The first hour passed quickly—and more quietly than Noah had expected. He attempted to follow the steady stream of conversation between Emily and Vanessa with Chad and Jane sometimes joining in, but he had little to contribute. Up front, the twins started a movie on a laptop while Brianna entertained Alec and Garth dozed.
Noah was starting to nod off himself when the van slowed and the voices of his companions drew his attention.
“What are you doing?” Brianna asked.
“Giving you a reason to stop scrolling Instagram,” Alec said.
“There’s literally nothing to see!”
“And that’s why we’re taking the scenic route.”
Brianna groaned along with several of the others.
“We really can’t afford to add to the drive,” Jane said.
“Trust me,” Alec said.
“Not happening,” Brianna said, pointing straight ahead to the interstate on-ramp. “Just get back on the highway.”
Noah clenched his teeth. The last thing he needed was more time in the van.
“It only adds ten minutes!” Alec shouted from the front with a laugh. “And it’s actually a few miles shorter because we don’t have to backtrack. You’re gonna love it!”
“What’s in Cisco?” Garth asked, tipping his head at the name on a road sign as they passed under the interstate and turned onto a two-lane country road. Drab desert stretched into the distance on both sides.
“Trust me!” Alec insisted again.
“When you said ‘scenic route,’ were you talking about the landscape or the road conditions?” Brianna asked. “Because I’m seeing some pretty big valleys right here in the asphalt.”
Alec swerved around several potholes in the narrow, unstriped, shoulderless road, taking her teasing in stride. “It all adds to the charm.”
When the next sign announced Next Services 54 Miles, Noah pulled out his phone and opened his map app, watching the loading icon spin and spin until a thumping passage over a railroad crossing stirred his stomach and drew his eyes back to the road. A few buildings and a sign for Cisco Landing had popped up, but Alec stayed the course into another stretch of slightly rolling gravel hills and stark desert.
The map refused to load. Putting his phone away and wiping his hands on his jeans, Noah cleared his throat and tried to swallow the knot forming there. The desolation held a kind of barren beauty, but he hated not knowing where they were. Not a big deal, he thought, letting out a deep breath. Alec knows where he’s going. I hope.
Vanessa turned to put one arm over the seat. “It really isn’t much longer this way.”
Noah wondered if she’d noticed his anxiety or if she was just making conversation. Hopefully the second. He made an effort to relax his hands, which were splayed aggressively on his thighs.
Vanessa continued. “And Alec is right. It’s totally worth it.”
Noah looked pointedly out the window before turning back to Vanessa with lifted brows.
She chuckled. “I promise! We’re not that far from Moab. Look!” she said, gesturing to a bluish hint of snow-capped mountains on the horizon. “Those are the La Sals, the second-highest mountain range in Utah.”
“Only second, huh?” Garth said. “Baby mountains compared to Colorado.”
Vanessa’s smile broadened as she turned her gaze to Garth. “They’re close to 13,000 feet. Still nothing to sneeze at.”
“I thought Moab was all about sandstone, not mountains,” Emily said.
“That’s just what made it famous,” Vanessa said, “but pretty soon we should be—yeah, look!”
A line of bright green broke through the monotony, and the road brought them into a narrow valley bisected by the muddy water of the Colorado River. Bright-green fields stretched between red cliffs, the pavement occasionally hugging the walls, the river sometimes seeming to lap at their tires. An involuntary sigh escaped Noah, his worry easing away with it.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?”
He pulled his gaze from the window and found Vanessa watching him. “Yeah,” he said.
“Ever been to Moab?”
“Nope.”
“If you ever get the chance, take it.”
“Have you spent a lot of time here?” he asked.
Emily laughed. “She came once and ended up changing her major to geology.”
“Really?” Noah asked.
“Yeah,” Vanessa said with a wince. “I could live my whole life down here and never run out of places to explore.”
“I bet,” Noah said, turning his attention back to the scenery. Campgrounds sprouted in the floodplain as cliffs ranging beige to dark red slipped past, bright- and dark-green bushes growing directly out of the rock. As they drew nearer to Moab, the canyon walls rose nearly vertical on either side, dark streaks of desert “varnish,” as Vanessa called it, painting their faces. Noah watched mountain and road bikers on a separate paved trail between road and river as the gorge widened, and before he knew it the cliffs had thrown their arms wide to reveal the verdant Moab valley.
Alec pulled into a park at the gorge’s mouth, right next to the busy main highway bridging the river. “See?” he said to Jane. “Right on time and totally worth it.”
Jane looked at her watch and smiled. “Not quite on time but, yes, worth it. We’ll stop here for about ten minutes if anyone wants to stretch their legs or use the restrooms.”
One of the twins hauled the side door open, allowing warm, dry air to seep into the van. Noah waited for the others to exit, then stepped into the sunshine and let the sun heat his back as he watched the river flow across the valley and into a gap in the cliffs on the other side.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Vanessa said.
Noah nodded. “This valley looks different from the river gorge.”
“That’s because it wasn’t cut by the river.”
Noah gawked at the marvels around him, listening as Vanessa pointed out fault lines and explained how the valley was formed when an underlying layer of salt washed away.
“I’m boring you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
Noah tore his eyes from the cliffs. “Not at all. I’m just—this is so amazing. I can’t get over the magnitude of the forces it took to create all this—turning sand into solid rock, then lifting it up and washing it away over millions of years. It’s incredible.”
Vanessa’s eyes were laughing.
“Did I get it wrong?” Heat blossomed in his cheeks.
“No, it’s just—that’s more than you’ve spoken the entire trip.”
“It’s only been a couple of hours.”
She chuckled and he chuckled, and for a second Noah thought maybe . . .
“Hey, so . . .” Vanessa tossed a look around and lowered her voice. “Do you know if Garth is dating anyone?”
Oddly enough, being firmly friend-zoned by Vanessa helped Noah relax as Alec and Brianna traded places with Chad and Jane and their long drive resumed. He hadn’t realized he was putting relationship pressure on himself again—not that it ever truly relented for a single guy his age—but her question about Garth helped him consciously decide against trying for any of the women on the trip. Better to just develop some new friendships.
With that in mind, along with Vanessa’s comment about him barely speaking, engaging in the conversations around him grew easier. The girls were entertaining without being obnoxious—Emily with a ready laugh and expressive face, Vanessa more subdued but every bit as funny. Even Garth was drawn in with their rapid-fire Q&A game about hypotheticals relating to music.
“So the zombie apocalypse has arrived,” Vanessa said, a hint of a smile on her lips, “and you have to choose which music to preserve for the remnants of mankind. Do you choose classical or modern?”
“Modern,” Noah said. “No contest.”
“Live or studio?” Emily asked him.
“Studio. Hate the screaming.”
Vanessa asked next. “Jazz or rap?”
“Uh, neither?”
“No, you have to pick one,” Vanessa said. “We’re narrowing the field.”
“Really. Neither.”
“Noah!” Emily said.
“Fine, Jazz. But it’s out on the next round.”
Vanessa smirked and shot another question at him. “Folk music or country?”
“Can you not include something I actually like?”
“Hey, don’t knock country,” Garth said, adding a little extra twang to his rural accent. “I’m named after Garth Brooks, you know.”
Emily practically jumped out of her seat. “Not true!”
“True. My parents are nuts about him.” Garth clasped his hands over his heart and raised his pitch. “‘Garth Brooks brought us together!’”
The girls laughed. “How?” Emily asked.
“They met country dancing, two-stepped to ‘Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House’ and never looked back.”
“Oh, that’s sweet!” Emily said.
Garth shook his head. “I guess, but really? They had to name me after him?”
Vanessa squinted at Noah. “You’re a classic-rock guy,” she said.
He hid his surprise behind a lifted eyebrow, neither confirming nor denying it as the van slowed and took an exit ramp.
Smug, she turned back to the front.
“Where are we?” Alec asked, rousing himself from sleep.
“North Phoenix,” Jane said and then directed Chad through the heavy traffic.
“I’m starved,” Garth said. “Are we eating soon?”
Noah’s stomach grumbled in agreement as Jane answered. Any trace of the sack lunch he’d eaten as they drove was long gone. “There’s an Indian place nearby that’s supposed to be amazing.”
“Mmm,” one of the twins said. “Do you think it’s as good as Prasanna Palace?”
Noah had heard people rave about the Indian restaurant in Oak Hills, but his budget didn’t accommodate eating out often. Hopefully, he’d still have enough cash after this to get some authentic Mexican food south of the border.
Once the gas tank was filled, it was only a few blocks to the restaurant. Chad pulled the van into a strip mall and parked. Stepping out onto the piping-hot asphalt, Noah spotted the restaurant wedged between a hearing center and a hair salon. Bright-red letters above the door flickered against the afternoon sunlight, announcing the Indian cuisine that seasoned the air and made Noah’s mouth water.
Once inside, Chad asked if they could combine several smaller tables to seat them all in the middle of the tiny restaurant, and Jane ordered a variety of dishes for them all to share. Noah tasted everything, from the mild shrimp korma to the hot chicken curry—that one lit a fire on his tongue that required a chocolate from Emily’s stash to put it out. His favorite was the medium chicken tikka masala, with its delicate blend of spices and just enough heat to make it interesting.
They lingered over dinner, enjoying the food and waiting for the traffic to thin as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. Eventually, Jane deemed the roads passable.
“I am not ready to get back into that van,” Brianna said with a groan.
“Remember,” Alec said, grinning and putting an arm around her shoulder as they exited the restaurant, “it may only be another two hours tonight, but we get six more tomorrow!”
This prompted grumbling from the rest of the group, along with a slug in the arm from Garth, but Alec laughed it off. “Come on, guys! If you keep this up, I might start to think you don’t enjoy my company.”
Garth muttered something that sounded violent but refrained from hitting Alec again.
Emily offered herself as a guard against boredom once they were back in the van by relating some of her worst dating experiences. “So an hour later,” she said on her third or fourth why-I’m-still-single story, “I’m standing with my friends, just talking, and I feel this tap, tap, tap on my shoulder again.”
“No way,” Alec said as he saw where the story was going.
“Same guy! Skinny as a straw, same exact line.” Emily lowered her voice to a more manly range. “‘Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, but would you care to dance?’”
The twins let out matching groans.
“But wait! There’s more!” Emily held out her hands, imitating an infomercial announcer. “He takes my hand and leads me onto the dance floor. And asks my name. Again.”
“Stop!” Vanessa said through her laughing tears. “I can’t!”
“What?” Emily asked. “You’ve already heard this one!”
“I know, I know! It’s just”—she gasped for air—“it gets better every time!”
Emily swatted her playfully and continued. “I figure, okay, I’m not the most memorable face here, and he’s probably danced with a lot of girls tonight, which is good—there are always girls waiting to get asked. And it’s nice to just get on the floor sometimes, right? I mean, swing dancing is not good solo.”
“So not good,” Brianna agreed.
“Benefit of the doubt. I give him my name. No big deal. But then”—Emily paused for effect—“he proceeds to retell me the whole story of his driving the moving truck to Mississippi in twenty-four hours and how he ate chicken nuggets so he’d stay hungry because he has such a high metabolism and that would keep him awake.”
More groans erupted from the group.
“Right as he’s getting to the end of the story, he looks at me and says I look familiar and did we already dance tonight? Yes. Yessir, we did.”
“That’s terrible!” Brianna said.
Emily shook her head, making her now-even-messier bun wobble. “Nah. Being forgettable totally has perks.” She waved off the contradictions from her captive audience, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. “If I ever need to rob a bank, I won’t even have to wear a mask!”
Noah laughed along with the others, enjoying Emily’s lightheartedness and the camaraderie of relationship failure, but he couldn’t quite ignore the ease with which Emily laughed off the snub—another pointed reminder of how unfair he had been to Grace.