.
The cop took one look at Drake, then called to Wells at the staff-duty desk, “Exciting night, Wellsy?”
“Fuck off, Roberts,” Wells shouted back.
Roberts stomped the snow off his shoes and laughed. His voice died out as he moved down the hall. “You’re my hero, Wellsy. Keeping the hopeless out of the cold is a noble endeavor."
By the time Robert’s voice had completely faded, Lulu groaned awake. The way the joints in her back popped when she rolled her back made a pop! loud enough for Drake to hear in the next cell over.
“You good?” he asked, stretching and correcting his own joints.
Lulu moaned dreamily, “Peachy.”
Drake stood and took long strides toward the far side of the cell to stretch his legs. The instant he took the first lunge, something developed he’d been dreading all night since Sergeant Wells left them alone.
All of a sudden, the obscene number of beers he had last night were trying to force themselves out of his bladder.
“Fuck me,” he mumbled to himself.
From the other cell, Lulu joked, “Oh, now you want to.”
“What?” Drake spun around, saw that she was having the same idea as him, and jerked back to face away from her. “Jesus, Lulu. I’m right here!”
“Okay? And?” Shorts around her ankles, Lulu was attempting to hover over the metal toilet seat, holding onto the cell’s bars for support. She grunted as she said, “Just don’t make it weird and it won’t be. At least I don’t have to take a shit.”
Drake stared up at the fluorescent lights. “You just like being crass, don’t you?”
“You just like being crass, don’t you?” Lulu mimicked. “If it makes you feel better, it’s not like you’re barging in on me this time. All those drinks are just really getting to me. My head, too.”
“I-”
“Hold on!” she interrupted. “Stop talking!”
He paused, and a moment later her stream hit the empty metal basin of the toilet.
Drake dropped his head between the bars and groaned.
“Still glad you got off the plane?” Lulu teased and pulled herself up from her hover.
“Trying to make me regret it?”
“Just testing a theory,” she said with a hint of playfulness.
He looked over his shoulder. She was mid-squeezing back into her shorts. “What’s that?” he asked, then looked up.
She was watching him. She saw the glance he didn’t mean to sneak. And her only reaction was a grin. “That you’re way beyond that now.”
Drake’s mouth went dry.
Lulu tucked her tanktop back into her shorts and buttoned them. “Careful, Drake. You look like you’re starting to get some type of feelings.”
He bit his lip and forced a smile. “Just testing my own theory,” he managed to say.
She repeated his own words. “What’s that?”
To be completely honest, Drake hadn’t thought of anything to follow up with. But that in itself gave him his answer. “If it’s possible to ever keep up with you,” he said, chuckling. “I guess it isn’t.”
Lulu hung her arms through the bars between them. “Don’t stop trying. I appreciate the effort.”
Drake held onto the column just above her head and looked down at her. With her looking back up at him, he still couldn’t think of anything to say.
And it killed him. This was the moment, wasn’t it? The moment where the repartee was so smooth that every line came out as a challenge for the other to raise the stakes of undeniable affection. But every time it was his turn to up the ante, those killer blue eyes burned through his skull and turned his brain to mush. Even his grin faltered out of sheer intimidation.
He was saved from any possible embarrassment of his romantic incompetence by the reentry of Sergeant Wells to the scene.
“Morning, all,” he called, pulling the prisoners away from the bars. “Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”
Words. Now, of all times, Drake could actually think of something to say. Words came very easily. “Just figuring out the next leg of our trip.”
Sergeant Wells harrumphed and slid the key into Lulu’s cell door. In the other hand he held a coffee cup holder with three paper cups from a local gas station. Droplets of coffee from his own serving still clung to the tips of his mustache. “Might wanna take your time today. Storm’s kicking back up.” He slid Lulu’s gate open and handed her her morning brew.
“Thanks, Tim,” she said, accepting the burning hot coffee, genuinely grateful for the kindness.
“Don’t mention it.” When he eventually unlocked Drake’s door, he added, directed more so to Drake, “Speaking of, there’s a snow shovel in the dispatch room. Might wanna borrow it.”
Sergeant Wells held out the coffee for Drake.
Lulu wasn’t so naive that she didn’t catch on as soon as Drake about what the coffee was really for.
* * *
“Hundred bucks says your cop buddy did it.” Drake took another sip of the scalding coffee.
Lulu held the snow shovel with both hands, ready to start digging away the pile of snow that came up to the car’s windows.
“He’s not that bad,” she began, then rolled her neck as if she was about to settle a personal beef with the snow. “But… still not a bet I wanna take.”
She stepped forward and drove the snow shovel into the mound. After three scoops, she turned and called over her shoulder, “You gonna help or just keep staring at my ass?”
“You’re doing great. It’ll keep your legs warm.”
Lulu grunted, lifting and shoving the next pile of snow. “We’re not gonna make it to New York tonight if you don’t help.”
Lazily, he pretended to decry, “Ah, oh no. Darn. We won’t make it. What a shame.”
The shovel dove into the snow bank again and stayed there. Lulu leaned on it, waiting.
Drake sipped at his coffee and added, “Could just go back to Miami.”
“Ha! Nice try,” she shot back. “But there’s no date until after the party. And there’s no date if I don’t get to the party. I’ll be holding that one against you.”
He held his cup out to point at the snow piled up around the car. “Might wanna get to work then. We’re already burning daylight.”
The station’s back door opened just a few feet away, and out came Sergeant Wells, now in his civilian attire. He held another snow shovel and window brush.
Wells trudged through the snow up to Drake and held out the tools for him. “Not gonna make your girl do all the work, are ya?”
Drake traded the tools for his now empty coffee cup. “Just taking your lead,” he said.
Wells grunted and tossed the coffee cup into a nearby trash bin. “Go on, be a gentleman.” He parted with a slap of Drake on the shoulder and a “Happy Thanksgiving” to Lulu, then crossed the parking lot to get to his car.
Without any coffee left to keep him held up, Drake joined Lulu in her efforts, digging from out the back of the car.
“You’re wasting your time,” he said, scooping up a mound more than twice as large as her rapid but light scoops. Drake lifted the shovel into the air and flung it in the direction of a row of patrol cars. “Just dig out the back and under the tires. They’re not paying us to clear the parking lot.”
Lulu took off his sweater and tossed it over the car’s side mirror, then came around to the back.
“You’re gonna wanna keep the sweater on,” Drake said. “Once you start sweating and stop working, you’re gonna get sick.”
Lacking any real annoyance, she jested, “Sometimes I think you just like complaining.”
“Just dig. I’m already making your progress than you.”
They shovelled, and more cops arrived to start their shifts. Some of them came in uniform, others in civilian clothes. Most passed them by while a few offered to come back out and help them once they put their things down. It was all empty platitudes as none came back out, so he didn’t feel terribly guilty about keeping the snow shovels when they finished. But Drake did get some good information from one of the passing cops.
Their road today wasn’t looking great. It was about eight hours to New York, and that was if the weather didn’t get in their way. But that also meant that they’d probably have to fill up the gas tank two more times before arriving. Drake didn’t bring this up until the car was free of the snowbank and they were back on I-80.
Lulu scrolled the FanGirlz app, frozen in time since she was last connected to the internet. She read through all of the old and unfufilled requests, considering what she could manage the next time they pulled over somewhere she could connect.
Beside her, Drake was lip syncing along to one of her songs. He glanced over and saw her flicking her thumb across the phone’s screen.
“Excited to almost be done with that?” he asked.
She was caught as if in a trance. “What?”
“I mean, if you get this job, you won’t have to be on that app anymore.”
“I guess,” she shrugged. Had she ever even considered that? She’d been on FanGirlz for so long it was just another part of life. Maybe the thought of “retirement” from the app had crossed her mind here and there, but always subconsciously.
She scrolled through and re-read some of the old messages subscribers sent her. One in particular stuck out, and she leaned over the central console to put her head on Drake’s shoulder and show him the screen.
“Look,” she said. “I can’t quit. I’d miss stuff like this too much.”
Drake tried to steal a look at her screen without going off the road or hitting a patch of ice. “I can’t read that. What’s it say?”
Lulu read, “I love your blue eyes, but I wouldn’t mind if your brown eye gave me pink eye.”
She laughed and Drake wretched.
“Oh, my God! Fucking hell. How are you cool with that?”
“Calm down, prude. As long as they’re not harassing anyone, it’s fine. Some people just need an outlet for their kinks.”
“So, you think that guy was serious?”
“Probably. Do you know how often I get serious requests just to send videos of myself farting?”
“STOP! Please don’t tell me-”
“I don’t. Jeez, you’re so uptight.” She searched her old messages for another to share that was sure to get him riled up.
“Okay,” he said, shifting gears in the conversation. “What about dates? Like, actual dates. Hasn’t this ever gotten in the way of that?”
“Probably. But I never really gave that a thought. Most guys I hang out with know what I do, so stuff like that is always…” She paused. Then she sighed. “Look, I know the kind of life this comes with. And if real dates aren’t a part of it, then that’s whatever.”
“What do you mean ‘real dates’?”
Her head rolled to the side, eyes looking up at him like he was asking her to break down why two plus two equals four.
“I’m serious! Enlighten me. Let’s pretend I put work over relationships too, and am totally oblivious to what makes something a ‘real date.’”
“Pretend?”
“Just humor me.” Overhead, a sign passed them that said “Newton Falls 2 Miles.”
Lulu fixed herself in her seat, sitting up straight. “For starters, no expectations.”
Drake rushed her along. “You gotta be straight. What does that mean? No sex on the first date?”
“No, if we do, that’s whatever. Hopefully it will at least be good sex and not a blowjob in a bar bathroom. I mean, like, okay, here’s the downside to this job. If I go on a date with a guy and he knows what I do, then he’s just rushing through drinks to get back to his place. I went to the movies with this guy once, the only subscriber I ever went out with, and he was trying to do hand stuff during Spider-Man.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. He even tried to talk dirty, calling his penis his ‘Web shooter.’”
“Holy shit.”
Another navigation sign passed overhead. “Newton Falls 1 mile.”
Drake asked, “So, you left after that, right?”
“Are you kidding? It was Spider-Man. I told him I had to leave, then found an empty seat a few rows back.”
“How stupid of me,” Drake joked. “So as long as he doesn’t act like he wants it, then it’s a good date.”
“As long as it’s genuine,” Lulu corrected. “I don’t care what we’re doing. I just don’t want my job to overshadow it.”
“Alright. Cool.” Drake merged into the exit lane.
Lulu sat up straighter. Her eyes opened a little wider in confusion, before opening fully with anxiety. “What are you doing?”
“We need to top off,” he said plainly.
Lulu crawled over the center console to read the gas indicator. It was still half full.
“We’re fine,” she insisted. “Don’t pull off here.”
“We’re half empty, Lulu. We fill up here, and we might just make it to the city on fumes.”
Lulu fell back in her seat, dropping her head back hard against the headrest. She cast her attention outside the window and watched buildings pass by with the familiarity of a fleeting dream. First they passed the interstate neighboring hotels, then a gas station.
“What are you doing, Drake?” she asked, dejection overcoming her whole body in both her tone and her posture. Had Wells talked to him about taking her home? Did he somehow find out her parents’ address?
Innocently, Drake shook his head. “Nothing. Just looking for a good place to stop.”
Lulu couldn’t pull herself away from her hometown. They passed the Baptist church, then turned left a little down the road on Route 534. The forgotten dreams were becoming clearer, turning back into memories.
“So, where’s that hill you were talking about?”
“Drake-”
“I’m gonna turn left. Say something if I’m wrong.”
“Could you please stop? I just want to get back on the road.”
He pulled up to a red light at the edge of the village. Lulu slouched down in the passenger seat as if hiding from the windows of the shops and apartments. Were the odds high that anyone would notice her passing through town the day before Thanksgiving? Not at all if anyone wasn’t looking for her. But she still felt like someone was about to jump out beside the car door and announce to the entire town that their claim to shame had returned.
“Left?” Drake asked. “Left looks promising.”
“Drake, please.”
He flicked the blinker out of position, and when the light turned green, he went straight. “Alright, fine. I just thought-”
“You thought wrong,” she said more bluntly than she meant to. “I don’t need you playing my therapist. I already told you they don’t want me around. I’m not trying to change their minds.”
Faint green light spilled in through the windshield. Drake let the car roll an inch before pressing on the gas. At the next intersection he took a right to turn back toward the interstate.
Copy-and-paste two-story homes ran along the road, each one different from the other only by their color and the holiday decorations set up on the lawns and porches. And when the houses ended, there was a short wooden fence that made up the border of a public park. And in the park was a hill. It wasn’t as tall as he’d pictured when Lulu relived her memory, but in the eyes of a kid, it could have been massive.
Lulu didn’t notice the park as he turned into the poorly plowed parking lot. She only looked up when he unbuckled and opened his door. When she saw where they were, she jumped up.
“What is this?”
“It’s a park,” he said. “Did you really think I was trying to ditch you with your parents? I still need you for gas money.”
“But why this?”
Leaning in with an arm on the door frame, he said, “Cause I’m worried you won’t have time for our date after New York. Come on.” He shut the door and went around back to the trunk. Lulu took her time, debating whether or not she was willing to go through with this.
Before unbuckling, she looked out of the window toward the street and the row of houses. Just out of view was the one she thought she would never see again. It already had Christmas decorations up. They had probably been up since Halloween night, and wouldn’t come down for another two months. Or had her parent’s habits changed after they left? That first Christmas without their daughter, was it a struggle to get into the Christmas spirit, or had they already decided that she wouldn’t be a part of it again, so why get held up about it? Was it just her parents now, or was her brother David still being invited over on Christmas morning? Did they have any grandchildren they were already doing Christmas shopping for? Was David a father yet? She hadn’t even heard about a girlfriend or wife in the last ten years, but it was entirely possible with how popular he was in High School. Was she an aunt without even knowing it? Did her theoretical niece or nephew know what their aunt did for work?
Her questions were interrupted by a knock on the window. Through the glass, Drake asked, “You coming?” In his hands were the two snow shovels he’d borrowed from the police station.
He stepped back, and Lulu stepped out of the car. “I’m not really dressed for the snow.”
“Oh, now it’s an issue.”
“Drake…”
“Real quick. I’m not gonna be this far north again, hopefully forever. Just two rides down the hill, then gas and we head to the city.”
She inspected the shovels, looking for a way out. “You can’t even sled on those things.”
“Sure you can!” They were the wide type, good for pushing rather than lifting. “This is the poor man’s way to sled. We’d take these out to take city park when I was a kid after clearing the sidewalk.”
Lulu rolled her eyes. He wasn’t going to let her out of this, and she knew it. So, like all things she put up with, she decided she may as well put on a brave face for it.
Drake took her by the hand, and they raced up through the foot of snow toward the top of the hill. Their shoes were immediately filled with powder, which melted fast. By the time they got to the top of the hill, their socks were already soaked.
“I told you I wasn’t dressed for this,” she scolded.
“That’s why we’re going fast.” Drake sat down on the shovel, with the handle shooting up between his legs. Lulu followed and, with chittering teeth, joked, “Hey, look. My dick’s almost as big as yours.”
“Just gotta be crass,” he said.
“Just gotta be prude,” she replied. “Race ya down!”
Lulu awkwardly pushed off, scooting forward to the steeper decline of the hill, looking like a dog dragging itself across the carpet. Drake shuffled to keep up and overtake her, but Lulu decided the best way to win was to cheat. She got up, lunged a few steps past her, then threw himself forward on the shovel, tearing down the hill. Drake screamed after her, calling her on his bullshit.
She rolled off of her sled at the bottom of the hill, laughing. “You didn’t say that was against the rules!” she called.
Drake sped down beside her. “You didn’t give me time,” he called back, and drifted across the snow a few more feet than she ended up.
“Fine, rematch.” Lulu jumped back to her feet and ran up the hill next to the trails their sleds made. She was at the top before Drake made it even halfway, and shouted, “Go!” then tore back down the hill, straight at Drake.
He knew he should have moved, but for some reason within him he couldn’t rationalize, he thought it better to try to catch her. As she sped closer to him, he shouted, “Cheater!”, bent down, and pulled her from the moving sled.
The force of the impact sent them both reeling down the hill, tumbling over each other in the snow. Neither of them was dressed for the occasion, and the freezing snow invaded every inch of their skin it could reach, whether exposed or under untucked parts of their clothes. But through their shared laughter and adrenaline, neither noticed the biting cold.
Instead, at the bottom of the hill when they came to a stop, the only thing either of them noticed was each other’s warm breath in their faces, not two inches apart, and drawing closer.
The laughing subsided, and was replaced by heavy, slow breathing.
Lulu licked her lips, wondering what his tasted like.
Drake’s hand drifted up to her cheek.
Gradually, they came closer together until their kiss melted all of the snow and warmed them both, bodies and souls.