Her laughter follows me out of the house, "When aren't you?" Looking over my shoulder, I see her walking out of the house, her bag in her hand and a smile on her face. "But I agree, we should stop and get something to eat and use a restroom."
I laugh, "Any road trip we take, you need to pee every five minutes."
She shrugs, throwing her bag into the trunk of the car, "I get excited." She laughs.
"Like a dog."
She gapes, "Hey!" But she can't keep a straight enough face to fake outrage.
I stick my tongue out at her and walk past her back into the house. "Have you got everything?" I don't need to look back to see her rolling her eyes, "Don't roll your eyes at me, missy." I mock.
"Yes, Mom. I'm ready whenever you are." I hear the car door close, and I know that she'll be racing into the house in a few seconds so that she can go to the bathroom again.
I fill up the travel mugs so that we'll be fueled up and grab the bag of snacks I got ready earlier. Lacey and I love junk food. I'm crazy on candies whereas Lacey loves chips. We eat ourselves sick when we take road trips, but it's fun, and now it's our tradition.
"I need to pee," Lacey yells running past the kitchen and toward the bathroom.
"Hurry up, or I'm leaving without you." I take the bag of snacks along with the coffee cups and make my way to the door, "Will you please lock up?" I ask and wait for her grunt before going to the car. Thankfully Lacey left the passenger's side door open, so I place the coffee mugs on her seat and walk around to the driver’s side and get in.
Turning the engine on, I quickly reach for the volume as 'Living on a Prayer’ by Bon Jovi comes on and nearly blows my eardrums, I always forget to turn down the music before I get out of the car. A bang has me looking in the mirror to see Lacey locking the door. I quickly send Mom a text, letting her know that we're about to leave.
"Okay ready this time." She huffs as she climbs into the car.
"You sure?"
She slaps my shoulder, "Yes, now let's get going before I need to pee again."
I put the car into drive and glance at her, "You need to see a doctor about that." I smirk as I pull out of the driveway and onto the street.
"No I don't, it just happens whenever we go on a road trip. I get excited."
I snicker, "Then see a vet."
"Har-har, funny. So how much do you know about your new family?" She uses her fingers to make quotation marks as she says family.
"I don't really know much about them, why?"
She makes a weird noise, and I glance at her. She's looking down at her hands, "What?"
"Your new brother is Hudson Brady, Mia."
I shake my head, "And he is?" Up until Mom married Harrison, I had never heard of Hudson.
She sits forward, her hands clasping her knees as she brings her feet up onto the seat. "Mia, Hudson's dangerous. I've heard things about him, nothing good."
I frown, "What do you mean dangerous?"
She's silent, and it freaks me out. She obviously knows about him; otherwise she wouldn't have mentioned it. "Lacey?"
She sighs, "Look, I personally don't know him, but when Greg heard me mention your stepdad, Harrison, he asked if your new brother was called Hudson. When I told him it was, he told me things."
I press my foot against the break as we come to a stop sign, once the car has fully come to a stop, I turn and look at her, "Told you what?"
She holds her hands up in surrender, "Greg said that Hudson's involved in some pretty shady things."
I roll my eyes, this sounds like bullshit, "Oh yeah, like what exactly?" I ask as I put the car into drive again.
"Guns, drugs, and anything that you shouldn't be doing, he does. Greg said that Hudson's some sort of boss or something like that. Although it's all hearsay, no one actually knows for sure."