Ali wants to stay on the road

Mark’s eyes began to open. He had been asleep in the passenger seat for hours now and was surprised to see Ali still driving, nowhere near any form of motel or hotel to stay at for the night.

“You’re finally awake, you were out for ages,” Ali said as she noticed Mark moving around in his seat.

“Oh man... I was out cold, did you find anywhere to stay for the night?”

“Actually, I had a different idea. I think we can tough it out overnight, I can drive for a couple more hours and then we switch and I get some sleep and then when you can’t go any further, we’ll switch again. This way, we get a bit further and we can probably get to San Antonio by mid morning,” she explained.

It was late at night but there was still a long way to go before they got back to mid-morning on the following day.

“This way, we can just have the day at a motel to sleep and chill and then we’re back on the road the following morning,” Ali added.

“Yeah I mean I’m fine with that, whatever you think, it’ll work for me,” Mark replied.

“Awesome! Get yourself a bit more sleep, I’ll wake you up when I can’t go any further.”

To her credit, Ali had been driving for quite a while already. The extra couple of hours was beneficial for Mark who would need to push through close enough til the sun comes up the following day.

He dozed off again and stayed asleep until Ali was shaking his shoulder. While he was still tired, Mark had an energy drink that perked himself up enough to keep him going. The highways felt like they just lasted forever, he wanted to make it to the Texas border before he switched with Ali again, who was very much fast asleep.

Mark admired the way she looked while she slept. Part of her brown hair covered her face as her mouth was left wide open. She rested her head against her purple pillow that she had placed against the cold glass window.

Taking too much of his time looking at Ali, Mark almost drifted off the road. That was enough of a close call to make him re-focus once more.

As the sun rose and they approached Texas, they did one last swap and Ali drove them into Sam Antonio, arriving there about 11am on Saturday morning.

“Come on sleepy head,” she told Mark, pushing his shoulder again, “Let’s go find a room.”

They had arrived at some motel, assumably quite a cheap one, they weren’t going to waste money on one night of luxury. It wasn’t massive, it wasn’t overly fancy, just an average place to sleep for the night.

They spoke to the lady behind the counter to find an availability.

“We have a couple of options, we have plenty of multiple two bedroom apartments for the one night that are free, or if you are looking for something more affordable, we have a room with just one bedroom,” she explained.

Mark didn’t want to say his preference in case that Ali really didn’t want to share a bed again. But she surprised him, answering quickly, “We’ll take the cheaper option, the one bedroom one please.”

“No problem, I’ll get you to sign here while I’ll grab you the key,” she said, moving behind to find the room key.

Massive score, if she was willing to share a bed again, who knows how far she would go.