I groggily blinked my eyes open. I’d been having such a lovely dream – alone on a beach, a beautiful waitress bringing me drinks. Then, all of a sudden, my serene beach had been interrupted by a blizzard that had swept through and ruined my cocktail.
‘Wha-what’s… my daiquiri…’ I mumbled.
I heard a laugh from next to me and opened my eyes fully. Julie was grinning, even as she wrestled with the air conditioner.
‘Sorry,’ she laughed. ‘The cooling broke again. Now you should go back to sleep.’
‘What’s the point,’ I pouted. ‘I’ll never get that kind of service again.’
‘What?’
‘What?’ I repeated, trying to rub consciousness back into my eyeballs. ‘Where are we?’
Amused at how quickly I’d changed the subject, Julie pointed to a sign. ‘Just outside of Adelaide.’
I nodded, then frowned.
How long had I been asleep?
‘We might have to get this looked at though,’ she said, gesturing at the air conditioner. ‘Neither of us can sleep when we need to.’
‘I’ll look up somewhere that does cooling system repairs,’ I yawned, pulling out my phone.
‘Make sure it’s one of those decent, general mechanics,’ she added as I typed it in.
‘Why?’
‘Well you’ll never believe this, but this car is due for a service,’ she laughed.
‘But we just got it!’
‘We did drive 770 kilometres last night,’ she shrugged.
‘Still…’ I grumbled. ‘We shouldn’t have to pay for that.’
‘Feel like taking a chance on another engine exploding?’ she asked, eyebrow raised.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Fine. I’ll look for a place that does air conditioners and log book services near Adelaide. Happy?’
‘Of course I am!’ she beamed. ‘I love road trips!’
‘This one is starting to wear on me,’ I frowned. ‘And we’re so far behind schedule–’
‘Pffft,’ she scoffed. ‘Who cares about a schedule!’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘Clearly, I do.’
‘Well,’ she said with a smile, ‘we’ll see if we can fix that.’