Page 17

Truthfully, I want to curl up in a ball and let my mind wander back to Trent’s tattoos and the never-ending tent in the front of his pants. But that’s not going to happen. That can’t happen. “Open is fine.”

“So what do you do, Miss Kathryn?”

I snuggle back into the cool leather seats and try to clear my mind of thoughts of Trent, and all his hills and valleys. His chiseled muscles and veins and strength. “I’m an accountant. Book-keeper, really.”

“Is that so? Where?”

At a skeezy little strip club where there’s coke residue on all the bathroom sinks.“Let’s just say it’s not exactly H & R Block. But it pays the bills.”

“Dang. If I knew there were accountants out there that look like you, I’d have been looking forward to Tax Day all this time.”

I know he’s just being nice, but I’m not in the mood. I struggle to muster up a smile, a little laugh. But I can’t stop my mind racing back to Trent. The pictures. The sketches. Thelook.

God. The look.

The further we get from the house, the less anxious I feel about what happened. But still, a heaviness settles in my heart. I know I’ll have to go back. But I know that when I do, there is something waiting behind the curtain that neither of us is ready to reveal.

I squeeze my thighs together, and scoop my hair over my shoulder, focusing on the cooling whoosh of the airconditioning blowing on my skin, and the low rumbling hum of the engine.

The Humvee moves gracefully down the highway, off the exit, through town. I am so used to my Jeep’s squeaky brakes and worn-out shocks that it’s almost hypnotic, moving through the world so effortlessly like this. Before I know it, we’re rolling up on the Treemont.

“Youlivehere?Seriously?” Edward asks. We take a right onto Cass Avenue, with its litter-filled gutters and burnt-out trap houses.

“Not because I want to.”

Edward picks up on the edge in my voice. “Understood.”

“And, Trent doesn’t know exactly what the place is like, please don’t tell him. He has enough on his plate right now.” I’m grateful that he drops the topic because there’s so much to explain. And so little I can say.

He nods and maneuvers the limo through the Treemont parking lot with its usual suspects all looking like extras out ofThe Walking Dead.

“Will you wait here for me? I’ll be like, five minutes max.”

“You’re damned right, I’ll wait,” Edward answers, turning to talk to me through the partition. “Corporal Reynolds would kill me ten different ways to Sunday if I left you alone in a place like this. If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m coming in after you. As a matter of fact, why don’t I…”

I pop the door open. The oppressive heat radiating up off the pavement seeps into the limo, as does the acrid smell of unemptied dumpsters. “I’m fine, just wait here.”

Three of the regulars are sitting outside the building, bottles covered in brown paper bags in hand. Their bloodshot eyes stay locked on the limo as I hustle past. This isn’t the sort of place to draw attention to yourself, not now, not ever, and certainly not with a ride likethat.

I pick up my pace, my dollar store flip-flops snapping,toward the broken buzzing sign that flashes only three letters of the word OFFICE.

My landlord Victor sits inside. He’s got a teardrop tattoo under one eye, a spider web on his elbow, and a four pack a day habit that makes everything around him smell like mentholated hell itself.

He’s got bleach blond hair and these odd silver-blue eyes. He reminds me of Machine Gun Kelly only at Megan Fox’s height.

Oh, and he’s always throwing in Spanish words when he talks. There’s nothing Latino about him but whatever, I’m not here to delve into his cultural appropriation.

“Where the fuck you been,mujer? Rent’s late.” He takes a drag of his cigarette, which he holds pinched between two fingers like a joint. “Don’t make me put your shit on the curb.”

“I’m so sorry. My brother just got back from…”

He glares at me. “Cállate. This look like story time at the fucking library, or what? I don’t give a shit about the story. Just give me my fucking money.”

He holds his hand out as he takes a step into me, making me back against the wall, giving me the eye, up and down, up and down, like he’s turned on by my fear and disgust.

I grab the wad of bills from my purse and shove them into his hand. But instead of taking them right away, he runs the back of his knuckle up and down my forearm. Mixed in with the smell of the cigarettes is the stale sharpness of cinnamon gum.

It’s all I can do to stifle a shudder as my gag reflex activates.