Sidecar by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

some baseball T-shirts with bands on them, even though one of the bands was Journey, and he thought that was probably more Joe’s speed than his. Besides, hadn’t they broken up? But he was warmer and cleaner and happier when he got back to the car to find Joe shivering under the blanket and trying hard to wake up.
    Casey’s new chutzpah hadn’t all faded. He looked at the truck, saw that it was an automatic transmission, and tried to remember how to get to Joe’s place. He realized that it wasn’t that hard, really. Back to the freeway, off at that really big intersection called the Foresthill Exit, and hang a really big right.
    He could do this.
    “Here, Joe,” he said, getting in on the driver’s side after dumping all his bags on the passenger side. “Move over.”
    “What in the fuck?” Joe shivered hard on the word “fuck,” and Casey patted his shoulder sympathetically, and then jerked back when Joe did. Shit. He’d hit the sore arm. God, he was a moron.
    “Move over. I’m driving.”
    “You’re what ?” Joe sat up straight and glared at him, and Casey shrugged.
    “How hard can it be? Every moron in California has a driver’s license. Now scoot over and I’ll take you home.”
    “Do you even know how to get there?”
    “Yeah. Get to the freeway. Turn right at that big intersection exit with the McDonald’s. After that it’s sort of deep in the woods. I’ll wake you up for that part.”
    Joe grunted. “It’s twenty miles after the exit,” he said, and Casey nodded. It had seemed shorter both times he’d been driven on it. Once he got in with Joe, everything was aces.
    “C’mon, Joe. Scoot. Turn the ignition, put it into drive, gas on the right, brake on the left. I can do it. Move.”
    And Joe did, grumbling, “I may still have to call social services” in warning, and Casey nodded.
    “I appreciate you being straight with me and all, but you need to get home to do that, and I don’t see that happening right now. Now move your ass, old man!”
    “’M twenty-seven.”
    Wow. Not thirty? Casey smiled and looked at him again. He’d seen the guy without a shirt, and he was pretty buff. He had a little tummy, yeah, but you could tell he spent his time working on his house or his property or running around saving strays—he was definitely not a sit-on-the-couch-with-a-beer guy, unless he was ready for bed, if his muscles had anything to say about it.
    “Awesome. Maybe we can do that!”
    “Oh Christ , no!”
    Oh. That was disappointing. “Don’t like guys?”
    “Don’t like children . The key’s in the ignition, young’un. Now start the truck and prove to me we’re not gonna die at your hands!”
    Casey did, and he spent a few minutes in the almost-empty parking lot in front of Ross, driving slowly back and forth and getting the hang of things like brake time and acceleration. He decided that driving was okay—but a little overrated. As he eased the truck back onto the road and toward the freeway, he hardly had to step on the accelerator at all to get the car up to speed.
    “God, this thing’s faster than it looks,” he muttered, but they were going up a pretty steep incline, so maybe that power was a good thing.
    He hadn’t counted on the pulse-pounding fear of driving a car on the single lane of the double bridge. There was a wall on either side, yes, but he’d walked on the pedestrian part of the bridge and looked down—he knew what was in store for them if he lost his mind and just drove the truck through the rail and off the side. What had seemed so appealing when he’d been lost and cold and starving didn’t seem like so much fun now that he had a full belly and someplace to sleep without fear.
    “Easy, kid,” Joe said from the other side of the truck, and some of the tension cramping Casey’s hands eased up. “Everyone hates this part.”
    “Yeah?”
    “When all is said and done, we’ve really only got a narrow path to tread.”
    It sounded like crazy