Run

by Byrne, Amanda K.

  The stairs creaked underfoot as I ran down them. He glanced over as I approached, scowling. “Do you know where they came from? The shots?”

  “No. No sirens yet. I’m going to take a wild guess and say you haven’t heard anything like that before.”

  “Not that I remember.” The heat pressed in, but I wrapped my arms around myself to control the shakes.

  I stepped back when he reached out. The scowl settled deeper into the lines on his face. “Call your friend. See if you can stay with her.”

  What friend? And where the hell had this bossy man come from? I liked the other Trevor. The sweetheart. The easygoing, undemanding one. “I already told you I don’t know anyone well enough to impose on them. And I’m not going anywhere. This is where I live. I have a door that locks. If it makes you feel better, I’ll shut all the windows.”

  I took a step forward, then another. His mouth was close enough I could touch it if I stretched, so I did. Rose up on my toes, a soft brush of lips. “I appreciate the concern.” Soft words, meant to calm. “Thanks for coming to the show with me.” Back away, go inside, put some space between us. I had to stand on my own, and he had to let me. The smile felt foreign on my face, muscles straining to hold it. “I’ll call you.”

  Across the lot, up the stairs, into the sweltering, close air of my apartment. I’d shut the door and lock him out and hope that radio silence for a day or two would help us get our heads on straight. To go beyond the damaged woman and the man with the hero complex.

  Because for the first time in months, I wanted to build something.

  The click of the lock wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d like. I’d had a suspicion when I moved in the neighborhood was less than savory, the trash scattered across the parking lot, buildings with boarded up windows and spray-painted tags, crumbling from disrepair, rusted trucks sitting idle in lots, waiting for someone to come along and burn them. The bright sunlight was misleading, though, and I’d thought it was a case of down on its luck. Not danger.

  Thud.

  Thud.

  The door rattled in its frame. “McKenna. Open up.” Trevor’s voice was muffled by the cheap wood.

  Stupid me, I did.

  He had his hands in his back pockets and a scowl on his face. “What?” I asked. He kept his mouth shut, his eyes locked on mine, and I let out an irritated sigh. “Did you want something?”

  He took a step forward, then another, moving until there was only a few inches between us. He freed a hand from his pocket and took mine, threading our fingers together. “You don’t want to leave, you mind if I stay with you tonight? Give me a little peace of mind?”

  My apartment couldn’t be that unsafe. “Trevor—”

  “Your neighborhood has one of the highest crime rates in the city.” His mouth firmed into a grim line. “I don’t like the thought of you bein’ in here alone.”

  After the run-in with Adam and the gunshots outside, I wasn’t all gung ho about sleeping alone, but I didn’t want him there because he thought he needed to protect me, either. “You really want to share my uncomfortable bed for the night?”

  He nudged me aside and moved into the living room. “How uncomfortable are we talking?”

  I shot the deadbolt home, switched off the light, and led him to the bedroom. I turned on the box fan perched on top of the dresser, hoping it would cool the room eventually. The covers were rumpled from the nap I’d taken earlier, and I pulled them back, shed my clothes, and climbed on. The heat settled over me like a blanket, the fitful breeze of the fan doing little to stir the air.

  Trevor stripped to the skin and stretched out. The mattress shifted under his weight, and he grunted in surprise. “Shit. How do you sleep on this thing?”

  “Depends on how tired I am. Most nights, I get a couple solid hours because I’m so worn out, spend the rest of it lying awake and staring at the window.”

  “Jesus.” He reached out and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, drawing me in. “C’mere.”

  Turning my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of him, the shadows deepening around us, I relaxed, little by little.

  “McKenna?”

  “Mmm?”

  “There’s a spring digging into my hip.”

  Snorting, I scooted over, and he shifted closer. “Piece of work.”

  “Shut up,” I mumbled. “You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  He chuckled. “Nope.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The car was stifling, having sat in the sun all day long. Wind whipped through it, blowing in hot air, carrying it back out, mostly just stirring things up without cooling them off. But the tires kept rushing over the sun-softened blacktop, the roar of noise filling my head and shutting out thought, and that was all that mattered.

  The lights of Austin faded behind me, the faint glow of the now departed sun in front, a thin, dying strip on the horizon. The dull edge of homesickness sharpened and sliced through, and I gripped the wheel tighter.

  I hated how it rose at the most inopportune times. Like now. I was in the car, the car was pointing in the right direction. I had my wallet and my phone. I could just keep going. I wasn’t ready. While most of the whispers and covert looks had melted away after a year, I still felt everyone’s eyes on me in the grocery store, or when I walked around the neighborhood. And until I made my peace, I couldn’t go back.

  A dirt road veered off the edge of the highway, running between some wire fencing. No gate blocked the road, so I pulled onto it and bounced away from the highway, from the lonely cars and the noise.

  I climbed out of the car and boosted myself onto the hood, hissing as the heated metal stung my hands. Should have let it cool off some. I didn’t feel like lying in the grass, though, so the car hood it was.

  Trevor had left my apartment early in the morning, muttering about my awful mattress. I hadn’t heard from him all day, and I couldn’t decide if I was grateful or disappointed. Both, I supposed. I could let my neuroses off the leash for a while when he wasn’t around, but the sad thing was, he was fast becoming the dam that held them in check.

  That quiet strength, the solid shoulder to rest my head on…I’d needed them far more than I’d thought. Both things I’d gotten in Bend from a few corners, yet his was the one that penetrated. I didn’t want to think about why that was, or what would happen when I moved on.

  Because I would. And he’d stay here, his strength and shoulder available for the next person who needed them.

  My phone rang, buzzing angrily against my hip, and I squirmed around, working it out of my back pocket. I squinted at the read out. Trevor. “Hello?”

  “Hey. You make it home all right?”

  He would ask. The little I knew of Trevor had shown me he was a rare man among men; he cared and he wasn’t afraid to let you know.

  “I glanced around. The grass hid the creatures rustling the stalks from prying eyes, leaving the landscape a gentle rolling one, full of stars and dust and heat. The hood of my car burned through my jeans, and I shifted in discomfort. “Honestly? I have no idea where I am. I just got in the car and drove. I’m in a field. There was a fence, but no gate. Probably trespassing or something. Are there ranches or anything out here?” From what I knew of Texas, they didn’t do a lot of farming. Not enough water.

  Trevor’s laugh soothed some of the nerves jumping under my skin. “Long as you don’t go anywhere near their precious cattle, you’ll be fine. What do you see?”

  A thick blanket of night. The stars weren’t as close as they were just outside of Bend, but I still felt if I put up a ladder I might be able to reach them. “I’d forgotten what they’d looked like. The stars. Bend’s a pretty good sized town, but you don’t have to travel far to get away from the lights. The stars are so close you think if you stretch just far enough you can touch them.”

  “Can’t remember the last time I got out of the city at night like that.”

  I wish you were out here with me. I pushed the th
ought away. It was like a snuggly security blanket—comforting, warm, but sometimes you had to go without, see if you could survive. His voice in my ear was enough. “You should try it some time.”

  I squirmed a little, relieving the sting on my ass. I should have put a blanket down first. The gap where the hood met the windshield dug into my lower back. “What did you do all day?” I asked.

  “Picked up a few hours on a landscape crew. Caught some of the game. How was your shift?”

  The stars seemed closer now, bearing down, pressing into me. “Busy. My feet are numb, back’s sore. Tommy ended up burning a whole batch of burgers about halfway through dinner service, and it threw everything off. People were rowdy as hell tonight.” Running back and forth, placating diners when their food took longer than they thought it should, trying to keep orders straight, had helped hold back the demons for most of the night.

  Then I’d gotten in the car, picked a direction, and went, clinging to the blankness in my brain. “Talk to me. I’m tired enough I could fall asleep.”

  “Shit, McKenna, don’t tell me something like that.”

  I blinked up at the sky. “Sorry.” My body hadn’t been able to get past the desperate need for space. “I can always sleep in my car. I doubt the rancher will mind.”

  “Guess I’ll have to work extra hard on this conversation then, keep you entertained.”

  “Guess so.” The heat didn’t feel as suffocating out here. It was a caress, the soft touch, floating over my skin. “Go ahead. Dazzle me with your conversational skills.”

  He was quiet for a moment, the silence filled with the sounds of night bugs and the occasional rustle of grass. “You remember last night, you asked me if I’d done this before?”

  I stilled. I’d asked for conversation. I didn’t think he’d go there. “Yeah?” Curiosity was scaling the walls, peeking over the top, trying to decide if the drop was worth the risk.

  There was no sound coming from the other end of the connection. I pulled the phone away from my ear. The call hadn’t dropped; he hadn’t hung up. I brought it back and waited. He could tell me as much or as little as he wanted. Or nothing at all. What he had to say wasn’t vital to my existence. All I wanted was his promise he’d let me fall, if that’s what I had to do.

  I wasn’t going to. Not tonight.

  “I met Molly when we were fourteen. There wasn’t anything wrong with either of us, not in the beginning. Working class families, enough food on the table, stable homes, that sort of shit. Good homes. Maybe mine more so than hers. She’d get in these moods sometimes, and she’d smoke a little weed, chain smoke half a pack of cigarettes, and not talk a lot for a few days. I’d let her lean on me. I’d make excuses for her, say I was strong enough for the both of us. If she got in trouble, I got her out of it; her parents loved me. By the time we were fifteen, she’d be downing most of a six-pack before the football game on Friday night. Started sneaking beers, rum at lunch, passed out drunk at parties on the weekends. Always said she’d stop, that she wanted to try for me, get better, and I believed her, because she would, for a while. It was…I don’t know what it was. She made me feel needed. Essential. And I got off on it. Kinda started to crave it, the way she craved her next high.

  “Sixteen, we broke up when I caught her snorting coke. Seventeen, she went to rehab, and I’m guessing when she got out her parents moved her to another school, ’cause I never saw her again. Made me take a good, hard look at myself and see what she’d done to me, and what I’d done to myself. Said I’d never let it happen again, and I’ve stayed true to that statement. Doesn’t mean I don’t slip up every so often.”

  What the hell was I supposed to say to that? It explained some of the things he did, though, the need to protect and care, the inherent sweetness in him, his frustration boiling over at certain points.

  “Well,” I said, picking my words with care, “I don’t have any drug problems, haven’t so much as smoked a joint in months. And aside from some ill-advised whiskey consumption, I don’t drink to excess. Can’t help you with the emotional and mental issues, though. Got those in spades.”

  He laughed, like I’d hoped he would, the sound trailing off, taking the surge of relief and happiness with it. “Gotta say, McKenna, you’re a piece of work some of the time, but you’re holding your shit together tighter than a lot of people would be in your situation.”

  The happy buzz was gone, skittering away like the insects in the grass. “Is that all I am right now? To you? Some broken woman you want to fix?”

  He laughed again, sharp and bitter, more a bark than anything else. “Fix? Fuckin’ A, could I fix you. You’re not fuckin’ broken. You’ve got cracks, a damn lot of them, but you’re not broken. Not all the way.” The harshness in his voice softened. “You’ve got shadows in your eyes, like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your back and you think you can’t put it down.”

  “And let me guess. You want to shoulder the burden for me.” I would give anything for this phone call to be over. It’s too soon to be having this sort of conversation. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to just hang up.

  “Nah. Just want to distract you every once in a while. Remind you it’s okay to smile. Possibly fuck you into oblivion on a regular basis.”

  “Whatever happened to not being a fuck toy?”

  “Changed my mind. You can toy with me as much as you like. Figure I win, too.”

  It felt good to laugh, on this day that had been torture for the last few years. “I’ll see what I can do.” Tempting, incredibly tempting, to ask if he wanted to see me tonight. To let our bodies tangle in a sweaty, complex mess, until we were Vishnu’s relative, multi-limbed, sprawled across bunched sheets. “I should probably get home.”

  The night insects filled the growing silence. Was he debating the same thing? Ask me to come to him? Feel our skin sticking together, chase the salt around our flesh? “You wanna come here tonight?”

  Would it make me weaker if I did? I’d been alone all day, trapped inside my head, even in the diner, dealing with customer after customer, Tommy ripping people’s heads off after the burger incident. And that keen edge of homesickness was cutting deeper than ever. “Yeah,” I whispered.

  That was that. That was all she wrote. We hung up, I got back in my car, and drove toward the bright lights of Austin.

  I got lost. I’d intended to backtrack to the diner and find my way from there, and it sort of worked. It took me a while to find the diner, and I stopped my car in the middle of the road, staring at it. The single light left on, in the hallway near the kitchen, so the morning shift wouldn’t have to completely stumble through the dark. The chair legs poking up, all fuzzy edged in the shadows.

  The lone figure, studying the front door from the corner.

  I didn’t stick around long enough to find out if it was Adam or someone else, trying to decide if it was worth it to bust through the window to find the safe in the office. I pulled out my phone and dialed Gwen.

  She answered on the third ring, her voice husky from interrupted sleep. “You better have a good reason for callin’ this late.”

  “I’m sorry, Gwen, but I drove past the diner just a few minutes ago and there was a guy staring at the front door like he thought if he looked at it long enough it would open with a magic word and a wave of his hand.”

  She barked out a laugh. “That’s all? Hon, we get people casin’ the place two, three times a week. It’s the neighborhood. Since no one’s broken in in ten years, I figure someone around there’s talking them out of it. I took the deposit to the bank tonight, anyway, so there’s no cash lyin’ around. Thanks for the heads up. Go on home now.”

  Feeling stupid, I drove the last few blocks to my apartment and found a spot near the building. I scanned the parking lot before I got out, squinting into the darkness. This place really did suck ass. Lights shot out, trash all over the place. A far cry from the tidy house I’d rented in Bend. Even the apartments I’d had through college and grad s
chool hadn’t been this bad.

  Once inside my apartment, I grabbed a change of clothes and my toothbrush, stomach tight with anticipation. I hadn’t had an intentional sleepover since Scott. I wasn’t sure I’d remember the rules.

  I worried my upper lip the entire drive to Trevor’s place. Tonight was a shift, a step in a different direction. This wasn’t mutual usage anymore, if it ever had been.

  I dug out my lip balm and slicked it on, soothing the bite. Fingers tight on the handle of my bag, I climbed the steps. I’d been here a few nights ago. It was the same, and it was different.

  “I’m a total idiot,” I blurted when he opened the door.

  He reached for my bag. “I doubt that. Come on in. There’s a beer with your name on it.” He took my hand in his free one, drawing me inside, kicking the door shut behind us. “Go on and sit down.”

  Simple acceptance. Just go on in and sit on down, have a beer. Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away and wandered over to the couch, smiling when Trevor came in, holding a bottle of beer.

  He handed me the bottle and sat, slinging his arm across the back of the couch. I scooted closer and dropped my head onto his shoulder, suppressing a shiver of contentment. “Burned dinners, huh?” he asked.

  I took a sip of beer. “Yeah.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I held my wrist up to the light. The bruising was mostly gone. I hadn’t seen Adam since the night in the bar. Given how big the city was, the chances were slim I’d run into him again.

  Though I’d somehow managed to run into him at all. How did he know I was here? Hell, did he even know? Maybe it was a coincidence. Happenstance. I hadn’t been in touch with anyone from Bend. I ignored the worried emails and phone calls from my parents, and those had mostly gone away after I’d broken down and called my mother on the way to St. Louis. At the time, I didn’t know how far I’d go, so it seemed safe.

  I probably ought to call her again, or send an email. And I will. After work.