Civil War, Mexican War through Civil War . . .â He rattled off the course names.
âIâm sensing a pattern,â I teased.
âFunny,â he said, and laughed. âAll right, smarty-pants, what is it you wanna study when you start next year?â
âAmerican social history, definitely. Probably eighteenth- and nineteenth-century womenâs and gender studies,â I replied.
âGotcha,â he mused. âSo weâre in the same general area, just cominâ at the same thing from two different sides. Pretty much.â
âPretty much.â
âCoffee.â Dev woke himself up with a start, snorting a little. âCoffee,â he murmured, and snorted again, rubbing his eyes. âOh, I had the most horrible nightmare.â He sighed. âI was stuck in a terrible land without coffee. And you were there, and you, and you!â he said, as he channeled Dorothy from the
Wizard of Oz,
pointing at me and Beau and Willie, in turn.
âWait a minute . . . that wasnât a dream, was it?â
ââFraid not,â Beau replied cheerily.
âYou are altogether too chipper for someone with no caffeine in his system.â Dev glared at him. âI want coofffeeeee,â he cried softly into his seat belt.
âWell, turns out, youâre in luck,â Beau said. He took the next exit and pulled off the highway. âWeâre almost there. And Iâm gonna need to fill up on gas before we stop. And Iâm pretty sure the gas stationâll have coffee.â
We were almost there? I couldnât believe how fast the time had flown by.
As we pulled into the gas station, Dev wept tears of joy.
âI think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a BP,â he recited. âHello, lover,â he cooed at the yellow sunburst on the big green BP sign.
Dev was out of the truck before it had come to a complete stop. He sprinted into the mini-mart without a backwards glance.
âCominâ?â Beau asked as he hopped out.
âNah, Iâm fine,â I said, gesturing to my hoops. âWith all of this, youâll be done pumping gas by the time I get out of the truck.â Plus, I wasnât exactly sure how I felt about hanging around a gas station just outside of Tuscaloosa in the twenty-first century wearing nineteenth-century clothing.
âSuit yourself.â Beau clearly had no such worry as he stood around pumping gas like a Confederate pep boy. He tipped his gray kepi hat to the other people at the gas station, who didnât seem to think it was anything out of the ordinary.
And then, when I had finally stopped thinking about it, my phone vibrated. I scrambled around through what felt like a million yards of muslin, until I triumphantly extracted my cell phone from where Iâd stashed it in my corset.
âGarrett!â I cried. âFinally! Where are you? Whatâs up? How are you? Howâs it going?â
âHey, Libby,â he said, and sighed, almost dejectedly. âWhatâs with all the questions? I thought I was the reporter.â
I smiled. It was sort of a halfhearted joke, but at least he seemed a little bit more like himself.
âVery funny, Mr. Hotshot Reporter.â I shifted under Willieâs weight. âSo do you spend more of your time running around chasing hot leads and yelling, âStop the presses!â or just coming up with brilliant bons mots behind a big glossy desk?â
âUm . . . not exactly.â He laughed mirthlessly. âI-donât-even-have-a-desk,â he mumbled very quietly.
âSorry, what? What was that?â I asked. I had no idea what heâd said.
âI donât have a desk!â He shouted so loudly I nearly dropped the phone, and Willie barked unhappily. âI donât even have a desk,â Garrett repeated at a normal volume.
âWell, okay,â I said, commiserating, âthatâs not great, I guess,