"We just left and you're already text-macking." Eric Sandoval peeked at Jordan's wide phone to see what lonely, love-deprived soul he was hustling.

     "I have to make sure my women don't miss me." Jordan Harris tapped the send button catapulting his words in the atmosphere. "You handle your situation."

     "What?" Eric frowned. "What situation?"

     Denver Perkins stopped scrolling down the playlist on his iPhone, "You've been drooling over Yasmin like a fat kid over the last cupcake ever made for two years now."

     "I'm waiting for the right time," Eric responded.

   "Like the time you waited in the pretzel line at the homecoming carnival" Jordan stuffed his phone down the pocket of his loose blue jeans.

    "Okay, that was my bad." Eric loosened his seat belt. "I should have actually called it a date."

       "Instead she walked off with Robert eating your pretzel." Jordan erupted with a hearty laugh.

      Eric punched Jordan's shoulder fuming like Mt. Erebus.

      "Ah, Sandoval that hurt." Jordan held his throbbing shoulder. "I'm not Robert, remember." His laugh roared in the car, echoed by Denver's.

      Ethan tapped the steering wheel along with the bouncing music, "Don't get mad at him. You got played. Shake it off. Catch what he dropped. Cause Yas dropped his two-timing ass like a day-old tuna fish sandwich."

      Denver gagged from the image in his vivid mind.

   Ethan continued, "Yas is single now, stop waiting and get about doing." He slowed down letting a red Mazda skip in front of him.

   "They just broke up a week ago," Eric added.

   "And?" Ethan glanced in the rearview mirror.

    "Stop acting like a female." Jordan harked.

    "Keep it up, another smooth, slick son of a banshee is going slide right in." Denver hinted.

      "Like me." Jordan popped the non-existent collar of his lime collegiate t-shirt with the words Rayford  University in blue letters.

          Eric waved him off, "Please, you don't have a chance."

          "Shit!" Jordan brushed his shoulder. "I'm a playa!"

          "That's the problem." Denver chirped.

           Ethan glanced at the rearview mirror again assuring the girls were still behind him, "It's your week man. You better take it."

            Eric dropped his head back on the seat, looking out the window as rows of trees rushed past the car. The interstate died out giving way to a two-lane highway; engulfed by a sea a low-growing, burnt brown grass. They were the only cars on the road. Ethan's thick black tires reeled on the clumpy, tarred road. 

            "Denver, where is this place?" Ethan scoped around his car speeding along. His eyes viewed a flock of crows perched on the branches of a dead oak tree. "Do you know where we're going?"

            "Tranquility, Texas." Denver kept his eyes closed, his head pressed against the headrest. "Of course, I know. It's my parent's cabin!"

            "We're in the middle of fucking nowhere." Jordan kicked the back of Denver's seat.

Denver displayed his middle finger at Jordan. "You have to be nowhere to be tranquil. Just trust me."

            Eric looked at Jordan. Jordan shook his head, Eric nodded back.

            "I don't want this to become one of those cable news investigation specials." Eric looked back out the window.

     By the unstained, raw oak—simply nailed and arranged general store was the courthouse and across the street was the gas station. The cheaply made town was thrown up like a paint by numbers setting designed by a second-grade art teacher. This was a far cry away from the magnificently, modern architecture city they vacated.

    Leslee fixed her eyes on the maple wooden sign planted in the hard, dead earth. The words Tranquility, TX sprawled across the wood plank as a Swiss Army knife carved it. The lack of the traditional green metal sign with the nice, even white letters showing all who crossed into its boundary the name of the town they had entered and the population size they must deal with irked her.  It sent her mind an instant hurdle. Maybe, that's how they did it in the country she concurred to herself excusing their less-than-touristic approach. She always stayed in the big, charted cities of Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. She removed Waco from her list after hearing about David Koresh and his doomsday cult. Here all they got was Tranquility, TX. The population was a complete unknown.

       Asia stuck close to Ethan as he steered a hard right past the gas station. Ashlyn's eyes stayed focused on her book. Lifeless like a dummy, Yasmin's sleeping body moved along with the motions of the car with her hand sliding under Shaka's warm mouth perched over the seat. Their tires pulled up more dirt as they raced down the street enveloped by lofty-mystifying, green pine trees as if Paul Bunyan planted them himself greatly in need of something taller than him.

       They left the sun at their backs shining just enough light to brighten their journey. The massive, limitless trees planted a seed of nervousness in Asia's mind. Her psyche quivered with flutters of angst as she watched them drifted further away from the coruscating star. It was the pure personification of her mother's tale of her first day of school; riding away in the big yellow bus leaving her alone on the sidewalk. The sun was her mother and her Yukon was the bus.

      Asia feared being out of its sight. Out of sight meant out of mind, easy to get lost, easy to be forgotten. It all flashed through her mind like an old-school nursery rhyme. You may call it fear but to her it was chilling, shrilling up her spine.

Is Eric going to make a move on Yasmin this Spring Break? 

Should Asia pay attention to her instincts? 

Would you keep going?