by Amelia Gates
I dug the heels of my hands into my thighs a little harder. Ten years!!! Ten days would be too long to deal with this crap. I wanted to rip that superior smirk off his face and shove it up his ass.
“I see you’re processing this. Good. I want a drug test done today, the office is right next door. It’ll cost you $35. I expect you have it?”
“Sure. It’s my food money for next week, but what model citizen needs to eat, right?”
The pleasure on his face made me sick. “Good. We’re finished here. Be back Friday. Eight o’clock seemed to be a little difficult for you—better make it 7:30 next week.”
“7:30. Got it. I’ll be here.”
“We’ll see. Here’s your test slip. We’re done here.”
He spun his chair around to face the bare wall. Freaking drama queen.
I didn’t bother to say anything as I left—it would have just given him an opening to spin dramatically back around stroking a white cat or something. That was one thing comic books always got wrong—the super villains weren’t the criminals. They weren’t thieves or thugs or maniacal lawbreakers. No, the masterminds and super villains in the real world went the other way; they made the law.
They enforced the law.
They got off on the power of it.
After pissing for the man, I went to the library. I had applications to check on and my data was throttled until I could pay the bill. The motel had free wi-fi, but I wasn’t ready to go back there just yet. Leroy would expect me to get right to work, and I couldn’t afford to spend time screwing around. Besides, Daisy was at the library. I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to see her.
Plus I should probably tell her that I was stuck here for the foreseeable future. Not that her future was necessarily entangled with mine—I’d still help her get out of town if I could—but I figured she should probably know what to expect from me.
The library had that dusty, yet somehow clean, smell that every library I’d ever been in shared. Even in prison, the library smelled that way. I assumed it was the books themselves, but I’d never held a book which smelled that particular way all on its own. I scanned the main room for Daisy and found her helping a patron with a computer.
“There, now all you need to do is create a password.”
“What’s the password?” The old man asked irritably.
“It’s whatever you want it to be, as long as it’s eight characters long, with at least one uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and a number.”
“That’s only three characters,” he complained.
“Yes. You have to have at least one of each, but not just one of each. I mean, it has to be eight characters long, and three of those characters have to meet those other requirements.”
“This is too confusing. 12345678. There. That’s my password.”
I watched her face, amused. She was surprisingly patient—probably came from all those years she spent dealing with her asshole dad.
“Okay, good start. Now it needs an uppercase letter.”
He pushed a button. “There.”
“That was lower case, but that’s fine, you needed that too. Now choose an uppercase letter.”
“Uppercase, lower case! Just say capital and regular!”
“Sure! You have a regular letter, now you need a capital letter.”
“A capital at the end of the password? That’s a grammatical error! You’re a librarian, you should know this. Don’t you read?”
She smiled at him, somehow managing to keep her frustration at bay. “Which letter would you like?”
“M.”
“Okay, go ahead and type it. Good, now type the whole thing again right here.”
“Again?! Why do I have to do that?”
Creases formed at the corners of her eyes as she pressed her lips together, still trying to reel in her impatience, but not doing such a fine job at it now. “It’s so the computer knows that you typed the password you intended to type.”
“Of course I did, I wouldn’t type something I didn’t mean to! I’m not an idiot!”
“Of course you aren’t, Mr. Johnson. But since idiots do have computer access, they have to make allowances.”
I snorted. She said that with a straight face. I was impressed. Apparently her lying skills had grown significantly over the last few years.
The cranky Mr. Johnson smiled up at her, proving that he didn’t catch the innuendo and hadn’t a hint it was him she was calling an idiot.
Nodding, he looked a tad more satisfied. “There. Now what?”
“Now click submit.” He did as told, jamming his finger hard on the mouse. “Okay, good!” Daisy exclaimed. “You’re ready to log in.”
“But I just did that!” And there she was, being thrown right back into the pit of ‘when the hell will this ever end?’
“You created your login information,” she said slowly like she was talking to someone who was hard of hearing, making sure her lips could be read loud and clear. “Now you have to type it in on this screen.”
“Three times! You didn’t tell me I’d have to type that in three times! You think I remembered what I put down? Nobody told me I’d have to remember that password!”
She ran her fingers over her brow. “That’s what passwords are for, Mr. Johnson. You’re supposed to remember them or write them down somewhere only you will find them so you can always access your accounts. It’s okay, I remembered for you. Type in your email address there. The whole thing, please.”
“It should know the rest! It’s standard!”
“It’s stupid, remember? You have to tell it every single thing.”
“Oh, fine. There. Now what’s my password?”
“12345678, regular b, capital M.”
“BM?! What are you suggesting?!”
She ground her teeth and reached over him to click the mouse. “There! You’re logged in. Now, I have to go do some re-shelving, so if you need any more help, Christine is at the desk.”
I caught her gaze as she looked up and she rolled her eyes at me. I grinned, then nodded toward the mystery section—the most secluded portion of the main library. Daisy frowned, then glanced at a cart full of books and raised her eyebrows. Understood. Not missing a beat, I meandered over to the cart with a casual swagger and glanced over the titles. Self-help junk. That section wasn’t quite as secluded, but it was good enough. I walked toward the area Daisy indicated and pretended to be interested in Manifesting Real Property.
“Planning to buy a house?” she murmured in my ear as she approached, pushing the cart.
Yeah, right. If Breaker had his way, I wouldn’t be buying a damn thing for the next ten years. But I smiled at her and shrugged. “Maybe. Do you want one?”
She beamed at me as she slid a book onto the shelf. “Only if you live there with me,” she said lightly. “Where should we go? Kansas is cheap. Missouri? I’ve only driven through it once, but all I remember of it is green, like an overflowing garden everywhere. Nevada’s wild and empty. Oh, and I heard Montana started paying people to live there!”
It was almost painful to smile. I didn’t want her to stop talking. I loved the way her eyes lit up with hope, and I didn’t want to be the one to crush it. “What about California or New York? I seem to remember you being fascinated by the idea of living in a big city.”
She made a face. “That was before my dad took us to Austin for a work thing. It was awful, all freeways and boulevards with insanely high speed limits—45 in a residential area! And there was no end to it. There was Austin proper, but then it just spread and spread for hours in all directions and there were people everywhere all the time, and traffic never stopped—ever—it was like the city itself was in a hurry all the time. I was exhausted after three days.”
I nodded. “Understood, small towns it is.”
This could be good. If she’d already decided on a small town it wouldn’t take much to convince her that staying here wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“Small or small-ish. It has to have a school for me—I want to be a full-fledged librarian, and that takes a degree. Oh, and big enough for a YMCA. I mean, I do want to have kids at some point in my life, and I’d very much like them to be able to have swimming lessons and karate and stuff without risking the wild water or paying an arm and a leg to a private tutor.”
I tried to smile but it was more of a grimace. “Kids, huh?”
She grinned at me wickedly. “Eventually. And who said you had to father them, anyway?”
I tickled her, punishing her for teasing me. She yelped once, then clapped a hand over her mouth and glared. “I am at work, sir!”
“Yes, you are. Be professional, Daisy.” I flinched like I was going to tickle her again and she squeaked in her throat. This felt so easy. Way too easy and way too familiar. So much so that it was almost heartbreaking. I didn’t let her see any of that on my face, though.
“Sorry, sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
“Mm-hm. You better be.” Her eyes twinkled and her lips twisted with suppressed amusement. “At least for now. You know what the best part of moving out is going to be?”
“What?” My heart sank, but I kept the feeling off my face. Again, I wasn’t going to be the one to shoot down the dreams she was building up in her head. Not now. Not while she was at work.
Sidling over to me, Daisy lowered her voice to a sound barely above a sigh. “Being with you in an actual bed. You know… I don’t think we’ve ever done that?”
“Where’s the excitement in that?” I wrapped an arm around her and nuzzled her head. “It’s always more fun if you risk getting caught.”
She giggled and shoved me lightly away. “Not at work, Kash!”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But…I was serious about it being more fun if you risk getting caught.”
She shook her head and flicked a warning gaze in my direction before sliding another book onto the shelf. That dreamy look was back in her eye again. “Where would you like to live?” she asked.
Anywhere, as long as you’re there. But what I said was, “I don’t know. I kind of like it here.”
It was a damn lie and she knew it. She narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. “What’s going on, Kash?”
I kissed her quickly, tasting her lips like they were the last meal I’d ever have on this earth, slow and deliberate. When Daisy pulled back she was completely out of breath and pretty damn close to panting. “Nothing’s going on,” I told her. “Just looking at all my options. Speaking of which, can you help me get logged in on a computer? I promise I know what ‘lowercase’ means.”
She laughed, and I was thankful. She was easy enough to distract. Well, from some things. If I told her about the stipulations I’d learned about from my PO, she’d be brooding on the problem until it had passed or was solved. I didn’t want to be the kinda guy who walked back into her life just to lay more problems than necessary at her feet.
She walked us over to a free computer and took a lot less time getting me signed up than she did with Mr. Johnson. She was so professional about the whole thing too. It struck me then that I’d been doing an absolute shit job sneaking around with her, screwing her in the truck like a damn teenager and here she was, all grown up. She’d done it without me, and I without her. We were different people now than we had been before. Holding on to the same reckless dream seemed insane. Getting out of this town wouldn’t solve anything. We would have to live with ourselves wherever we went, carrying our losses and vices with us.
Maybe it was good that I was stuck here. It would force us to face the ghosts and skeletons of our pasts and overcome them together. Daisy would have to learn to stand up to her father. I would have to learn to get along with people who hated me. It would be good for everybody, right? Character building and whatever.
I twitched irritably in my chair but suppressed the part of my mind which was rebelling against my newfound perspective. I checked the status of my applications but got nowhere. Either I was at the bottom of a stack of applicants, or the hiring manager had seen my name and tossed the application out of hand. I wouldn’t blame them, not with all the bad press I’d been getting.
I scribbled a note for Daisy and folded it up, writing her name on the outside in big bold letters before tucking it between two rows of keys on the keyboard. There were ways to give her what she deserved, but I would need longer than the occasional stolen afternoon. It was time to implement part two of my plan.
Chapter 14
Afternoons are over. The father is convinced of your piety. Look to your window when the beast has succumbed to the sleeping call of vices. The next step awaits.
I’d read Kash’s note three times. At first, I was just confused, then mildly annoyed, then highly amused. Leave it to him to write an unintelligible poem rather than just tell me to sneak out tonight after my dad passed out. I shook my head at the note and chuckled.
“Good lord, Kash. The entire world is a stage, I guess?”
Honestly it was a relief. Squeezing time with Kash into my afternoons had dramatically impacted my schedule. I still had responsibilities at home, and between the chores and the grocery runs and beer runs and spending time with Kash I’d been running myself ragged. Sneaking out after curfew would free up my time immensely.
Besides, he was right. It had been days since Dad had even bothered to check on me at night, and the way he reacted the night before told me that he’d gotten over whatever it was that was bothering him before. Now as long as I could still fit through my window…
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered to myself as I locked the library. “It’s not like I’ve gained any real weight since high school, and I’m still mostly limber.” I rubbed the ache in my back, left there from the awkward way we’d fallen asleep in his truck. “Mostly.”
Excited anticipation spiced up my mood for the rest of the day. Kash had something planned, obviously, but what? I admit I was hoping for a hotel room down the road in Asheville. I’d been having all kinds of fantasies of having a real, grown-up romance with him, somewhere far away from my Dad’s sphere of influence. Far, far away.
That night I put my robe on over my clothes and climbed into bed to read the way I always did. As I’d expected, Dad didn’t bother to check on me. I waited until his drunken snores vibrated the trailer’s thin walls, then I left my robe on my bed and crept to the window. It opened silently—a feature left over from high school, when Kash and Hunter had oiled the thing within an inch of its life. I felt the same rush now that I had then, that spark of life which comes from grasping at a freedom which had been unfairly denied.
I wriggled through just fine and landed silently in the soft earth below my window but lost my balance and nearly fell against the trailer. Strong hands caught my wrists before I could thump against the trailer and I was yanked forward into Kash’s broad chest. I breathed him in, getting lost in the scent of my past and possibly my future.
“Come on,” he whispered into my hair. “Truck’s parked on Main.”
We snuck through the woods, avoiding the living room window. We probably didn’t need to, the glare would have rendered us invisible from my father’s eyes, but there was no sense in risking it. My heart thundered with delicious adrenaline, heightened by the briefest kiss of anxiety. Giggling breathlessly, clinging to his hand, chasing him through the forest, I felt like I was eighteen years old all over again.
“Made it!” He spun me around to face him and pressed my back against the waiting truck, lifting me to my toes for a deep, searching kiss. Already hot, I rippled my body against his and dragged my nails through his hair. How the hell I’d managed to live without him for so long, I haven’t a clue.
“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered huskily.
“Hell yes.” He smacked a kiss on my nose and slapped my ass, propelling me toward the passenger door.
I expected him to head for the freeway, but instead he drove straight
down the gravel extension of Main Street, out into the wild nothing beyond.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You remember when we were kids, how Hunter and I used to go exploring all the time?”
“Yeah, and you left me at home because I was a ‘little girl’ who ‘couldn’t handle man stuff’?” My air quotes were as heavy as my remembered annoyance.
He grinned. “I figured you’d remember. Well, I wanted to make it up to you. Where to first? Haunted B&B? Distressed drainage ditch? The old train bridge?”
I chuckled wickedly. “Depends. Did you bring spray paint?”
He laughed. “I’m trying to be good, remember?”
“So—yes?”
“No!”
“Aw. Okay, haunted B&B.”
“You got it.”
I giggled. “It better be real freaking haunted after all this build-up, Kash. I’ve been wanting to find it for years, but I had no idea where to look.”
“I think that’s why it’s abandoned,” he said. “Thing’s impossible to find from any main road.”
We crept slowly through patches of forest and swatches of sand, leaving the roads behind in favor of tire tracks. Sudden dips and bits of exposed rock made it an adventure, and his skill behind the wheel made it a fun one instead of a terrifying one.
Eventually we made it back to the pavement.
“Couldn’t we have gotten here by main roads?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “This isn’t a main road, it’s an access road to the water tower. There’s a security gate down that way and a dead end this way.”
I shook my head. “Hell of a place for a bed and breakfast.”
He scoffed. “Right?”
The shabby mini mansion sat at the top of a long, winding, overgrown driveway which branched off of the access road at an unexpected angle. It was gorgeous, even with all the windows broken and the roof falling in.