Текст книги "Stain"
Автор книги: Francette Phal
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Chapter 8
Aylee
What the heck am I doing? This isn’t me. This is the complete opposite of me. This is me taking my stalking to a whole new, completely psychotic level. These thoughts however seem to matter very little as I continue to pedal my way to Maddox’s house. The minute track practice finished, I stopped Noah to ask him for his home address only to learn that Maddox didn’t live with him.
“He lives in the housing projects in Trenton, near the old fire station on Fletcher. Apartment 5A. Why do you want to know?” he’d asked with a frown.
“We have a project for astronomy class and he’s my partner…”
He’d laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you, Aylee, but astronomy—school in general, is the last thing on Max’s mind. As you can probably tell, he’s not really focused on passing his classes, let alone working on a school project. Trust me, I think you’d be better off asking Mr. Solomon to give you another partner, or better yet, just do it alone.”
Another person discouraging me from pursuing this thing with Maddox should’ve been reason enough to have me turning around and heading back home, because clearly this is a bad idea. But despite my better judgment, I keep going. It’s nearing five o’clock when I finally arrive at his apartment building. The gravity of what I’m doing doesn’t fully settle on me until I park my bike a few feet away from the building teeming with occupants who stare at me with full knowledge that I don’t belong here. Ignoring the heavy weight of their stares is a huge task that has my hands trembling as I fasten my bike lock to the black pole of the Tow-Away Zone sign.
I head inside the building nearly gagging at the terrible smell that seems to stick to my taste buds. Shallow breaths make it tolerable, but barely. There’s so much noise coming from almost every door I pass. Arguing, pounding footsteps, and the muffled wails of a baby filter in from the paper-thin walls. When I finally get to apartment 5A, I’m suddenly overtaken with the overwhelming urge to flee. But my desire to see this through is so much stronger, it’s what drives me to raise a fisted hand ready to knock. Only there’s no need. The dark brown door has been left slightly open.
Deliberating on whether to go in or stay where I am to wait, I choose the former and push the door open a little further. Before proceeding inside, I give out a call. “Hello?” Tinged with nerves, it comes out too soft.
So I’m not surprised when there’s no answer. What does however take me off guard are the laboring breaths and heavy, guttural moans and grunts from inside that sound too much like a struggle. If it were anyone else, they would’ve probably gone in the opposite direction, clearly to avoid a possibly dangerous situation. I’m hurtling toward it without even a single thought to my own safety.
But I wish I did. I wish I’d taken a moment to consider my action. To listen more carefully and realize that the sounds could be something else. If I’d put more thought into it, I would’ve spared myself the scene I’m left to witness.
Maddox and two girls. They’re at a partial angle, but Maddox has his back facing the front entrance of where I’m currently rooted. He’s naked. In fact, they’re all naked. Except it’s on Maddox that my eyes lock on. Greedily, I take him in, feast on every inch of his fully-decorated, sinewy physique. There’s a massive tattoo of a geometric stag head on his back. It’s a breathtaking piece of work. Everything from the line work of the antlers running up his shoulder blades, to the shadowed details of the face, especially the eyes, is utterly astounding. Even the three simple black triangles that form the stag’s jawbone ending at the curve of his firm buttocks is something to behold.
“Oh, God, oh, God, right there…” That breathless voice forces me to pry my gaze away from Maddox’s beautiful back tattoo and take in the scene as a whole. “Fuck, so good…God, Max, harder…gonna come…” I can’t see the face of the one who’s talking because her head is thrust back in obvious pleasure. The second girl is between her parted legs, and while she’s on her hands and knees, Maddox has a firm grip on her hips as he furiously moves back and forth, his butt cheeks clenching with every forward thrust.
It’s lurid and obscene and way too much for me to witness. I know I should be getting out of here, turning and leaving as quietly as I came in before they notice me. I know all of this. I’m screaming it inside my head and yet I’m unable to pull myself away. Unsure of how long I stand there, I die a slow, mortifying death when they finish and turn to find me as their unwanted audience. I can’t even express how badly I want the floor to open up and drag me down. I’d be willing. Right about now, even hell felt like a good place to be. I nearly swallow my tongue when he turns around. Not even the large, intricate tattoo of a Hindu deity covering his torso can keep my eyes from involuntarily trailing down…
His chuckle carries across the short distance of space; it’s a dry, mocking sound that makes me want to curl up and cease to exist.
“Enjoy the show?” There’s a slight lift of his left eyebrow as he keeps his sharp, gray eyes on me. Following the path of his hand, I turn my head away when he unabashedly pulls off the slick condom.
“Hey, don’t I know you?” the one who’d had her head thrust back asks with a smile while slipping on her panties. She looks familiar but I can’t recall her name.
“I think it’s Aylee, she’s Mallory’s friend,” the other girl replies, seated casually on the hardwood floor. “Wow, Max, how’d you convince her to be a part of the site? Whoa, are we having a foursome?”
“I don’t know, are we, Aylee?” he mocks, “are you going to join us, little stalker?”
He makes it sound so crude. “I…” I lick my lips nervously. “I’m not here for…that…”
“Then why the fuck are you here?”
Chapter 9
Maddox
It comes out harsher than I intend. But shit, I didn’t expect to see her here. I don’t shock too easily, but the fact that she’s actually standing in my rathole is fucking with my head. People like her don’t crawl down to these parts. Unless, of course, they’re looking to score. I look at her, standing there, nervously shifting her weight from one leg to the other and I can’t see it. What the fuck is she doing here?
“Uh…” The pink flush in her cheeks deepens and she scrunches her face in what I can only take on to be concentration. Searching for an answer to a simple question shouldn’t be this damned difficult.
There’s no evidence of a junkie. What she is, however, is the same scared little woodland creature that follows me around school with those otherworldly eyes. She thinks I haven’t noticed but I’ve seen her more times than she even knows. How could I not when every time I turn around there she is. Like now for example. I should be concerned that she’s taken her stalking this far but I’m more curious to find out what the hell she wants.
“Cat got your tongue?”
She frowns. “I’m sorry…I’m going to go…” And she turns to leave.
“Stay right where you are.” She stops like my words are the absolute law, and I find a perverse pleasure in that. “We’re done here, ladies.” I don’t look away from her when I say this, “I have your PayPal emails, expect a deposit in a week or two.”
Danielle and Alecia don’t linger. In and out, just how I like it. They know the drill by now. They waste my time, we don’t fuck again, and they don’t get paid. Pretty fucking simple. They dress quickly, grab whatever shit they came with, and after saying their good-byes find the nearest exit all with the proficiency of trained amateur porn stars.
“So, are you going to tell me why you’re here? Or are you just going to stand there and stare at my dick?” I ask at the click of the door closing. Heading over to the tripod, I turn off my camera and walk back to stand where I was, only a few feet away from her.
She huffs, and her plump bottom lip ends up curling between her porcelain-white teeth. “I’m not staring.” Her reply has bite and for some reason I find myself smirking at that. I laugh when her eyes flick down for a second and then back up again. “I’m not,” she states firmly with a glare.
I snort. “Right, keep telling yourself that.” Heading to the fridge, I open it to grab a bottle of beer. Fucking is thirsty work. Setting the ridged edge of the cap firmly against the edge of the counter top, I give one swift, forceful tap to pop it open. The cap ends up on the floor somewhere, while I bring the cold bottle to my mouth and down it. Some ends up dribbling down my chin and neck, and trickles a path down my chest.
“Forget touching, Aylee, I’ll let you lick it off.”
Her hands ball into fists at her sides as she ducks her head to hide the redness of her face. “Can you please put some pants on?”
“Why? I’m perfectly comfortable.” I push the issue only because it gives me a little high seeing her squirm.
She looks at me through a veil of thick lashes, and something in her mismatched eyes puts me on edge. “Please.”
I rake a hand through my hair. “Jesus, fine.” Annoyed, I search for my jeans and hop into them, purposely leaving the fly and button undone. She’ll fucking take what she gets. “If you’re going to cry, get the fuck out now.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Whatever. Why are you here?”
She fidgets for a moment before shrugging off the black straps of her backpack. Falling to a knee, she tugs the zipper open and rummages through it until she finds what she’s looking for. Leaving her backpack to slouch on the floor, she takes three steps toward me, not quite closing the distance between us but close enough that I can see the splatter of freckles across the bridge of her upturned nose. She’s a little skittish, a little hesitant when she wordlessly extends the thick stack of stapled papers in my direction.
I make no movement to take it. “What the fuck is it?” I snap, tired of her acting like I’m going to jump on her and rub my dick all over her face or some shit. Never mind that she’s the one intruding on my space here.
“It’s…astronomy…” she murmurs. When she clears her throat and swallows, my mind automatically goes to her drinking my load. Wrong, I know. But considering my upbringing, this is pretty mild thinking for me. Besides, she has nice lips. “Mr. Solomon wanted,” she begins, then shakes her blond head and sighs. “I wanted to bring you the homework from astronomy class. It’s actually a group project. We’re supposed to be working in pairs on it. I skimmed through it earlier and it’s essentially us trying to figure out how much light pollution there is in different locations in the sky and take pictures...” Her explanation sputters to a stop. Letting her hand drop to her side when I still don’t take the stapled stack of papers from her, she glances at me. “I feel really stupid right now.” A small, tight smile follows her softly-worded confession. It tugs at the corners of her too-pink mouth. “So, I’m going to go…I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Something niggles at my brain. It’s a nasty little beast with gnashing teeth and sharp claws. Claws that hook into brain matter, tugging at something long forgotten, buried beneath the filth. It feels suspiciously like a conscious.
“Huh?” I muse to myself. Didn’t know I could still feel guilty about anything anymore. But I look at her, Aylee-fucking-stalker-Bennett, and I feel like I just kicked a puppy in the face.
Finding the shirt I was wearing earlier, I bring it to my nose and take a sniff. Clean enough. Slipping it on, I ask, “You hungry?” I’m starving. While I look for my keys and pocket my wallet, I note the lost and confused look on her face. Can’t blame her considering my question came out of the blue. “Look, you can talk circles around me about this shit but I’m not going to be any help to you on an empty stomach. So you either come with me to grab a bite to eat or you get the fuck out and stay the hell away from me.”
“I’ll come.” She says it without the slightest hint of irony. Jesus.
I grin crookedly, “If only,” I say, under my breath, waiting for her to grab her bag before I close and lock the door behind me. Dro’s working at the storage unit he converted into a garage, tonight. Not sure when he’ll be home. He’ll probably end up crashing at Wynn’s place anyway since it’s closer to his work place.
She takes a short lead while I purposely linger a short step behind her. The view isn’t bad. She’s a little on the thin side; the dark gray skinny jeans wrapped around the lower part of her body only shows that she needs to eat more. She’s got a cute little curve to her ass, though. There’s a white camisole shirt beneath the dark red-and-black flannel she left unbuttoned. I’m not sure if she’s aware, but I could make out the outline of her white bra through the shirt earlier. Small breasts that fit her svelte frame. If I had to guess at her bra size, I’d put her somewhere in the lower B-cup range. The black Sperrys on her feet silence her footfalls as we make our way down the concrete staircase.
“How exactly did you get here?” I ask upon exiting the apartment building.
“I rode my—” Her expression goes from calm to distress in seconds. She jogs to the Tow Zone sign near the yellow fire hydrant and stops in front of it. When I catch up to her, she whips her head from one side of the street to the other and back again. Taking off to the left, she does a combination of speed walking and running down the sidewalk.
“Jesus, I don’t need this shit.” The son of God isn’t listening. He never has. With a curse, I set out after her. When I reach her, I grab her arm to stop her progression and whip her around. “Mind telling me what the fuck is up?”
She gives me that abused puppy look again. Wide, mismatched eyes gleaming with tears, brows furrowed, bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she worries it mercilessly until it’s plump and strawberry red from the blood pumping beneath. The visual sends my own blood rushing south, my dick twitching like it knows what’s up. I have to tear my eyes away from her mouth.
“My bike…it’s gone. I rode it here. I locked it right over there.” She points back to the sign a little ways back. “Now, it’s gone. I locked it, I know I locked it.”
I let go of her arm with a scoff, “Maybe you forgot where you are, but around here, the word ‘locked’ doesn’t mean shit.” Looking damn near pitiful, I say a little gentler, “Not sure if this makes you feel better, but my place has been robbed more times than I can count. Don’t take it personally. Think of it as the neighborhood welcoming you to the shittiest part of the city. Instead of a welcome basket, you get your shit taken.”
Her shoulders rise and fall with a long sigh. “I don’t know how I’m going to get home.”
“Maybe you can convince me to give you a ride, on a full stomach. Come on.”
Chapter 10
Aylee
My bike is gone. Not a great loss, but it was my favorite mode of transportation. With it I had an excuse not to rely on either Rachel or Tim for rides. It’d been my small piece of independence. A small taste of the freedom I could one day get. One day soon. College is just around the corner.
“Drop that pussy, bitch…” Those words drag me out of my thoughts. The rap song blasting from the woofers of his truck on the drive to wherever we’re going is aggressive and misogynistic. The only upside is that it saves us from the awkward silence. Glancing to my left, I note that he’s really into the song. He’s bobbing his dark head and raping the lyrics like I’m not in the car. It’s an abrasive song lade with so much talk about sex, every time he curls his full mouth around the word ‘pussy’ a tug of something inexplicable ripples through me. He turns his head in time to catch me rudely staring.
With a cocked eyebrow, he follows with a sly grin, evoking a surge of warmth beneath my skin. I turn away, telling myself not to look at him again for the rest of the drive. It’s hard, but I manage, even when the sound of his throaty, mocking laughter glides along my skin.
Butts and Suds is a small diner located on the city line of Trenton and Dover. It’s the sort of mom-and-pop place you’d find off the side of an interstate after a long road trip. Maddox turns left and rolls his pickup in an empty space, next to another truck. The side of the restaurant, with its four long-paneled windows, faces the unpaved parking lot so that the occupants of the diner are able to look out at whoever is coming in and vice versa. It’s as small on the inside as it is on the outside, even more so considering how packed it is. We walk into a din of more than fifty patrons immerse in conversations interrupted by the occasional laughter and the clacking of silverware. There are people seated on red-cushioned stools lined beneath a long counter to the left while on the right fifteen or so booths matching the red of the stools stretch a short distance down to the kitchen area.
“Eh, Suzy, you got a table for me?”
The heavyset woman behind the counter with graying auburn hair twisted up in a bun and a greasy white apron tied over her powder blue uniform smiles big at the sight of Maddox.
“Last booth by the kitchen.”
While I slide in on one side of the booth, he walks away for a brief moment and returns with two Styrofoam cups of fountain drinks.
“The only thing good to drink here is the sweet tea,” he says, setting one of the cups in front of me and taking a seat.
“So, tell me…”
“Been a while, kiddo,” the waitress from earlier interrupts, the same warm, wide smile brightening her weathered features. She looks about fifty, with deep frown lines carved across her forehead. “How you been? Staying out of trouble?”
Maddox scoffs. “Never learned how, Suze.”
She laughs. “Don’t I know it? Always have been a real pain in the ass, even when your mom brought you around.” Her glance strays to me. “You know he used to go behind that counter right there, take our tip jar and help himself? His mom didn’t know what the hell to do with him. God bless that woman’s soul, she was such a sweetheart. I still can’t believe it happened like that. She didn’t deserve any of that. None of you guys did. Your old man was such a bastard.”
It’s remarkable how quickly his expression of casual tolerance vanishes. Nothing immediately takes its place. He just stares straight ahead, right through me, like he’s trapped in a memory. He doesn’t say anything, but he’s radiating so much hostility, it’s like sitting across from a heat lamp.
He reaches over to pick up his cup. “Here’s to hoping he’s roasting in hell,” he announces, and drinks and drinks until it’s all gone. Despite all the noise around us, there’s a cloud of tension hanging over us in that instant.
Knowing she probably said far more than she should have, Suzy clears her throat before taking out her pencil and pad. “What’ll be, kiddo, the usual?”
“Yup.” Short and concise.
Jotting it down, she turns to me. “And you, sweetheart?”
I shake my head. “I’m okay, thank you.”
“Order something,” he grumbles, his gaze boring into me.
“Uh…maybe some fries…?”
“You got it. Basket of fries, coming up. Hang tight. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“You follow me around school, you’re at this bullshit therapy group I’ve been forced to go to, and now you’ve come all the way down to my little shithole with some stupid-ass excuse about homework. I don’t know what the fuck you want, but I’m going to make it real easy for you and tell you I’m not…”
“I want to draw you,” I blurt out.
He looks at me like I’ve gone brain-dead. I raise a hand to sweep my hair behind my ear with a sigh. “I’m applying to the New England Institute of Art, and they need my portfolio by December. I’ve been following you around because you have this look I think would translate really well onto a canvas. I thought I could capture your likeness from far away and not have to bother you, but…” I raise my shoulders to align with my ears and let them drop with a sigh as my eyes drop down to the black-speckled tabletop.
“Look at me.”
I can’t say why his directives have such an unquestionable effect on me, or why. I can’t seem to deny them. But without even the slightest hint of hesitation, they fly to meet his brooding, pewter gaze.
“Continue what you were saying.”
Another sigh. “But I need you sitting in front of me in order to get your angles and contours exactly how I’d like them.” It’s so hard to hold his stare, especially when embarrassment warms my face like it is now. “I was hoping you’d let me draw you.”
With his razor blade stare fixing steadily on me, he raises his arms and folds them behind his head. “Why not ask Noah? We have the same face.”
“Actually, you don’t…not really.” At the intrigued cock of his left eyebrow, I look away before elaborating. “I know you’re twins, but Noah’s face is more symmetrical, his features are delicate, beautiful even. But you…you’re…”
“Uglier,” he quips, the corner of his mouth flirting with a boyish grin.
I shake my head, “Far from it.” I lick my lips as my eyes dart to his face before looking away again. “You’re…rugged. Striking. There’s a hardness about you that’s really compelling. It’s hard not to stare at you.” I bite my tongue at the unsolicited admission.
There’s a soft exhalation of a chuckle before he asks, “What’s in it for me?”
I flush, not sure the tone of his inquiry is entirely innocent. “I don’t have a lot of money…”
“Not interested in your money,” he inserts dismissively.
“Okay. I can tutor you. I’m assuming with all the class you’ve missed out on so far you probably have a lot of catching up to do. I can help.”
He gives a shake of his dark head. “That’ll just end up wasting not only your time but mine too. My time is pretty fucking valuable right now.”
It doesn’t take a genius to surmise exactly where that valuable time is spent. Without warning, my mind conjures the image of his lean, muscular body adorned with all those beautiful tattoos. It’s emblazon across my mind like a billboard pictorial off the interstate. Nine inches. Circumcised. That sudden thought is plucked from my memory bank. My eyes widen and I can feel the palpable heat in my face, mortified that I even know that. “What do you want then?” An alarming sense of dread tiptoes down my spine the instant those words leave my mouth. That sensation is made worse by the sight of the Grinch-like smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.
I open my mouth to ask him the reason behind the grin but I’m interrupted by our waitress’ return. I’m partially grateful to her for saving me from making a complete fool out of myself. Again. Though another part of me is still somewhat curious to hear his response.
“Here you are, kiddos. A Sudsy bacon double cheeseburger with the works and a side of loaded curly fries for you.” She sets the massive burger and fries in front of him. “And here’s your basket of fries. I had Sudsy add a bit more for you, honey, you look like you need to eat more. Flag me down if you need anything else.” With that she waddles away to another table, leaving me to wonder whether I was just insulted.
“She’s a real pro in the subtlety department,” he remarks dryly, taking a big bite of his burger. In the time it takes him to polish off his food, there’s little to no conversation between us. While mindlessly nibbling on my basket of fries, I occasionally glance his way. It’s odd that I find him eating something so simple, so utterly appealing. He eats like he hasn’t eaten in days, with a strong, voracious appetite that seems insatiable. I catch his gaze while he licks his fingers of the ketchup on his fries. There’s an irreverent glint in gun-metal eyes that suddenly speaks of so much more than just his literal appetite.
In that instant, despite that we are in a crowded place, I feel every inch a prey. His prey. How quickly and how thoroughly will he subdue me? I continue to wonder. What would it feel like to be subdued by someone like him? He can very well leap over the table separating us right now to gobble me up and…and I don’t think I would mind it at all. The part of me that reigns over my inner kingdom of insanity would douse herself in a vat of ketchup if it meant being licked clean by Maddox’s tongue. That thought is accompanied by a very lurid, very graphic image that unnerves me so much that I’m not even sure how to process it.
“Why are you in group therapy?” The question comes a little while after leaving the diner. We’re once again back inside his truck. He’s at the wheel as he slowly rolls through the four-way stop sign. The blast of a horn from another driver calls attention to his reckless driving. He simply flips the other driver off before continuing.
It’s a question that comes completely out of left field. It takes me off guard, as I’m sure it’s meant to. Idly, I tug on a loose black string that’s unraveling from the black decorative button on the cuff of my long-sleeved shirt. I don’t know how to immediately answer. So instead I ask, “Why are you?”
It’s not a question I expect an answer to. Not from him. Remembering his reaction earlier when the waitress talked about his mother, I can safely assume Maddox isn’t much for sharing personal history. The unexpected blare of a car horn causes me to jump slightly as I quickly look into the side mirror to see the same car from earlier behind us at a red light. It’s a nice car. A sleek, navy blue Infiniti that looks like it just rolled out of a showroom. He’s high-beaming us, flooding the interior of the truck with overly bright bluish-white LED lights. That alone is irritating enough, but the driver kicks the annoy factor up a notch by polluting our ears with the incessant blare of his horn.
“What’s his prob—” Maddox jumping out of truck stops me from finishing my question. The next few minutes are a blurry descend into chaos. I push open the passenger door and hop out in time to see him grab a sledgehammer from the bed of the truck. He carries it with relative ease as he makes his way to the other car. A swift raise of the sledgehammer over his head is the only warning the other driver gets before the heavy metal crashes down on the navy blue hood of his Infiniti. It leaves behind a crater-sized dent. But it looks like Maddox is just beginning. As he circles to the front of the car, he swings and smashes first the right headlight and then moves to the left. This all happens in the span of a few short minutes and while he’s on this path of destruction, I stand gobsmacked at the rear side of his pickup. Eyes wide and my mouth hanging open to the asphalt, I silently bear witness to Maddox’s violence.
“You son of a bitch!” The driver finally leaps out of the car like a bat out of hell, and his rage-filled screech can be heard over the tinkling of fiberglass shattering across the ground and the crunching of aluminum every time the sledgehammer makes contact. “You’re going to pay for this, you little fucker!” He charges for Maddox; a Brahman bull looking to skewer his enemy with his horns. He’s a heavy guy, tall with enough muscle fat working for him to tackle Maddox to the ground and pulverize him. But Maddox has agility, using the other man’s own weight against him, he’s able to quickly move out of the way. He doesn’t allow the other man a second to recover as he drives the wooden handle of the sledgehammer into his side with enough force that he instantly crumbles to his knees and falls on his side with an agonized groan. A set of headlights a short distance down the street signals the inevitable approach of another car. The immediate thought that someone could be watching this right now and calling the police prompts me to finally move. I run to Maddox’s side.
“We need to go.”
He says nothing, only stands over the driver who’s curled up on the ground in a fetal position nursing his side. He raises a booted foot, and a hard nudge brings the other man to his back. The heavy metal head of the sledgehammer descends to the other man’s throat, and though he brings his hands up to frantically remove it, Maddox only presses down more. My eyes I’m sure are just as wide as the man on the ground. He’s choking as oxygen is slowly bleeding from his wide-open mouth, his face contorting in agony, the panic and fear watering his beady, brown eyes. He flails like a fish out of water, limbs flopping around in an attempt to escape.
A look to my left reveals an image that would’ve frightened a smarter, saner girl. It’s been proven however that I possess neither of those traits. If I did, I wouldn’t be here, standing next to a guy who looks rabid enough to commit murder. What’s more disturbing is that he appears completely in his element here. Comfortable, unfazed in the act of slowly robbing a man of his life.
His cold rage is palpable. It whips out at me with all the subtlety of a typhoon. It’s a tumultuous thing that clouds his face and makes him look far too sinister. His body is drawn tight from coiled tension, like a rattlesnake waiting to strike. He keeps the weight of the sledgehammer steady and firm as he pushes further down. There’s no end in sight. He won’t stop.
He’ll kill him.
Help me! The man’s eyes seem to wail out to me when they momentarily catch mine. Without thought, I set my hand on Maddox’s forearm. There’s just the slightest jerk of muscles tightening reflexively from the unexpected touch. But it’s the lightning-quick electric heat beneath my fingertips the instant my hand lands on his bare, tattooed forearm that rattles me to the core.
“Let’s go,” I barely manage, still shaken. When he fails to move, I tighten my hold and tug. “Don’t be stupid.” That gets his attention as he spears me with sterling eyes. I don’t look away. Not this time. Why I choose now to hold that intense stare I can’t quite say, but I’m glad for it. I’m glad for the momentary backbone. “I think you’ve out road raged him. I also think it’d be really stupid if you ended up in jail because of it. All this would be pretty much pointless.” I’m not sure how effective my words are until he walks away a very small eternity later. I rush behind him, hop back inside the passenger seat, and close the door just before he takes off. I don’t stop looking at my side mirror till long after we leave the scene.
