by Leddy Harper
If only I’d met him at a different time, under different circumstances. When I wasn’t running from anything, or constantly checking over my shoulder for fear someone was behind me. A time when I could’ve jumped in his car and taken off without a care in the world other than what crappy motel we’d stop at next.
There wasn’t anything to say, so instead, I climbed off the bed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. As much as I hated the idea of getting back on the road, I couldn’t help the excitement of being trapped next to him for hours on end.
Before I finished, I grabbed the bottle of Axe and sprayed it on the front of his hoodie. I’d never be able to smell this scent again without thinking of the man with the deep, gravelly voice who drove up in his getaway car to save me.
We wandered around Walmart for at least fifteen minutes. Talon didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, and as much as I couldn’t wait to get to New Orleans, I couldn’t deny how normal it felt to walk around a store with him. Also, checking out all the stupid things people bought helped feed my fantasy of us being more than strangers.
When we came to the section of lingerie, his body turned rigid, only slightly relaxing when I bypassed it for the rack of pre-packaged undergarments. I could wear the same clothes for several days if necessary, but a girl needed new panties. Currently, I wasn’t wearing any, because I couldn’t bring myself to pull on a dirty pair after my shower last night.
“Which one should I get?” I asked, holding up two different packs.
Talon cleared his throat and ran his hand along the nape of his neck. “Is there a difference?”
“Yeah, one has six pairs and the other has ten.”
“How many do you need?”
“I’m not sure how long it’ll take us to get to Florida…your guess is as good as mine.”
“Well, you technically have one already if you count the pair you’re wearing.” He must’ve caught something on my face because he bent over the cart and muttered, “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna fucking kill me.”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. Get the bigger package.” He rolled his wrist in a dismissive wave without looking in my direction. “If you say you need a bra, I’ll just wait in the car.”
Part of me tried to believe that was a compliment, though I wasn’t so sure. It could’ve very well been a show of his irritation over shopping with a woman. I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t on my period. I didn’t care to see how he’d react if I had to grab tampons.
“No, I think I’m good there.” I tossed the package of ten into the cart and stopped in front of the socks. Figuring he’d still be nursing his red face from the underwear aisle, I grabbed the first bag I saw and threw it in as well. “What else?”
Still leaning over, he studied the items in the basket as if taking inventory. “You’ve got sweatpants, T-shirts, socks, and…underwear. A brush, hair shit, deodorant.” He finally looked at me. “Hell if I know what females need.”
“Should we get stuff to eat in the car? Like chips or something?”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Good thinking.”
By the time we walked out of the store, we’d been in there for almost an hour. Talon ended up convincing me to get another pair of jeans—ones he’d picked out. I didn’t argue, despite his choice of the baggier style. Even though we were traveling to warmer weather, he was worried that with parts of my skin exposed through the rips in the denim, I’d be cold.
And as if we hadn’t already wasted enough time in Walmart, when we got out to the car, one of the tires was flat. I began to wonder if this was a sign that we shouldn’t leave this lost town.
While he worked at changing the tire, I stood back and admired the scene in front of me. Talon had taken off his shirt, and I wasn’t sure if it was because the sun was too hot or if that was just how he was used to working on cars. Either way, it made me contemplate going around to the other three tires and popping those, too.
Ink lined his upper back, from one shoulder to the other, in a detailed tribal piece he more than likely got when he was eighteen. One of those trendy pieces you select as soon as you’re legal. If he could see it more often, he’d probably regret it. Regardless, I thought it was sexy as hell. Along his left side, he had a joker that stretched from just below his armpit to his hip. It smiled, but the one on his right side, which was mostly identical to the other, frowned. And it seemed his arms were a hodgepodge of random art and words intricately woven together, yet his right side appeared to have more than the left.
He glanced up and caught me staring. I wiped my chin, praying I hadn’t also been drooling.
“What kind of car is this?” It was my lame attempt to pretend I hadn’t been staring at his perfect body.
Last night, it looked black, yet under the light of day, it was the most brilliant blue I’d ever seen. Running down the center of the hood and trunk were two white stripes, giving it the appearance of being meant for racing.
“It’s a four-four-two. Olds. Nineteen sixty-nine.”
I shouldn’t have asked, because that didn’t mean anything to me. “Are you like one of those guys from Fast and Furious? Drive souped-up cars and race for money?”
His shoulders shook, depicting laughter even though I couldn’t see his face. “No. I work on cars—that’s it. I’m not into hotrods and don’t get a hard-on for muscle cars. I only have this one because it was Tony’s.”
“Did he give it to you? Or did you just claim it after he died?”
He shoved the old tire into the trunk and turned my way. “He left it to me. Don’t worry, Maggie…I didn’t steal it.”
I watched as he loaded the shopping bags into the trunk, leaving the ones with food for the back seat. The way his muscles shifted with every move he made nearly hypnotized me. I’d seen plenty of hot guys in town, but none came close to him.
“I didn’t think you did,” I said when he held the passenger door open for me to get in. He did this whenever we got in the car, and I swooned every single time. “I was just curious. You said he had the car to work on with the guys, so I was just wondering why he’d leave it to you instead of someone else.”
“I guess I was his favorite.” He added a smug grin before closing the door.
The car shook a few seconds later when he slammed the trunk, and then he climbed into the driver’s seat with a new T-shirt in his hand. I felt a little brazen, especially after his comment in the underwear section, so I said, “You don’t have to put that on. I was enjoying the view.”
Either a low growl rumbled through his chest, or the three slices of pizza he’d eaten in the store didn’t fill him up. He slipped the cotton over his head and started the engine. And without a single glance in my direction, he stifled my boldness with one simple, husky demand. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“Sorry. I was just teasing.” I swallowed back a rush of emotional rejection. God, I needed more sleep. There was no reason why his comment should’ve put me on the edge of tears.
Just before pulling out of the parking lot, he came to a stop and faced me, though I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze. “Listen, Maggie…I told you I’d take you wherever you needed to go, but we can’t entertain the idea of making this more than what it is. You’re young, so maybe you don’t realize the big picture here. A few teasing remarks become flirting, and then it’s sexual innuendos. Before we know it, we’ll be fucking, and then I’ll drop you off at your grandfather’s house and leave. You don’t seem to be that kind of girl.”
“It’s fine. I get it.” I balled my hands into fists to keep him from seeing how his words, his tone, his dismissal affected me. I’d only known him a day, but my insides shook, and clenching my jaw was the only way to prevent the tears from forming.
We couldn’t have made it more than a mile down the road before I lost control of my temper. I broke the uncomfortable silence without a care in the world over how he’d react to my out
rage. “So, how’s this supposed to go then, Talon? If we can’t joke around and have fun, are we just gonna spend hours upon hours in a car together without saying one word to each other?”
The asshole laughed. He ran his hand over his mouth as if he could wipe away his smile, but it didn’t do anything to hide the humor bouncing in his chest. “We talked plenty last night, didn’t we? And again this morning, and while shopping and fixing the flat.”
“Basically, you’re saying I can’t make comments about seeing you shirtless…yet you can say things about a package of underwear.” I didn’t even bother to hide the irritation from my tone.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Well, I did.”
“Okay, then I guess we’re even. Right? I said something…you said something. We can move on now.” He swung his head in my direction and eradicated my anger in one, very dramatic, toothy smile. His brows jumped while he pinned me with his charming stare, and then he returned his focus to the traffic ahead of us. “We can talk about all kinds of stuff. Like…are you in school? Or, I mean, were you?”
Yeah, that was exactly what I wanted to talk about—reminders of how young he thought I was. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d meant high school. “I signed up for classes at the community college, which I guess ended up being a waste. Nothing like going for a few weeks and then running away.”
“What classes were you taking?”
And just like that, we fell back into a normal conversation. Without discussing anything too personal, I learned he’d never gone to college and had only graduated from high school because of Tony—who had been more of a father to Talon than a boss. I told him about my friends, and how they all went to Iowa State. That had been my dream, too. Unfortunately, things didn’t always work out the way I planned.
“How far away are we from NOLA?” He pointed to his cell, which I’d held in my lap since shortly after leaving Walmart. Oddly enough, he’d trusted me with the passcode to unlock it—which was more than likely so I could help with directions.
“It says we’re a little more than thirteen hours away.”
He huffed, scrubbed his face, and lifted his sunglasses to rub his eyes. “I was trying to get seven hours in today, but I’m exhausted.”
“Did you need me to drive?”
“This is a four-speed manual. Have you even driven one before?”
I stared at the shifter and tried really hard to hide my confusion. “I, um…I’ve driven a stick before. Is there a difference?”
He smiled and licked his lips—apparently, “flirting” only went as far as words in his book. “Let’s find a place to stay first, and then we’ll take a few laps around an empty parking lot if we see one.”
Talon finished bringing in the blankets and pillows from the car and set them on the bed.
We’d driven another hour before finding a shithole to stay in, and then he took me to a side road and let me drive. Needless to say, he didn’t trust me on the highway with it. I could get it to go, and I could even switch gears, though he said I was a little rusty and would need more practice before he’d feel safe letting me take the wheel. And as the sky began to darken, he decided it was time to head back so we could get sleep and leave at a decent time in the morning.
“Would you like the shower first?” He hitched his thumb behind him toward the tiny, one-person shower stall positioned right next to the toilet.
“That’s okay. You can take it.” And as soon as he had the door closed and the water on, I reached for the drinks he’d stopped to purchase after my driving lesson. Inside the grey, plastic bag was a twenty-ounce, room-temp bottle of Coke and a small thing of Jack Daniel’s.
I’d never had any alcohol before, and for some reason, I rationalized that this would be the perfect time to try it. My anxiety had begun to build. The only time it didn’t affect me was when Talon was around. With him in the other room and the door closed, my chest grew tighter and the razor-sharp claws of fear began to dig into the skin around my throat. Between Talon finding the money, me telling him what had happened last night, and then his rejection earlier in the car…I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. All I wanted was to drink enough to make me tired so I could sleep it off and wake up to a new day. So we could get on the road again and put more miles between us and them.
I twisted off the top of the liquor and took a sip…and then nearly spit it out. My entire mouth was on fire, and when I swallowed it, the liquid burned my esophagus all the way down to my stomach. It instantly warmed me, and that’s when I decided to pull the bottle to my lips again. When the heat became too much, I opened the Coke and used it as a chaser.
Not a good idea.
It might not have been as bad had the soda been cold. But it wasn’t. The warm Coke only made me drink more of the Jack, which forced me back to the carbonated beverage. It was an endless cycle. I wasn’t sure why anyone would choose to drink this stuff.
Then again…I wasn’t in any hurry to put it away.
As I continued to sip the two, back and forth with intermittent bouts of wiping my mouth and burping, I thought about Talon’s life before last night. If he weren’t with me, I wondered where he’d be, who he’d be with—no doubt drinking Jack and piss-warm soda.
With an image in my head of a blonde wearing skin-tight jeans and a tiny top, her fake boobs spilling out, I drank more. I imagined her with Talon, maybe at a pool hall, possibly throwing darts, each with a drink in their hands. And the more I stared at the plain wall across the room, dazed by the alcohol fogging my mind, I pictured the way he’d touch her. She’d probably purr or hum when his lips settled on hers, his tongue dipping into her mouth. And then, in my perverse imagination, he’d call her sweetheart.
I took one more hearty swig, nearly choking on it. The heat no longer got to me, but the longer I held it in my mouth without swallowing, the queasier my stomach became. So I got down as much as I could and then chased the rest with soda.
The water in the bathroom shut off, and for some reason, I panicked. I doubted Talon would be pissed if he found me on the bed, drinking his liquor. There was still plenty left for him—actually, there was less remaining in the bottle than I thought. But that didn’t stop the tremors from seizing my body, making my hands shake as I desperately fought to get the screw tops back on. And when the bathroom door opened, I nonchalantly—or rather, very obviously—stashed the bottles behind me.
Talon stalked out in sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt, barefoot, hair still wet. He was magnificent. Like a tree I could climb. I wanted to swing from his branches and relax in his shade. When I began to imagine reading a book while lying beneath him, I realized how ridiculous that was and couldn’t stop laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about something.”
“Care to share? From the way you’re laughing, it sounds hysterical.”
Out of nowhere, hiccups attacked my diaphragm and I couldn’t catch my breath. I clutched my stomach, feeling another burp building. Except…it wasn’t a burp at all. I slapped my hand over my mouth and stumbled off the bed toward the toilet, only to hear, “What the hell, Maggie?” come from somewhere in the room.
By some small miracle, I made it to the toilet in time. Throwing up was embarrassing enough—I didn’t even want to think about how mortified I’d be if I’d lost my cookies on the floor in front of him.
Talon
When she started giggling, I contemplated jumping back in the shower. This had to have been the worst idea I’d ever come up with. After shopping for underwear, I thought long and hard about dropping her off at an airport. Actually, had she bought real panties, the ones with lace—or worse, thongs—she would’ve been thousands of feet in the air by now. And when she made that comment about seeing me shirtless, I had to put a stop to it before I did something stupid.
I didn’t trust myself.
And she deserved better.
Luckily, I’d man
aged to set some boundaries with her. It might’ve hurt her feelings for a few minutes, yet when this trip was over, she’d thank me. It didn’t take a genius to tell she wasn’t the type of girl who could spend the night with a guy and then walk away. And with her running away from one bad situation, there was no way in hell I’d put her in another.
It was obvious why she was laughing as soon as I heard the first hiccup, and by the time my eyes landed on the opened bottle of Jack, she was on her way to the bathroom with her hands over her mouth. I wanted to be pissed—actually, I was—but the sound of her vomiting stifled the anger long enough to make sure she was okay.
“Sweetheart…” I kneeled next to her, pulled her light-brown hair away from her face, and held it at the nape of her neck with one hand while I rubbed circles on her back with the other. This wasn’t the first time I had to soothe someone who’d gotten sick after too much to drink. Then again, I hadn’t ever done this with someone who’d only had, at the most, a few shots.
When the retching stopped, I reached up and tugged on the handle to flush the toilet. She had her arms folded along the seat, shielding her face, and all I could think about was how dirty that toilet probably was.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get your face out of there. I’m sure it’s not very sanitary.”
“Don’t call me that.” Her weak voice echoed in the bowl, her throat closing around the hoarse words. When she sniffled, I worried she was crying, then I realized it was more than likely a runny nose from throwing up—the human body had a way of making us completely unattractive when we were sick.
“Okay…I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why she asked me not to use “sweetheart,” though if she told me not to, I wouldn’t. “But hey, listen, Maggie…we need to get you up. Are you feeling okay enough to lie down? Or do you think you’re gonna be sick again?”
“I’m fine. I just need a shower.” If misery had a distinct sound, it would be Maggie’s voice right now. “And since you think we’ll end up doing the naked tango if we joke around with each other, I’m sure you don’t want to be in here when I take off my clothes. Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable or anything.”