“I know, but I want to,” I tell her honestly.
“Please let me pay for the groceries or something once we make it down. I’ll feel like too much of a leach if you pay for this entire trip. It isn’t fair to you to pay for everything.”
“We’ll see,” I tell her, a smirk on my face.
“Did you want me to drive for a while?” she asks as we reach the car.
“I’m still good if you want to keep riding shotgun.”
“Sure, I’ll play DJ and keep the music pumping.” She laughs.
The melody of her laugh washes over me as we both get settled into the car and back out on the road.
Lauren finds us a country station to listen to for a while, bouncing a bit in her seat.
“I see you found the coffee.” I laugh at her excitement, teasing her just a bit.
“Nah, I’m just excited to be headed to the beach. Thank you for thinking of getting away with me. I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Ren, anytime,” I tell her, reaching over to squeeze her knee. I leave my hand on her leg and notice she doesn’t make any attempt to remove it. If anything, she settles in a little closer and gets comfortable with my skin against her skin.
The miles pass as we both sing along with the songs on the radio. When “Marry Me” by Thomas Rhett comes on the radio, she leans over and turns up the volume, and starts belting the words out along with the song. I just sit back and listen to the lyrics, and it hits me how much this song reminds me of the two of us.
The song ends, and she turns the volume back down to a normal level.
“So, we’ve got lots of time ahead of us on the road. Tell me about life in North Carolina.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I feel like I don’t know anything about you from the last couple of years. Steven only mentioned you occasionally.”
“Not much to know, really. I moved out there for my job right after graduation. I like my job and it pays me well, so I’ve stayed. I’ve made some good friends in the area, but it still doesn’t feel like home. Not the way Kentucky does.”
“Have you thought of moving back?”
“The thought has crossed my mind a time or two. I just didn’t think I could be back around here, with you marrying Brad.”
“Is that a possibility now?”
“Hopefully. I keep an eye on the open positions at the local office. That’s the nice thing about working for the FBI. I can pretty much move anywhere within the USA, and a position would be available to me.”
“You don’t ever have to go out in the field, do you?”
“No, I’m not a field agent. I stay in my office, for the most part, sometimes move to a large situation debriefing room, if we’re working on a large case and there is a lot of information to give the field agents. That’s the beauty of being on the IT side of things. I stay put and am safe. I only carry a gun because it’s a requirement of all agents.”
“Do you enjoy your job?”
“Most days. I like tracking down the bad guys, just like most agents do. I just prefer to be behind the screen of my computer when I do it. With all the cyber crimes taking place these days, my department stays busy all of the time.”
“Have you worked on any high-profile cases?”
“A few. None that probably made the news here, but locally, they were very big deals.”
“I’m glad to know you’re safe. I’d worry about you being out in the field, dealing with the big-time criminal.”
I chuckle at that. “How’s teaching going?”
“It’s everything I dreamed of and more. I love all my students. I never thought I’d enjoy teaching third grade, but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite grades to teach.”
“Do you think you’ll stay at the same school?”
“That’s my hope. The staff is all amazing. We have a great administration, and everyone gets along well. That’s not always the case in some schools. I have friends at other schools and the drama amongst the teachers is pretty bad. Makes me thankful for where I’m at.”
“Do you think they’ll keep you teaching third grade?”
“I hope so. But depending on the student numbers each year, we sometimes have to change up how many classes they have per grade level, to keep the class sizes at a more reasonable number. This last school year, I had twenty-one students. The registration numbers for next year are predicting third grade to have classes with twenty-three or twenty-four kids. My principal doesn’t like to have more than twenty-five per class if she can swing it, so hopefully we’ll stay under that number, or have enough overage that they’d move teachers around to accommodate the influx.”
“Do you get to take your students on any fun field trips?”
“I do! In the fall, we go out to the nature reserve for a day, and in the winter, we usually go to a performance at the Performing Arts Center downtown. They put on a special production of whatever show they are running for the schools at a discounted price. And then, in the spring, we usually go to the zoo for the day. Different grade levels do different things, but the PTA helps fund the trips, paying for the buses for all the classes to take three field trips a year, as well as helping with scholarships for any kids whose parents might not be able to afford the cost of the trip for their kids.”
“Do you have to supply a lot of your own supplies? I’ve heard that many teachers spend a good amount of their own money to keep their classrooms running.”
“Yes. The districts’ budgets are so tight lately that teachers end up spending a lot of our own money on supplies. Once again, I’m luckier than some of my friends who are at other schools and don’t have as supportive of a PTA, or the parents in general. The school I’m at is in a pretty mid to upper-level income area, so the parents are usually great about donating supplies to the classroom when I send out a wish list to them. But when all the school supplies come out and are on sale, I go in and stock up on the basics, so that I at least have them on hand and am getting them at a discount. You’d be shocked how many pencils a classroom of third graders can go through in a day!” she tells me on a laugh.
We continue our conversation over the next few hours of driving, discussing everything from music to politics. The easiness between us is slowly returning, that we’d unfortunately lost over the last couple of years, due to the distance. We stopped a few more times; once for lunch and then a couple other times to stretch our legs and a quick bathroom break.
We made it to Destin just before dinnertime, and after checking into the small condo we rented, we headed out to find some dinner and explore the area just a bit.
16
Lauren
I wake up from the sun shining in the window and look out at the beautiful view of the ocean. While we’re not directly on the beach, we’re just across the street, and since the condo we rented is a few floors up, we have a beautiful view of the water. I roll onto my side, just admiring our surroundings. I could totally move somewhere like this and wake up to this view everyday.
Lauren: Just wanted to let you know we made it down to Destin. Our condo is perfect! It has amazing views and I can already tell this was the perfect place to come to for the next few days.
Zoey: Enjoy! I wish I’d been able to come with you! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!
Marry Me (Lyrics and Love Book 1) Page 8
