Chapter 23

Their journey out of California began early. Pumped full of caffeine – with an extra stash of Red Bulls tucked in the cars just in case – and sad their trip was coming to an end, they said their last goodbyes to San Francisco, and crossed the Bay, heading towards Sacramento.

Hours seeped by slowly, even though the landscapes flashed on the other side of their car windows. Nevada, despite its uneven terrain and winding roads, seemed terribly monotonous. Towns were rare, and the absence of other human beings, aside from those in the occasional car next to them on the interstate, made them feel unpleasantly isolated. Once they crossed the Utah border, Kurt went back to the driver’s seat of his Navigator and they set off for the last stretch of road for that day. He followed Puck’s car through the Great Salt Lake Desert, marvelling at how white some spots were.

They were just passing Stanbury Mountains to their right, when a faint cloud of smoke caught Kurt’s eye in front of him.

‘Did you see that?,’ he asked the others, blinking to make sure his vision was clear.

‘What?,’ Rachel said from the backseat, for once moving her eyes from Finn next to her. Blaine had dozed off in the passenger seat.

‘That.’ Kurt pointed the steam that was undoubtedly oozing from under the hood of Puck’s car. ‘Something’s wrong, and I’m not sure they know it yet.’

Rachel didn’t waste any more time and grabbed her phone. The others had noticed their car was acting out right before her call, but they agreed there was nothing they could do for as long as they were in the middle of nowhere. They could only hope and pray they’d make it to the nearest town, and that hopefully, there would be a mechanic to take care of whatever was wrong. Kurt and Finn’s skills could’ve sufficed, if only they had resources for any spare parts that could be required, so they resigned to finding a professional to help with Puck’s vehicle.

The bustle of their conversation woke Blaine up abruptly, and the words they were speaking caused his mind to clear unusually fast.

‘What happened?,’ he asked, peering out the windshield on the white smoke billowing ahead of them.

‘Something’s wrong with Puck’s car, so we’re stopping in the nearest town to get it to a garage,’ Kurt explained briefly, his voice tense from worry.

Anxiety filled the car; without knowing what was wrong with their friend’s sedan in front of them, it was difficult to stop their minds from venturing down the most upsetting paths. Rachel tried to calm them down by constantly telling them it was definitely something minor and they would get it fixed in no time, but her attempts turned out nothing other than unnerving. Kurt gritted his teeth, concentrating on the road and paying attention to what was happening ahead.

Those twenty miles they were forced to drive half-immersed in the steam were the most terrifying moments of their journey. Nobody in the Navigator dared look away from Puck’s car, all tense and concerned. They could only imagine what the atmosphere had to be like inside of the sedan.

Thankfully, a town came into view before anything happened, and finding a small garage wasn’t difficult. After all, in a place situated in the middle of nowhere on the interstate, a car mechanic was a must.

The young man in greasy coveralls who greeted them was clearly unhappy they arrived right before his closing time, even though it took him a quick peek under the hood to determine the problem was an oil leak and a fault in the oil tank valve.

‘So can you fix that?,’ Puck asked nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

‘Yeah, sure I can. Tomorrow.’

The friends could barely hold back a groan. They weren’t far from Salt Lake City, but staying overnight in this cow town still caused them a delay. And sitting around doing nothing – because there was nothing to do – was even more exhausting than a day of driving through the desert.

Reluctantly, they agreed to wait until the next day for the car. They unloaded Puck, Santana and Brittany’s bags and stuffed them into the Navigator, filling the last vestiges of space in its trunk. Rachel remembered seeing a motel at entering the town, so a decision to head that way was quickly made. Finn and Puck graciously let the girls, Kurt and Blaine drive there first and wait to be picked up in a while.

Once everybody had arrived safely at the motel, they entered the small office to ask if there were any rooms available at all.

‘Hi,’ Rachel said to the grumpy middle-aged man at the desk. ‘We would like three double rooms, if that’s possible.’

The guy scanned their faces without interest.

‘Sure. You girls sure you can squeeze into a double bed? There are only two with single beds right now.’

Rachel and Santana exchanged a quick look.

‘No,’ Santana started, ‘one room is for the two of us,’ she indicated Brittany, ‘the next one is for these two,’ she pointed to Kurt and Blaine, ‘and the last one’s for them.’

An awkward silence fell for a minute, as the man was beginning to grasp Santana’s drift.

‘I’m sorry, but we have a policy that forbids me from letting an unwed couple share a room,’ he said, carefully picking his words.

‘Okay, so we’ll work it out between ourselves,’ Rachel replied, sending him the politest smile she could muster. ‘Finn, you and Kurt can share a room, and Puck – you’ll be fine with staying with Blaine, right?’

The clerk was unabashedly eavesdropping on the conversation, pulling his eyebrows closer together with each word. Until the short girl started ordering people around, pointing at the others and mentioning their names, he didn’t really pay attention to the two boys that were standing closest to the door, with barely an inch of space between them. The dark-haired one whispered something to the other one, and they exchanged a regretful glance.

‘Girls, I’m afraid one of you will have to share a bed with me, so you have to decide who one of you wants to shack up with for tonight,’ Rachel went on.

Santana frowned, raising her hand to silence her friend. The look on the clerk’s face couldn’t mean any good.

‘Hey, what is that?,’ she asked. ‘I couldn’t really call that the proper way to treat your guests.’

The man swallowed hard, clearly uncomfortable, and apparently just as disgusted.

‘I’m afraid you have to leave,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘We also have a policy that we don’t let your kind of people stay at our motel.’

Only Puck and Finn didn’t seem to get what he meant by that.

‘Our kind?,’ Finn asked, confused.

‘He meant us, Finn,’ Kurt said quietly. ‘Me, Blaine, Santana and Brittany.’

Within a split second, Puck was jumping at the desk to grab the man, but the others managed to stop him in time. If Noah got in trouble, it would be their fault in Mrs Puckerman’s eyes. If he got in trouble now, on the way back, they wouldn’t even hold it against her if she thought that.

‘Puck, don’t, it’s fine,’ Kurt said.

‘Dude, it’s not fine!’ Puck tried to puck Finn and Santana off him, but their grip was too tight.

‘You’re right, Noah, it’s not,’ Rachel said, forcing herself to sound calm. ‘But it’s not worth getting in trouble because of such a stinking homophobe.’

Without wasting their breath anymore, they left the office, dragging their suitcases behind them. The clerk bid them farewell with a mocking ‘Good luck finding another place to stay.’

‘So what now?,’ Blaine asked bitterly. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was just as eager as Puck to beat that guy into a pulp. ‘I’m guessing there aren’t many motels in this hellhole.’

‘We can check,’ Rachel said uncertainly. ‘But I wouldn’t count on that.’