Page 37 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Clara

As we get to Colorado, though, it’s obvious we need a place to stop for the night so RJ and I don’t crash the huge beast we’re on. None of us have driven something like an RV before, and my already scattered nerves are completely frayed by the time we find a state park with a hookup for the thing.

It’s only three in the afternoon, but we left at midnight, and none of us are doing well.

I try not to think about how I’m probably the farthest I’ve ever been from home right now. I fail.

We stopped at a shopping center earlier, and RJ jumped out and got us pay-as-you-go phones, a basic laptop, and a hot spot for us all to share.

Jansen and Trips grabbed groceries. Walker and I sat with the RV while I made a toy for Fluffington from chunks of a fraying crocheted monstrosity that was decorating the toilet.

Who decorates toilets?

Once we had the laptop, RJ found us this campsite, a preloaded credit card reserving our spot a few miles before we pulled in. And as soon as we park, he looks up how to attach the electricity and water to the beast, then hops off to get it going.

The rest of us sit in the living space. None of us say anything, the early afternoon sun brighter in the mountains than at home. My heart pounds like I’ve run up a hill, but according to RJ’s other research, that’s just the altitude making my heart work harder.

He handed out bottles of water to all of us, instructing us to drink them, and mine is nearly empty, the silence needing to be filled by something.

As no one else seems inclined, I take charge.

“For the rest of today, we rest and recover. We shower, we eat, we watch stupid TV or hike in the mountains. We have a bonfire, maybe roast marshmallows. Nothing bigger than that. We’re as safe as we’re going to be right now.

So we’re taking advantage. Tonight, we’re college kids who took our grandparent’s RV out for a night in the mountains. ”

Looking at the grim faces, I’m not sure we can pull it off.

Jansen and Trips both have busted, swollen hands, and Walker hasn’t cleaned the blood off his head yet.

RJ comes up the steps, sliding the door closed behind him, his gait a little off from the blows he took.

He hasn’t let me look him over, but I’m sure he’s needed ice packs as much as Trips has.

Jansen’s ankle is obviously swollen where it’s crossed over his knee, and I still look like I haven’t eaten enough lately, my back itchy from Fluffington’s claws digging in. Twice.

At least physically, I know I got out of last night easy.

“Do we remember how to do that? How to be normal, carefree college students?” I ask.

Walker scans the room. “I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I’ve only had that experience this fall, after you moved in with us.”

Strange, small nods follow that statement from the other guys. And except for my first semester of college, I’m in the same boat.

“Okay, so, we suck at being normal. In that case, we fake it. We’re good at that at least, right?”

Jansen manages a small grin. “With you? Hell no. It’s all real, all the time, beautiful.”

A choked laugh escapes me, and the weight of the room lightens. Just a little.

“Whatever. We’ll try. Walker, you should shower first.”

“Not going for that zombie look?” he teases.

“Not if we don’t want to scare our neighbors.”

He stands, picking up his bag and digging through it, pulling out what he needs. “Anybody bring shampoo or soap?” he asks.

Silence greets his question.

He goes to the little kitchenette and finds the cracked bar of soap that came with the rig, his face grim. “How much money do we have?”

Trips stands, pulling wads of cash out of his bag, his coat, and Walker’s coat. Jansen adds to his pile, then the rest of us pull out whatever we were able to grab on our way out the door, Fluffington knocking over the tall stack Trips made with his tail.

Walker shakes his head and goes to shower, Trips pushing the cat off the table to count what we brought.

“Seven thousand, four hundred and sixty-seven dollars,” he announces, the shower loud in the small space. “Makes me wish I hadn’t made that last deposit.”

RJ adds five prepaid cash cards to the pile. “Another five hundred, less what we paid for tonight’s hookup.”

“Isn’t that good?” I ask, the dollar amount’s high, but everyone’s faces are so grim that I don’t know what to think.

RJ answers. “It depends on where we go and how long we stay hidden.”

“We have stuff to pawn too, right?” I ask.

They nod. Trips rests his head in his one good hand. “And also, on who we have to pay off to disappear.”

“I brought the ring. That must be worth a ton, right?”

His blue eyes resemble faded bruises when he looks at me. “Yeah. But it’s also identifiable.”

“How large of a net will your dad cast?”

“Losing isn’t an option for a Westerhouse.”

I sit with that, thinking. Jansen scoops up the cat and goes to the bedroom.

I’m not sure if he’s just bored or if he needs to sleep.

RJ leans back in the chair he’s claimed, still not speaking.

Which would worry me if I didn’t know he’ll speak once he’s able to.

Right now, everything is too raw. I get it. He needs silence.

I need a solution.

The water turns off, Walker slipping out in clean clothes a few minutes later.

“Question—do we have any alternative identities with us?” I ask.

He rubs his palms on his pants, then comes and sits across from me at the dinette. “I was working on passports, but I wasn’t done before we left.”

“Did you bring the half-done papers?”

“Yeah. But I’ll need supplies to finish them.”

“How much do you think it would cost to finish them?”

“About a grand. Maybe a bit more. The paper is super tricky to copy, so it would be preferable to steal it rather than forge it. At least for the US identities. I don’t know what we should do about the Canadian paper.”

RJ shifts his weight, his voice low and soft. “I can probably scrounge up two more American identities if we really need them. But splitting nationalities is smart, especially if we all travel together.”

“What about passport cards?” Jansen pushes open the accordion door.

Walker’s brows scrunch together, and Trips stares at Jansen like he’s dumb.

“What are passport cards?” I ask, leading them away from whatever those faces mean.

Walker turns, his eyes suddenly brighter. “They’re basically drivers’ licenses for going to Mexico and Canada. If we don’t fly, we can leave without getting a passport stamped.”

Trips leans back, crossing one leg at the knee. “Can you make those? It would limit our distance, but we can disappear for a while in either Mexico or Canada.”

“Yeah. I can. I’d need a real one, so I make sure I get it right, but yeah. Although all my equipment is back at home.”

RJ leans forward. “I can get you your set-up again. And I can make sure you have the right shit without us needing an example.”

“How long would it take? How much would it cost?” I ask, something finally going right.

Walker shrugs, looking at RJ, who stares at the floor while he answers. “Probably the same cost as the passports, if I source things carefully. Maybe more.”

My gut twists as I think of a solution, one that I don’t think Trips will get behind. “What about Emma?”

“What about Emma?” Walker asks.

“She could mail you your supplies. Send them to a hotel under an assumed name. We could spend the night and collect the box.”

“No,” Trips says.

“Why not? I’m sure you’ve got a key stashed somewhere, and it’s not like your dad is watching her.”

“He might not be watching her, but he sure as shit will watch the house.”

“Yeah, but your dad is a misogynistic asshole. I can work with that.”

He glares at me, challenging me to come up with a way for this to work.

But my mind is already spinning out a plan.

“We have her pretend to be drunk, screaming at the house for me ignoring her, or for running away and not telling her anything, something like that. She yells about how she’s going to take my collection of.

..something girly. Then she comes back out, stumbling with a box of whatever dumb girl thing your dad wouldn’t care about that she took from me. Only it’s the ID equipment.”

The RV is quiet as they think through my slap-dash plan. “How do you do that, beautiful?” Jansen asks, shock on his face.

“Do what?”

“Make elegant solutions to impossible problems with all of ten seconds of thought?”

Embarrassment has me tapping my fingers against my thigh, but Walker steps close, squeezing my hand in his. “It’s a good thing, beautiful. An amazing thing.”

Swallowing down a flood of emotion, I turn to the rest of them. “Would that work?”

Trips looks like he wants to say no, but he holds his tongue as everyone else agrees that it would fix one problem. “Can you reach out to her, RJ?”

“Won’t she freak out about you leaving?” Jansen asks.

“I told her. In a code we set up, but yeah. She knows we’re in the wind.”

RJ stands, reaching for the laptop he left at the front of the RV. “I’ll find her. Any code words to get her to open my email? To verify it’s you?”

“Include Ramblin’ Moxie in the subject and tell her that the jasmine tea is working for now.”

He gets to work, leaving me with the rest of their attention. “That takes care of the ID problem. What about your hand, Trips? How much do you think surgery would be?” I ask.

Trips shakes his head. “More than we have.”

“What about in Mexico?”

“Still a ton. Probably everything we’ll have left. And we need to eat.”

“What can we do to make cash quick? Or should we pawn our shit and then see where we’re at?”

Walker pulls me into his lap, cozying us into the dinette. “Planning on fixing all our problems at once?”

“If I can, why wouldn’t I?”

“How about we finish showers and take it from there?”

Jansen holds up his gauze-covered hand. “I’m going to have to stay dry for a day or two until this scabs over. So, I nominate Trips or Clara for the next shower.”

Trips looks at me, and while his face is blank, there’s something there, some question that has nothing about who gets the next shower.

Something about how he fits into this group, fits with me, and I don’t have an answer.

Not to that. Not right now. Instead, I bob my head toward the bathroom, telling him without words that he’s up next.

And he listens. Without complaint or question, grabbing his bag and squeezing into the tiny room.

Compliant Trips scares me more than barely-contained rage Trips ever has. At least then I could see what was going on in his head. Right now, he’s a mystery that I’m unqualified to solve.

It’s not my job. Even if I seem to be leading this escape by default, I can’t fix whatever is wrong with Archibald Clarence Westerhouse the Third. Those problems are deep-rooted. Tragic. Unresolved. And began long before we got to this point.

Walker rests his chin on my shoulder, staring blankly out the window at the campground, a group of campers walking to a car with what look like brightly colored mini mattresses on their backs, laughing as they shove them into the back end of their vehicle, beers pulled out soon after, a guitar appearing in one girl’s hands.

“That’s something we could do for cash.”

“What? Drink?”

He laughs. “Maybe competitive drinking would get us some cash. But we could set Jay to work busking. His voice and a guitar, he’d make bank.”

“You could sell your art, too.”

“Take up caricature?”

“Maybe. But I was thinking about your actual art.”

“You want naked pictures of you sold on street corners? I thought that was what RJ was working on fixing?”

RJ’s eyes shift our way, his attention at least partially on our conversation.

“Maybe not those. Or maybe, yeah, those, only without my face. You’re good, Walker. I bet you could set up a stand on a random street corner and come away with hundreds from random pedestrians. Sexy drawings or not.”

Jansen joins us at the table. “I’d play if you drew, Walker. I don’t want to, but if it helps, I’d do it.”

“We don’t even have a guitar, man.”

“That’s not a huge problem, not for me. You know that. I probably wouldn’t even have to steal one. One in ten chance that there’s a guitar in the lost and found of this place right now.”

“You get a guitar without stealing it, and I’ll sell my art.”

They stare each other down before shaking on it.

It’s not what we need as a group, but if it gets them thinking about how to survive for a while, I’ll take it.

I’m good at little plans, like getting Walker the supplies he needs to get us out of the country, but big plans, like the one I’ll need to wipe the slate clean and get us back to our regularly scheduled lives?

That kind of plan will take longer than we have the funds to support.

But we’ll get there.

I have to believe it.

I’ll make it true.