"Well you two should get going no? Don't want to miss the dance."
"Mom. Can you stop calling it that? It's not a dance."
"Will there be no dancing?"
"People don't do that at our age anymore."
"Well why not?"
Jack smiled for himself and Alan. "We'll make sure to have a good time Lynn. Maybe Alan will get a little bit of head rocking in." Jack looked at his friend. "Who knows."
Alan couldn't help but smile back.
Outside their breaths fogged into the wind.
"Drive separately or together?" Alan asked. "Say. Where are you staying? You're parents aren't in town anymore."
"No they aren't. I haven't thought that far ahead actually. To be honest with you... I decided a few days ago to just head east. And i've been driving ever since. I happened to be a few hours out so I decided to drive up here."
"Mm. That's really. Interesting." Alan said. "You know. You could stay with us for the night?"
Jack looked at Alan. Met eyes and then looked back out into the road. "Thanks. I might take you up on that offer."
They stared out into the road. "Maybe we ought to drive together then," Jack suggested.
In the car they drove without music. It was cold so they let the car heat up for a few minutes.
"So you just decided to book it?" Alan said. Jack looked over to him. Shivering. He wasn't used to this out in California.
"Yeah. Life out there. My life, I should say, wasn't all that great."
"My life's not that great either." Alan said. "I'm done with college. And now I don't know what to do. My friends all have jobs lined up. Either that or they are complete failures so have no ambition to do anything. But me. I'm stuck somewhere in the middle."
Jack smiled. Teeth clattering as he rubbed his arms.
"You're probably expecting me to tell you that you're life seems so great right. Normal guy. Living a normal life. But honestly I dont think that's that great either." Jack surprised Alan. He was indeed expecting Jack to say that.
"Your normal life seems actually worse than mine in some ways. But in the end. I'm here. Running away from everything. So who am I to say shit. Right?"
He smiled. Alan smiled back. Back in high school this would've been the time to smoke a cigarette together. Neither of them smoked anymore though.
"I think the car is sufficiently warm. Shall we go?" Alan said. Jack nodded.
Alan made sure to accelerate slow. In order to not stress the transmission. Especially when it automatically shited from 2nd to 3rd gear.
"So. Tell me more about this Imogen girl," Jack said.
Now there it was, Alan thought. Finally the person to tell this to. Not Aaron over the phone. But Jack. Out of the blue. Too bad this car ride was only 5 minutes or so. He would've preferred to talk about this for 20.