Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ~Author Unknown


As was to be expected, Amanda was knackered the next morning, but waking up to the smell of coffee was a rather pleasant experience despite that. When she sleepily sat up, she found Steve pouring a thick, black liquid that might have been tar into a cup before offering it to her.
“Coffee?”
“Great.” She peeled herself out of her blanket and reached for the cup, and found herself in a much better mood than she had expected. When she looked around, she discovered the sun had already risen rather high. “Sorry for sleeping so long.”
Steve chuckled around the smoke in his mouth. “Don’t worry, kid. Frank told me you had troubles falling asleep last night, and I don’t blame you. I can imagine the whole thing can be a bit...” He shrugged. “Overwhelming, I guess.”
“You’re right”, Amanda gave back while staring into her cup. “Thanks anyway.”
“Hey, we enjoy a slow start as much as anyone else”, Steve replied and poured himself another coffee. “And it’s not as if we have to be somewhere important by nightfall.”
Sipping her coffee, Amanda realised he was right. “We don’t, do we?” The coffee was strong as an ox and kicked her senses awake, and she realised she felt rather good, despite the lack of sleep. “It’s just us and the road, now.”

After a moment of silence she heard steps and Frank rounded the small outcrop of rocks that they had chosen as a windshield. “Nothing.”
Amanda looked up with a puzzled frown.
“I heard something shuffling around”, he explained while sitting down and accepting another cup from Steve. “All I found were some molerats tracks.”
They had their coffee in mutual but comfortable silence, and after a breakfast of the leftover molerat stew, got under way again, for now following the dry riverbed north and west.

They made camp somewhat earlier that night to make use of the remaining daylight for Amanda’s shooting lessons, and while she had never shot a gun in her life, she found it not as difficult as she had expected it to be.

“You’ve got a knack for this”, Steve said to her when, for the second time in a row, she had managed to hit all five of the stones they had set up for her on a large boulder. “You sure got a good aim.”
Amanda felt ridiculously pleased upon hearing those words of praise, but kept it to herself. Instead, she said: “I guess it’s the moving targets that make the real challenge.”
“That requires practise and experience”, Frank said and weighed a small stone in his hand. “But for now, you got us to bail you out when you miss. Here.” With that, he tossed the stone hard and fast so it flew in a high arch over the large boulder they had used, and while Amanda was quick enough to react and shoot, she missed thoroughly.
“Not bad, girl.” He picked up another stone. “Try again.”
This time, she missed only narrowly. Three more tries, and she hit once, but the next five, she didn’t.
“Let’s leave it at that”, Frank said after that and produced a pack of smokes. “Ain’t no use in getting you frustrated, because then you’ll sure as fuck not hit anything.”

After their meal that night, Amanda felt the need for some conversation. “Where are you guys from, anyway?”, she asked as she put another log onto the fire.
The two men exchanged a glance, and Amanda felt a small blush creep onto her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry; I was just trying to make conversation. Forget it.”
“Nah, it’s all right.” Steve lit up a smoke and leaned back. “We’re from up further north. Ran into each other in Boston.”
“Boston.” Staring into the flames, Amanda slung her arms around her drawn-up knees. “How far away is that?”
“’Bout thirty days”, Frank replied. “Give or take.”