It was weird driving that long and not needing a tank filled.
I would need to make sure that wherever we stopped for the night had access to electricity, though.
When I arrived inside, it was to see Belle’s head disappearing above the aisles of food and other truck-stop delicacies as she hurried toward the bathroom.
While she was gone, I made use of the facilities as well and waited outside the bathroom door for her to come out.
Something which took way longer than expected.
When she finally arrived, it was to see her face scrunched up in annoyance.
“What?” I asked, catching her hand and directing her out of the shoot that led to the bathrooms.
“There was a line,” she grumbled. “Everyone crammed in on top of the other. And people need to learn boundaries.”
“Use the men’s next time. There was no line at all,” I suggested.
She sighed. “That’s kind of illegal.”
“Who the fuck cares?” I asked as I guided her toward the food. “Are you hungry?”
She looked at the food, then bent down to the very bottom and picked out a super-sized bag of Funyuns.
She then moved down to the candy bars where she picked up not one but four plain Hershey chocolate bars.
I followed her lead, stopping to pick up a package of jerky and a bottle of room-temperature water before waiting for her to backtrack for her own drink.
But halfway there, she found the peanut butter M&M’s, vanilla wafers, and a small travel-sized cup of chunky peanut butter.
Shaking my head as she walked toward me with her arms full of food that there was no way she was going to get through before the end of our road trip, I still couldn’t help but grin.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Was that a grin?”
The grin immediately fell off my face. “No.”
“Uh-huh.” She snorted. “If you say so.”
I did say so.
Because grinning wasn’t my thing.
Grinning invited questions like the one she just asked me.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Sure.” She paused next to a shelf that had Hostess cupcakes. “Can you grab me one of those Little Debbie Christmas trees?”
I grabbed not one, but three.
“And.” She hesitated as she looked at me. “Can you get me a chocolate milk?”
Rolling my eyes, I placed all the shit I had in my hands on the counter, then went back for her chocolate milk.
“Only Borden!” she called out. “I don’t like anybody else’s chocolate milk.”
I rolled my eyes, refraining from asking what the difference was, but chose to keep my questions to myself.
Instead, I grabbed her drink, headed to the counter, and paid in all cash before gathering up our three full grocery sacks and heading back out to the car.