What was that saying his mom liked to use on him whenever he acted like a brat? “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Something like that.
They walked past a Radio Shack and looked in through the smashed windows at thick dark patches in the back.
“I miss Matt,” Gaby said quietly.
“Me too,” Josh said.
They walked silently for a while, weaving their way through the parking lot. Josh peered in at parked cars, hoping to spot something valuable. They found a lot of old, dried blood on car seats, doors, windows, and floors. Empty cans of soda. Water bottles. A Chrysler yielded an iPod that wouldn’t light up when he tried to turn it on.
After a while, Josh stopped, and Gaby stopped with him.
“What is it?” she asked.
Josh looked around them. “Will said not to wander off too far.”
“But we haven’t found anything yet. I don’t want to go back empty-handed.”
Josh considered their options. If they kept going straight, it would just take them farther away from the others. So what else was there? He glanced over at the street to their left, and the elevated highway behind that.
“We can try the other side of the highway,” he said.
“Race ya!” she shouted and dashed off.
Josh ran after her, but she was much faster, even with the gun on her hip. Gaby had always been a natural athlete, and she had bounded across the parking lot before he had even managed the halfway point. Soon she was on the feeder road and running up the sloping side of the highway. By the time he reached the feeder road, she was already hurdling the guardrail and was waiting for him on the other side.
“Come on, slowpoke!” she shouted down.
Josh grunted. He might have been a survivor while everyone bit the dust, but that hadn’t improved his athletic ability. He chugged his way up the hill, which was a lot harder than it looked, until he finally reached Gaby. She laughed and pulled him over the railing. He slumped down on the other side, next to a big red Ford truck with gaudy stripes along the sides.
“God, you’re out of shape,” Gaby said.
“Hard to believe, but this is the best shape I’ve ever been in,” he said between gasps.
“That is hard to believe.”
“Oh, that hurts,” he said, and slowly pushed himself back up to his feet. Then he grinned at her, shouted, “First person across wins!” and raced off across the highway lanes.
He heard Gaby laughing as she raced after him, shouting, “Cheater!”
He laughed and reached the other side of the highway first, sliding to a stop in front of the railing just as she caught up to him. He doubled over and gasped for breath again as she put her hands on her waist and gave him a disapproving look. She was breathing hard, but it was nothing compared to what he was going through at the moment.
She’s right. I am out of shape. Jesus H. Christ.
“You cheated,” she said.
“You cheated in the parking lot.”
“Okay, fair enough.”
Then she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him toward her and kissed him hard on the mouth. Josh was still gasping for breath when she did it, and he ended up breathing a big lungful of air down her throat. He recovered quickly enough to kiss her back, but he knew he was clumsy and out of practice — which was funny, because he had never had any practice to begin with.
Gaby finally pulled away and smiled at him. “Wow. Did you just blow a big gust of air down my throat?”
He laughed, doing his best to hide his embarrassment. “You sort of caught me unprepared. Sorry about that.”
“I didn’t say it was bad. It was just…new. Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
“Does my mom count?”
“You kissed your mom on the mouth? Gross!”
He grinned. “Don’t you?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s no shame in admitting you’ve never kissed a girl before. Lots of guys have never kissed a girl.”
“I’m eighteen, Gaby, of course there’s shame in that.”
She laughed. “You’re probably right. What else haven’t you done yet?”
“If I’ve never kissed a girl, what else do you think I haven’t done yet?”
She pretended to think about it. “Let me see…”
He grabbed her and pulled her to him. He kissed her hard and deep, putting everything he had into it. It was a sloppy and wet kiss, and amateur hour for sure, but she didn’t seem to mind. She leaned into the kiss, and Josh lost count of how long they stood there at the side of the highway just kissing under the scathingly hot morning sun.
After what seemed like the best eternity of his life, he finally had to let her go so they could both catch their breath.
She took a step back and smiled at him. “Not bad. I’m going to put this up on my blog so all my readers will know about it.”
He blushed a bit and decided to power through it with a big, awkward grin. “Make sure you disguise my name. I don’t want girls knocking down my door demanding free samples.”
“I’ll call you Bosh. How about that?”
“Eh, it’s better than Dosh.”
They exchanged another smile, and Josh thought he saw her cheeks redden just a little bit.
Whoa. I think just made Gaby, the hottest girl in school, blush.
Suck on that, mofos!
He saw it initially from the elevated vantage point of the highway while he was waiting for Gaby to catch up. It was a small plaza with two buildings in it, and the sign read: “Medical Budget Care.” Josh took that to mean it was some kind of clinic, or maybe a business that catered to clinics. Which meant medical supplies, either way.
He led Gaby down the highway and toward the plaza, holding her hand the entire time. He felt giddy, like a kid on the first day of school.
“Is this a good idea?” Gaby asked when they crossed the feeder road and reached the concrete parking lot, stepping around decorative shrubbery.
“We’ll take a quick look. If there’s nothing, we head back.”
“Let’s just hurry.”
He let go of her hand as they approached the buildings. The first and closest structure only had one floor, with “Beaumont Health Resources” written in big, blocky white letters on its side. The red brick building next door had two floors, but he couldn’t spot any signs.
“I don’t think we have time to search both buildings,” Josh said. “So we’ll have to choose. The big red building or this one?”
“Why me?”
“You’re prettier.”
“Can’t argue with that.” She seemed to think about it. “Okay, this one looks promising,” she said, indicating the building in front of them.
“Are you just saying that because it’s the closer of the two buildings?”
“That’s entirely possible,” she smiled.
“Good enough for me.”
They approached the front entrance — two glass doors under an arching black plastic canopy. They passed two silver four-door sedans, almost identical, except they were slightly different models. Josh glanced briefly into the closest car and saw blood on the seats and what looked like an old cup of Starbucks on the driver’s side floor.
He turned his attention back to the building. It had two big windows on opposite sides of the door, one with closed blinds, the other unblocked, and Josh saw an empty reception area on the other side. It looked exactly like the veterinary clinic that he, Danny, and Will had gone into back in Lancing.