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Chapter 29

It didn’t takeas long as I thought it would to clear Kash’s name. The judge who had put Kash behind bars in the first place, being a woman of high moral character and a distaste for injustice, pushed everything through in a hurry. Dad’s trial didn’t take long, either. After spending enough time in jail to be really and truly sober for the first time in several years, his guilt got the better of him. He declined counsel and used his own trial as a platform for his confession.

Breaker had been reluctant to let Kash go free. He was still convinced that Kash was hiding something, but there was nothing he could do without filing formal charges. With nothing to go on but a gut instinct, Breaker was bound by the law to release Kash from his obligations.

We thought it best to keep a low profile until we’d cleared town entirely, which was why we packed the few things we wanted to keep into Kash’s truck. Mom and I sold the trailer to a realty company who accepted the trailer as-is, holey walls and cruddy furniture and all. They bought it for ten thousand dollars—which was barely a drop compared to what my mom had been keeping safe in the wall.

The morning we left, Kash wore his dolphin jacket, mom wore her dolphin pendant, and I carried my favorite crystal dolphin—the one with sapphire eyes—in my lap. I could almost feel Hunter cheering us on from the back seat. The sun was on the rise behind us as we idled in front of the freeway onramp.

“Where to, ladies?” Kash asked.

Mom and I exchanged an excited glance in the rearview mirror. “West,” I said. “Drive west.”

“All agreed?” Kash asked.

“Aye,” Mom said with a twinkle in her eye.

My dolphin’s sapphire caught the sun and winked.

“Westward, ho,” Kash said with a grin.

We hit the highway and put music on. My mom sang along to every song, no matter how new. I had never seen her so happy. I breathed free air and laced my fingers through Kash’s, knowing pure, untainted happiness for the first time in ages. It felt like the porch swing, but better. I had my love around me and I was flying into the future with nothing but glittering options ahead of me.

We drove until sunset with no destination in mind, talking and laughing and singing. The day flew by like the forests and deserts beside us, and before I knew it we were driving through a glittering metropolis.

“Anybody ready for dinner?” Kash asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And a shower.”

Mom agreed, so we pulled off the highway and drove around until we found a hotel.

“Wait here for me,” Kash said. “I’ll get our rooms. You two decide where to go for dinner.”

Mom and I pulled up the map. The sheer number of options were overwhelming at first, but eventually we decided on a family-style Italian place. Kash returned with a spring in his step and a grin on his face, which he buried under a layer of nonchalance before he got back into the car.

“They didn’t have any adjoining rooms free,” he said apologetically. “But I got us rooms on the same floor.”

I fought the disappointment. I’d been banking on an adjoining room, hoping to sneak into Kash’s room in the middle of the night and have that bedroom sex we’d been promising each other for what seemed, at this point, like forever.

“That’s just fine,” Mom said. She sighed happily. “It’ll be so nice to sleep in a bed that doesn’t smell like beer sweat.”

I gave Kash directions to the restaurant, but the whole time I was trying to figure out how to get to his room that night. Eventually I decided that I would either have to “get lost” looking for the ice machine, or just come right out and tell Mom what I was up to. Neither option appealed to me, and I realized that I was proving Kash right. I was behaving like a child when there was no longer any reason to. Still, I couldn’t picture myself just walking up to her and saying, “Hey mom, I’m gonna go bang my boyfriend now. See ya.”

“You’re quiet,” Kash observed as we walked into the restaurant. “Something on your mind?”

I smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “Just you,” I said.

He frowned. “If thinking about me makes you that upset, I’d prefer you didn’t. What’s up, babe?”

Mom glanced at me curiously. I blushed and shook my head. “I’m just hungry,” I said. “What looks good here?”

The answer was, everything looked good. It tasted pretty good, too, but I couldn’t seem to enjoy it. I finally had the opportunity to do what I wanted, and I was still trapped in my own mindset with anxiety as the lock. I was angry at myself for it, which ruined my appetite. Mom had been watching me eat with an indecipherable look on her face.

“How far apart did you say our rooms were, Kash?” She asked him suddenly.

“The floor is set up like a plus sign, with a hallway going this way and another one going that way. One room is down at the end in a corner. The other one is down the hall, on the other side of the crossing hallway.”

She watched his hands as he sketched an invisible map on the table, then nodded. “Good. I wouldn’t want to encroach on your space tonight. I believe you two have more than earned some private time together.”