“Okay,” he agreed. “Check your phone for something on the route.”

“Gator’s Bar and Grill,” I said aloud. It was third down on the list, but it was rated only two-and-a-half stars. “One review says not to go there after dark. That’s interesting. You think there are vampires?”

Shepley chuckled, looking down at the clock above the radio. “It’s just after noon. I think we’ll be safe.”

“It’s three-point-two miles ahead,” I said. “Just off the turnpike.”

“Which one? Four Seventy turns into Interstate Thirty-Five.”

“Four Seventy.”

Shepley nodded, satisfied. “Gator’s it is.”

As promised, Gator’s was just off the turnpike, just over three miles away. Shepley picked a parking space and turned off the engine for the first time in almost four hours. I stepped onto the concrete parking lot, my bones and muscles feeling stiff.

Shepley stretched on his side of the car, bending down and then standing up, pulling his arms across his chest. “Sitting for that long can’t be good. I don’t know how people with a desk job do it.”

“You have a desk job,” I said with a smirk.

“Part-time. If it were forty or fifty hours a week, I’d go nuts.”

“So, you’re not going to stay at the bank?” I asked, surprised. “I thought you liked it there.”

“Wealth management is a good place to be, but you know I’m not going to stay there.”

“No. You haven’t mentioned it.”

“Yeah, I did. I … oh. That was Cami.”

“Cami?”

“The last time I went with Trenton to The Red. You know how much I talk when I’m drunk.”

“I’ve forgotten,” I said.

Shepley reached for my hand as we walked inside, but at least two feet of space and unspoken thoughts were between us.

I glanced around Gator’s, looking up at the tall ceiling. Multicolored Christmas lights hung from the exposed ventilation system, the booth seats had ratty holes torn in the upholstery, and the floor had at least ten years of grime soaked into every twisted tuft of the worn carpet. Stale grease invaded my senses, and the rusted tin wainscot and charcoal-gray paint were more unwelcoming than the intended industrial chic.

“The two-star rating is making sense,” I said, shivering from the air-conditioning.

We waited so long for a table that I almost asked Shepley if we could leave, but then a blue-haired waitress with a chip on her shoulder and more piercings than she had holes showed us to two empty seats at the bar.

“Why did she seat us here?” I asked. “There are empty tables. There are a lot of empty tables.”

“Not even the employees want to be here,” Shepley said.

“Maybe we should just go?”

He shook his head. “We’ll just grab a quick bite and get back on the road.”

I nodded, unsettled.

The bartender wiped off the spaces in front of us and asked for our drink order. Shepley asked for a bottled water, and I ordered a strawberry lemonade.

“Not a beer? Why did you sit at the bar then?” the bartender asked, perturbed.