Текст книги "Finders Keepers"

Автор книги: Nicole Williams

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

IT WAS ANOTHER Thursday night, and somehow I’d wound up with more bruises and dirt between my teeth than I had last Thursday. The whole “things can only go up from here” concept hadn’t made my acquaintance yet. I’d run out of pain reliever a few days earlier and had yet to restock my supply, so I let half a bottle of whiskey have a go at it instead.

My brain still felt like it wanted to burst out of my skull, and the rest of my body felt like it had been tumble-dried with a load of rocks and needles. To say I was in pain was like saying I was freezing. One of Montana’s notorious cold snaps had set in, and my breath wasn’t just fogging—it was about a degree away from crystalizing. The one positive to the frigid temperatures was that it made my body numb, thus dulling the pain.

Who ever said I wasn’t a silver lining kind of guy?

I’d just burrowed down in my sleeping bag and closed my eyes when a loud thump lurched me awake. The sound had come from behind me so, after defogging the window, I gazed out to find the face I’d been trying for weeks to forget about. I’d failed miserably.

“What the hell, Black?” Josie yelled, thumping the window again with her mittened hands. “What the hell is this?”

So much for flying under the radar. Sighing, I cranked down the window and stuck my head out of my truck. “I was in the middle of a sweet dream, Joze.”

“That wasn’t a sweet dream, you idiot. That was your body shutting down thanks to hypothermia.”

At that stage in my life, they were the same thing. “What are you talking about? It’s balmy in here.” I hadn’t seen Josie so pissed in . . . well . . . Actually, I’d never seen her that pissed.

“I bet. That must be why your nose looks like it’s about to fall off.” She was bundled up in her knee-length down jacket, a hat and scarf coving all of her face but her eyes. If I’d never seen her so pissed and two-thirds of her face was hidden from view, she was close to going nuclear. “You really are a bastard. You know that?” I was about halfway through my nod of agreement when she narrowed her eyes even more somehow. “Your dad burns to death, and his son freezes to death three months later. Isn’t that just a goddamned fairy-tale ending?”

She sounded like she was just getting started, so I decided to use the silence while she sucked in a breath. “Did I miss something? Why are you acting like you want to hang me up by my toenails and skin me?”

“BECAUSE I DO!”

Even through my hat, that scream did some permanent damage to my eardrums. “Mind explaining yourself before you scream me deaf?”

I hadn’t even said it with sarcasm, and she was glowering at me like she was willing me to die on the spot. “You told me you were staying at a friend’s place. You told me you were somewhere with a roof over your head, with running water . . . with a kitchen . . .” Okay, she was starting to break. As much as she was trying to fight them, a couple of tears surfaced in the corners of her eyes. “You told me you were safe . . . and . . . and warm.” She gestured at where I sat in my truck, close to breaking out in shivers. “And here you are, camped out in your truck in front of your burnt out trailer in the middle of negative degree temperatures. You lied to me, Garth. You lied to me.” From the looks of it, there was no greater offense.

I had lied to her. Not because I’d wanted to tell Josie a lie, but because I wanted to admit the truth much less. I’d been living out of my truck for months on land I’d essentially been evicted from because I didn’t want to burden anyone. I’d clearly been a burden on Clay all twenty-one years of my life, and since I was free of him, I didn’t want to pass that burden baton on to someone else. The Walkers or Josie especially. If I was going to be a pain in the ass leech, I sure didn’t want it to be on one of my real friend’s backsides.

“What do you want? An I’m sorry? Because I’m not.” The only good thing about arguing with Josie was that it was heating me up. Which brought my Thursday night war wounds back in all their throbbing glory.

“No. Screw I’m sorry. You owe me a hell of a lot more than that after what you’ve been pulling the last couple months.” Grabbing the door handle, Josie flung the door open. “You owe me the decency of getting out of that ice box of a truck into mine, and then I’m taking you to my place. You can thaw, eat a warm meal, and figure out what the hell to do next. Because living out of your truck isn’t a viable long-term solution.”

I inhaled. “Let me make my answer to your suggestions sweet and succinct.” I leaned across the seat until my face was in front of hers. “No.”

Wrong thing to say. I saw the flash of something go through her eyes that would have had me shaking in my boots if I had any on, and then she grabbed my arms, dug in deep, and pulled. She didn’t stop pulling until my sleeping bag and I had fallen in a heap at her feet. I was adding bruises on top of bruises.

“Shit, Josie. What the hell was that for?”

“That was because I asked you once and I won’t ask again.” Kneeling beside me, she pressed her face so close to mine our noses rubbed together. “Get up and get in my truck. Now.”

“What is the matter?” I worked myself free of the sleeping bag and grabbed my boots.

“You. That’s what’s the matter.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Care to expand on that?” I had to grit my teeth as I stood because, on top of her finding me camped out in my truck in near Arctic temperatures, I didn’t want her to know I was probably in need of yet another E.R. visit.

“No, I do not. The only thing I care about right now is getting you in my truck and taking you back to my place.”

I managed a weak crooked grin. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Leave the dickhead here. I don’t care if that part of you freezes to death.”

“I’m not leaving any part of my dick here to freeze.” I stuffed the sleeping bag back in my truck before closing the door. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Josie, and I could almost feel the heat from her truck cab.

“If you don’t stop being ‘cute’ with me, I’m going to knee your entire dick all the way up into your throat.”

If I wasn’t a frozen, pulverized popsicle, Josie getting all bossy probably would have turned me on. But really, being turned on was the farthest thing from my mind right then. “Fine. You win.” I followed her as she marched to her truck.

“Whoop-dee-doo. Look at my grand prize.” She glanced over her shoulder long enough to run her eyes up and down me in a way that was the opposite of approving. I couldn’t figure her out. She’d just threatened my manhood if I refused to go with her, and I was. So why did she look about as thrilled as if she’d just learned she had five minutes to live? Josie had never been a tough one to read, at least not until the past couple of years. Lately, she’d been like a faulty Rubik’s cube. There was no figuring her out, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to take a crack at it.

As soon as I opened the passenger door, warm air rushed over me. She had the heater cranked so high the cab was almost as warm as a sauna. It felt so good I actually sighed. Crawling into her lifted truck took a little effort, but as soon as I was seated, with the door closed and warm air enveloping me, I could have fallen asleep in thirty seconds flat. Josie threw herself into the driver’s seat, muttered a curse word I’d rarely heard her say, and shot another death glare my way. For someone who’d seemed like they wanted to help me, she sure changed her tune after I went along with it. Oh, well. It was late, I was bushed, and all of the warm air was clouding my mind and making me one heartbeat above comatose.

She pulled her downy mittens off, threw them at me, and punched the gas. “I can’t believe you did that. You’ve done some crazy shit since I’ve known you, but this is beyond your usual brand of crazy shit.” The way the woman drove . . .

“Joze,” I said, my voice raspier than usual. Probably because of the extreme temperature changes. “Buckle up.”

Her eyebrows came together. “Huh?” She was obviously so worked up that my simple request wasn’t computing.

Reaching over her, I pulled the shoulder strap across her body and clicked it into place. “Buckle up. The way you drive when you aren’t certifiable is scary enough. I don’t need to lose another person.”

Josie blew out a breath. “Well you keep camping out in this kind of weather, and you won’t have to worry about losing another person. Because you’ll be dead.” She practically spat the last word at me.

“Okay, so back to the crazy shit bit you were saying earlier”—I clicked my seatbelt into place, too—“I’m sorry. I’m not going to pretend to understand why you’re so pissed at me, but I know you are. For that, I’m sorry. Me doing what I do isn’t meant to make you so upset.” It was a vague apology—I wasn’t quite sure what I was apologizing for exactly—but it was an apology nonetheless. I issued one about as often as a lunar eclipse.

“You’re sorry about what exactly?”

Of course that would be her follow-up question. Burrowing deeper into the seat, I cupped my hands over the heaters and planned my words carefully. Think before you speak was something I reserved for times like those. When Josie Gibson was at the wheel, hot on the heels of threatening to knee my dick into the next county. “That I was camped out in my truck—”

“In Arctic temperatures,” she interjected.

I nodded. “In Arctic temperatures. I’m sorry for nearly freezing myself into a popsicle-like state. But, you know, maybe if I was kept frozen, I could come back a few hundred years later and—” Another look of death stopped me mid-word. “I’m sorry for nearly freezing myself into a popsicle-like death. There. Is that better?”

“It’s a start, but you’ve got a lot to be sorry for, Garth Black, so keep going.”

I’d rather eat my boot than apologize to just anyone . . . but Josie wasn’t just anyone, so I sucked it up. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I’d been staying.”

She kept silent and gave me the And? look.

“And I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you and not returning your calls . . . but I knew if you cornered me, you’d figure where I’d been laying my head every night and you’d do something crazy like this.” I twirled my finger around the cab. I’d also been avoiding her because that was the right thing to do and my number one priority in life. Given her current state, I didn’t think it best to go into how I needed to stay away from her for all eternity.

Her only reply was that same expectant look. It seemed And? was the tone of things right then.

“And I’m sorry you had to come out in this weather in the middle of the night to look for me.” I still didn’t know why she had or how long she’d been looking before making it to my truck, but again, that wasn’t the time to clarify. The more apologies I made, the angrier she seemed to get. Either I was missing something, or she was. Like her sanity.

“And I’m sorry you had to dry up an entire oil field from the amount of gas you went through driving from your place to mine?” Yes, my apologies were starting to tip more the smart-ass scale than the genuine one, but I was running out of ideas.

She gripped the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles blanched white. Okay, what was I missing? What kind of an apology was Josie waiting for? Sure, over the span of the fifteen years we’d known each other, I had a whole universe of things to apologize to her for, but right then, what was the apology she was looking for after I’d lied to her about where I was staying?

Ah, yep, that was it. Since my eardrums were still ringing after she’d gone off about being lied to, I had a good idea what she was waiting for. I twisted so I could look her straight on. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Joze.”

Her anger melted off, one layer at a time, until the face of the girl I was used to came back. It took a moment, but when Josie’s eyes flashed to mine, I knew the screaming and glaring was past. At least for my latest offense.

“So? Am I forgiven?” I dropped my hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Even though she had on a cushion of down and fleece, the touch still felt intimate. More intimate than I’d expected, and too intimate for the distance I needed to keep between us. I dropped my hand and made a note not to touch her again if I could help it.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she replied matter-of-factly, making me chuckle.

“Well what more do I need to say or do to get you closer to a decision?”

She gnawed her lip for a few seconds. “Just try to explain, get me to understand why . . . why you’d rather camp out inside your truck than stay with one of your friends. Because that makes no sense to me. None. Actually, as far as sense goes, that makes, like, negative sense.”

Of course it didn’t make sense to Josie. Someone like her, who’d lived right and said and did the right things, wouldn’t have any qualms or guilt about taking a friend up on a generous offer. She would have been invited out of love and respect. Me, on the other hand? I’d been invited only out of obligation. That Jesse, Rowen, and Josie had even thought to extend the invite after Clay’s death wasn’t something I was spitting on—not even close. They’d been the only people to ever offer help, and I’d never forget it. I wasn’t fool enough to believe they’d invited me because they actually hoped I’d move in though. We were friends, but I wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine to be around. They’d issued invitations simply because I didn’t have a home anymore. Therefore, those invitations had come out of obligation.

Putting that whole concept into actual words wasn’t something I wasn’t up to the task of doing, though, so I went with a short, honest answer. “I didn’t want to be a burden to any of you.” That worked. Short and to the point, just how I liked most everything in life. Save for my johnson.

Josie snorted. “Yeah, because worrying me sick about you for months wasn’t a burden. Because driving out there to shake some damn sense into you wasn’t a burden. Because being friends with you, Garth, as hard as you like to make it on me, isn’t a goddamned burden.” She wasn’t back to her former anger levels, but being able to flip a switch like that was a rare trait. “Thank you so much for saving me all of the effort and burden.” She didn’t even attempt to hide her sarcasm.

I couldn’t grasp why she was so upset. Was she mad at herself that I’d pulled one over on her? Maybe. Did she care about me so much the thought of me living out of a truck for months was upsetting? Unlikely. Josie seemed more to tolerate me than actually like me—but what else was there? I couldn’t come up with a whole hell of a lot more.

“You know, I’ve been working at Willow Springs the entire time, so I’m getting three warm meals, three good warm meals, five to six days a week. I wasn’t starving on my days off, either, so it’s not like I haven’t had a solid meal in three whole months, okay?” I wasn’t sure if explaining my day-to-day life would comfort her or piss her off even more, but I was definitely hoping for the former. “It hasn’t even been all that cold until last night. I had a good sleeping bag, and the cab of my truck is more comfortable than that old egg crate mattress I slept on in the trailer. On the nights Clay actually let me sleep inside instead of out in a lawn chair.”

I glanced over to gauge her reaction. Her face wasn’t drawn up in angry lines, so I supposed we were making progress. “Even if I had the choice, I’d still take the cab of my truck over the inside of that nasty trailer.” That was the truth. A sad one, perhaps, but factual. “Come on, don’t be mad. It wasn’t bad, okay? It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was a far cry from the worst living conditions I’ve been in. A far cry.”

Then a tear slid down Josie’s cheek. I would have expected her to shoot lightning bolts out of her eyes before an honest-to-goodness tear. Something kicked to life inside of me then. Something that needed to say or do whatever it took to make her feel better. To make sure a second tear didn’t follow the first. It was all very . . . unfamiliar to me. “Please, Josie, don’t be upset. I wasn’t fighting for my life in horrific conditions, and when the conditions did turn horrifying enough to freeze my toes off, you swooped in to save the day. Everything’s okay, so please—please—stop crying.” I grimaced, anticipating more tears.

Josie sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I’ve done plenty of it in my lifetime. Crying isn’t going to kill me.”

“But it might kill me.” I wished I could go back in time and clamp my mouth closed before those five words escaped. Not because they weren’t true—they were—but because of the way Josie’s eyes widened with surprise before her whole expression softened. I’d been trying to calm her down, but not so much that she’d get comfortable enough to lower all her defenses against me. I needed her to keep those defenses up, those walls strong, because as much as I wanted to deny it, my walls had a way of crumbling when Josie was close by. My defenses, my actual ones, skipped off to la-la land when I was with her. That’s why I’d fabricated extra-abrasive defenses with her. It was the only way to protect her from the giant mess I was.

“Here we are,” Josie announced.

I had to look out the window to confirm it. That she’d managed to cover miles of country in a handful of minutes seemed humanly impossible. Good thing she had family in the sheriff’s department. Otherwise she’d have enough speeding tickets to wallpaper her bedroom. Gazing at the Gibsons’ barn, I wondered if the cot was still tucked away in the back stall.

In seventh grade, after Clay had landed more hits on me than usual, I’d hitched a ride to the Gibsons’. I was “running away” for good that time. I’d arrived in the middle of the night, thrown some pebbles against Josie’s window until I woke her up, and without a word, she led me into the barn. She set up a cot with blankets and a pillow for me. She even had a plastic container stocked with a flashlight, snacks, and some comic books, like she’d been expecting me. Since it was summer break, no one missed me, most of all Clay. A few mornings later, Mr. Gibson found me, ordered me to leave, and pretty much said he’d be waiting with a shotgun the next time I decided to move into his barn with his teenage daughter a hundred yards away. Josie had cried that day too, but Mr. Gibson wasn’t swayed by her pleas or her tears. I left that day, never returning to Josie’s place until a couple of years ago. That one night . . .

In seventh grade, I hadn’t understood why Mr. Gibson wanted as much space between me and his daughter as his shotgun could create, but I figured it out a few years later. He’d figured out sooner than I had that I was no good for his daughter.

“So”—I glanced out the windshield at the dark house—“your dad?”

Josie opened her door, and a rush of cold air hit me. “He’s asleep. He successfully got his daughter through her teenage years without her getting knocked up, so he sleeps a lot more soundly. He wouldn’t even hear a herd of cattle run through the dining room.”

“Does he still sleep with his shotgun under his pillow?”

Josie smiled at me. “Only when he’s expecting you to show up.”

“Comforting. Thank you.” I smiled back before forcing myself out of the cab. After all of that warmth, the frigid air almost knocked me over. Hurrying toward the barn, I was stopped halfway there.

“Where the hell are you going?” Josie stepped in front of me.

“The barn. Preferably before I freeze my ass off.”

Her whole face except her eyes was covered up, but hell if those eyes weren’t the most expressive things I’d ever seen. “You’re not sleeping in the barn. It’s probably a whole two degrees warmer than your truck.” Grabbing my arm, she turned me around and steered me toward the house.

“Hey, two degrees can mean the difference between losing and keeping one’s toes.”

I wasn’t fighting her, but she didn’t stop tugging on me until we were at the front door. “And seventy-five degrees can mean the difference between chattering yourself awake all night and drifting off into a peaceful sleep.”

If Josie thought peaceful sleep was an option for me, she was living in a state of disillusionment.

Putting her mittened hand up to her mouth, she opened the door quietly and slipped inside. I followed her, half expecting to find Mr. Gibson in his favorite chair with his shotgun aimed between my eyes. Like most of the homes around there, the Gibsons’ place was an old farmhouse that they’d done a nice job of keeping up. It was more updated and modern than the Walkers’ home but just as inviting. Well, inviting for anyone who hadn’t been threatened with death if they ever showed their face around it again.

The guest room was on the main floor, across the hall from Josie’s parents’ bedroom. The old wood floors creaked with every step, and I hoped Josie was right about her dad sleeping heavily. I was just about to take off my boots and continue toward the guest room when Josie shook her head and tugged on my arm again. She wanted me to follow her up the stairs. Only two rooms were on the second floor. One was a bathroom. And another was Josie’s bedroom. The one time I’d been in her bedroom, I managed to sleep with my best friend’s girlfriend. If that was the kind of disaster I could expect from entering Josie’s room, I would not be making a return visit. No. Way.

Like the wood floors, the steps creaked, and I didn’t stop wincing until we reached the second floor. Josie looked as relieved as I was we’d escaped detection. Keeping her hand wrapped around my arm, she pulled me down the hall, past the bathroom, and stopped outside of her . . . I pulled my arm out of her grasp and shook my head. Hell, no. I wasn’t going back in that room. Not only because of the bad memories, but because of the good ones, too. That night had been a combination of extreme highs and lows.

Josie rolled her eyes, opened the door, and managed to grab my arm and pull me inside before I knew what was happening. She flipped on the light and closed the door before I could escape. “Afraid of a girl’s room? It’s not like you’ve never seen one before.”

That was true. I’d been in my and a dozen other men’s fair share of girl’s rooms. That wasn’t what had me all but breaking out in a cold sweat. I was in Josie Gibson’s bedroom. That wasn’t just another girl’s bedroom. “Yeah, um, why don’t I just take the guest room tonight?” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder as Josie peeled off the layers of winter wear.

“Sure. Be my guest. But just so you’ve been warned, expect my dad to crawl in beside you in a couple of hours because that’s normally when my mom kicks him out for snoring up a storm.” Josie kicked off her boots and waved me toward the door. “Happy spooning.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. The barn it is.”

“Uh-huh. I thought I already made that clear. I didn’t go save you from your truck to let you sleep in the barn.”

I pinched my nose harder. “Then where do you want me to sleep?” I knew it was a dumb question, but I needed Josie to spell it out for me.

“Wherever you want, so long as it’s on this side of that door.”

I silently groaned and let out a string of curses. As miserable as my truck had been, it beat sleeping in Josie’s room by a mile. There was hell, and then there was Josie’s room. It was the last place in the world I wanted to be.

As rooms go, it wasn’t an offensive one. Her room had a lot of white, lots of windows that let in plenty of light, and it wasn’t overly girly. She still had that picture of Jesse, her, and me taken at the Fourth of July picnic the summer we were ten. Jesse had that stupid smile on his face, like usual. I had a scowly frown on mine, like usual. And Josie . . . well, she wasn’t looking at the camera—she was looking at me. It was the only photo, the only instance, where she’d noticed me when Jesse was close by. I loved that picture.

So the room itself wasn’t a problem. It was what had happened inside the room. Right there. On that bed. If I wasn’t so damn conflicted, I would have needed a cold shower to calm the memories flashing through my mind.

“If you want, you can take a shower. Dad and Mom will think it’s me, so you don’t have to worry about that. A hot shower might feel good.” A hint of a smile crawled into position as she opened a dresser drawer. “Popsicle man.”

“I’m so exhausted I’d probably fall asleep in the shower, so thank you, but I’m just going to pass out if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” After pulling a couple things from her drawer, she looked at me and twirled her finger. “Turn around, please.” My forehead lined. She grabbed the hem of her sweater. “I’m exhausted and would like to pass out, too. Being out half the night searching for a certain someone has a way of sapping a girl’s energy. But I don’t sleep in my clothes like some people. Me, I prefer pajamas.”

Oh, perfect. She was about to change with me a whole ten feet away. The situation just kept getting better and better. Yes, that was a whole heap of sarcasm right there. I swallowed and spun around. I cleared my throat and tried to clear my mind of what was happening behind me. “Some of us lost all their pajamas in a fire.”

“Oh . . . um . . . do you want to borrow something?” After the fury her voice had held earlier, hearing it soft and quiet was almost as alarming.

“No, thanks. I don’t think we’re the same size.”

When a pillow hit the back of my head, I turned around. Changing time must be over if her hands were free to throw a pillow at me. When I saw Josie, my mouth almost fell open. “I thought you said you were changing into pajamas.”

She glanced down and lifted her arms. “These are pajamas.”

“Really? Because from a male’s point of view, that’s lingerie. Pajamas are, you know, the flannel, frumpy things that cover lots of skin that old ladies wear.” Shit, I was trying so hard not to check her out, but it was impossible. A man could have held a knife to my throat and told me to stop looking at Josie or die, and I would have been a dead man two seconds later.

Josie gave me an amused look as she finished tossing the mountain of pillows off of her bed. “I’ll keep that in mind. When I’m an old woman. But right now, I like this kind of pajamas.”

Yeah, I liked them too.

Flipping her hair forward, she worked it into a ponytail before flicking off the light switch. “I thought you said you were exhausted. Are you planning on standing there all night?”

If I got to watch her in my new favorite women’s “pajamas,” then hell yes, I would stand there all night. The lights might have been off, but those windows and that moonlight didn’t exactly make it dark.

What in the hell was I thinking? I felt like I’d grown a second consciousness, and the two had declared war on each other. One part of me knew staying away from Josie was priority number one. The other part of me, the one I wished I could locate so I could radiate it the hell out, wanted to be as close to Josie as she’d let me get. Those two agendas didn’t align. In fact, they couldn’t have been any more at odds. If one didn’t roll over and die soon, the battle would split me right down the middle.

Threatening both of my subconsiousnesses with a lobotomy if they didn’t shut up, I made my way toward the bed Josie was already crawling into. It was a relief when she threw the covers on. I grabbed a pillow and threw it on the ground. I was just grabbing the blanket draped on the chair when I heard the bed springs groan.

“What are you doing?” She sat up in bed, watching me like I’d tripped a wire.

“Going to bed,” I answered with a shrug.

“And the reason you’re throwing pillows and blankets on the floor is. . .?” Josie and I were not on the same wavelength apparently.

“Because you’ve got the bed, which means I’ve got the floor.” It was her room, and even if she’d offered me the bed, I wouldn’t let her sleep on the floor. Truthfully, Josie’s hardwood floor looked pretty damn close to heaven. It was warm, I had a big fluffy pillow to rest my head on, and the blanket was the softest thing I’d ever felt.

“Since when did you turn into Mr. Chivalrous?” The wire-tripping expression deepened before she patted the space on the bed beside her. “There’s plenty of room. No need to wake up with a stiff neck and back.”

I stared at the empty space. Fuck, if I slept beside her all night, I’d wake up with something else stiff. “Really, the floor’s good.” I slid off my hat and set it on her nightstand.

“Oh, please. We’ve already done the worst in this bed, so you don’t have to worry about that. Just get in and get some sleep already.”

I knew I shouldn’t, but since the invitation had been extended, I couldn’t say no. Tossing the pillow back onto the bed, I peeled off a few layers of clothing and crawled in beside her. Josie’s back was to me, but her shoulders were so stiff I knew she wasn’t asleep. Despite her no-big-deal attitude, could Josie be just as conscious of me beside her as I was of her beside me? The journey to that answer was a road I couldn’t take. I already knew the ending, and I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t hurt Josie any more than I already had. She deserved better, and she deserved a million times better than I could ever give her.

“See? Was that so bad?” she asked, her back still to me.

I slid my hands behind my head and grinned at the ceiling. I hadn’t been paying attention the last time I was in it, but Josie’s bed was the most comfortable thing I’d ever been on. “No, Joze, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Told ya.”

My grin stretched wider. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry about me crawling into your nice clean bed in the same clothes I worked in all day.”

“Why’s that?”

I positioned the blanket just below my navel. “Because I sleep naked.”

“What?!” she hissed, twisting around. As soon as she saw my bare chest, her eyes widened. At least I could still get a rise out of her. That part of our relationship hadn’t changed. She shrieked and covered her eyes. By then, I was laughing. I would have been howling if her parents weren’t a mere floor below us. “Garth, please, for the love of god and Montana, please put something on. Anything on.”