Ed walked up to the car with a fresh cup of coffee and climbed in just as Selena's buckle clicked in the front seat, and Angela reached into the far back seat to steal the only half-full bag of barbecue chips back from Jake. Selena controlled the stereo now, and she smiled sweetly at Ed as we pulled out of the motel parking lot, replacing his iPod with her own. "No, no, no.
Ed protested, grabbing her iPod from her hand. She started to protest, but he put a hand up at her and said, "If you're going to replace my music, you at least have to replace it with Angela's. I cannot possibly drive twelve hours with pop playing in my ears." Selena muttered something about having a great taste in music, but asked for Angela's iPod anyway. She handed it to her and Selena hooked it up to the speakers. Skinny Love by Bon Iver spilled out of the speakers, and Ed nodded slowly and said, "Ok, Ok, I can spin to this."
"You are so white," Selena replied, rolling her eyes with a small grin.
"I'm not sure what to say to that," Ed laughed, grinning widely at her.
"Snickers! Definitely Snickers."
"We don't need Snickers, Ed."
"We don't need Sunflower Seeds, either, ma'am." Selena scoffed, "Please. Road trips require sunflower seeds. No road trip is a real man's road trip without sunflower seeds."
"Yes, indeed, because real men love to chow down on sunflower seeds." Selena rose her eyebrow at him, "Um, yea," she said, laughing, "they do." Jake cut in between them and said, "You know what we do need." He grabbed something off the rack and showed it off to all of us with a wide grin, "Beef jerky. Now there's a real man's road trip snack."
"You said it, man," Ed agreed with a laugh, giving Jake a high-five and adding the beef jerky to the basket Milly was carrying on her arm. Ed put up his hands in mock surrender towards Selena, "Hey, man, you know it's truth when my man Jake says it." Jake grinned and Selena rolled her eyes. Angela stayed by the candy as the other walked over to the counter, and I walked up behind her, wrapping my hands carefully around her waste, and said quietly, "Got a sweet tooth?" She smiled at me and pointed to a certain candy bar, "I haven't had one of these in forever." She was pointing to a Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar. "I'm pondering whether I should change that now." She grinned at me, but my eyebrows were furrowed.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, concerned. He sighed and shook his head, "Nah," he said. He bit his lip. "I...uh..." he ran a hand through his hair and sort of nervously chuckled, "I haven't had one of those in five years." My eyebrows shot up. "Geez!" I exclaimed, "And I thought I hadn't had one in forever!" He smiled sort of sadly and stared at the candy bar with tired eyes. My eyebrows lowered a bit as I asked, softly, "Why haven't you had one of these in five years?" He shook his head, looking away from the candy, at my face, "It's stupid, really," he started, "You know my old life on the road. I'd always buy that bar, every time we stopped somewhere where they were sold, and if I was asleep when we stopped, my mom or dad would buy one for me." He shrugged, blushing slightly, "I don't know, I guess I always just kind of felt like it was their way of saying 'I love you'." He blushed brighter, looking at the ground, "And then...I mean, they weren't there to buy them for me anymore." He shrugged, looking back at the candy bar, "And I didn't really have a taste for them any longer."
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