Page 19

Indy

I was blocks away before I could breathe or think of anything besides getting home.

Miles beyond that, my high started to kick in.

Sooner than I expected, no doubt chasing the blood pumping through my veins, speeding everything up.

Lights streaked, colors tangled, and I bubbled with nervous giggles as I pulled into the Trailer Trove lot.

Hiccupy. Thirsty.

It was kind of funny.

At least a little bit.

I had a small army of hellish creatures begging me to get them into Heaven, and I’d just turned down a one-way ticket to the place from a verified angel.

I should have asked Evander if that shit was transferable.

Passed it along to someone who wanted it.

Why would I go to Heaven?

I was happy here. Happier by the minute, in fact.

Standing from the car brought the usual headrush, and I leaned into it.

Bent all the way backward like I was being dipped in a dance.

Let my eyes flutter closed while moonlight washed over my face.

Then I giggled. Snort laughed.

I was home, and safe, and everything was wonderful .

Straightening made the world spin again.

Everything was dark and bright with stars speckling the black sky and strings of lights spiderwebbing across the trailer park.

They twinkled and winked, and I winked back.

It was a bit like the club here if I squinted just right.

The Firebird’s speakers had decent bass, enough to make the side panels buzz, so I could even bring the jams. Be my own DJ.

Party in the parking lot.

Work off some of this energy before I slipped back into bed and let my mind run wild.

My head cocked as I surveyed the trailer park once more.

I could spin my tires, kick up some gravel dust for fog, flip my headlights on and off like a strobe, get something to drink …

A dark silhouette interrupted my party scene dream: a figure coming closer.

For a blip of a moment, I thought Evander had teleported himself here somehow to give me hell.

But this person was taller and slimmer with long, dark hair and a face that came clear as he passed under a lot light.

“Baby!” I exclaimed, beaming a grin.

This was perfect. This was better.

Dancing was more fun with a partner, and I was eager to relive the feeling of Loren’s body on mine.

Long fingers wrapped around my hips, strong arms boxing me in, his chest cushioning my head while I rubbed my ass on his crotch.

First, get him hot and bothered, then let him bend me over the Pontiac’s back end out here in the open air.

For a supposedly heavenly being, I had quite an appetite for godless behavior.

“Loren!” I bounced on my bare feet.

“Dance with me! Will you spin me, baby? I wanna spin…”

Wait.

Shit.

Not perfect.

Not better.

He was supposed to be asleep.

Not wandering around the trailer park looking like…

I focused on his face as he rushed toward me.

His cheeks were flushed, eyelashes clumped, and his face had a sheen of moisture that was unmistakable.

He’d been crying.

He was fully dressed, had his boots on and everything.

They crunched against the gravel as he closed the gap, and I fought the urge to run the other way.

To dive into my car and hide the X that felt like lead in my pocket.

I still wasn’t sure if he could sniff the damn things or smell them on me, oozing out of my pores.

“Indy?”

His voice was a croak and, fuck, I needed to be sober for this.

I scrubbed my hands over my face, wondering if I could slap myself out of the high taking me steadily up, up, up.

Loren crashed into me with a full-body hug that lifted me off the ground.

Baby , I almost chirped again because he felt so goddamn good.

He could hug me like this forever.

Crush me, and I’d die a happy man.

But he was shaking. His hand clasped the back of my head—cradled it—and was the car running?

“Where were you?” he rasped.

Excuses trickled in, and I tried to remember which ones had worked before.

Which ones he believed because I needed him to believe me.

More than that, I needed him to turn his ass around and go back to bed and let me ride this out.

Faking sobriety was like passing for straight: I was shit at it.

Then, he spoke again, and the stream of lies coursing through my head crashed into a dam.

“Why did you leave me?”

Oh.

Fuck.

How long had I been gone?

I didn’t dare check my phone or reach for my pockets and draw his attention there.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter.

I’d been away long enough for him to wake and panic, and that was damning enough.

Sliding backward, I put a few inches between us so I could meet his gaze.

Loren wasn’t a crier.

He wasn’t much for emotions in general, more prone to resting hound dog face complete with sad, droopy eyes and a perpetual frown.

It startled me to see him anything but level, and I couldn’t bring myself to lie.

Instead, I gawked at him and tried not to smile about how fucking pretty he was, or giggle about the way it made my head swim having to look so far up to see him.

The man had legs for days and days and days…

“I couldn’t call you,” he sputtered.

“I don’t have my phone. Or my truck…” His head shook, causing black-brown locks to swish across his shoulders.

His hair was pretty, too.

Like ribbons. Shiny satin.

I freed my arm from where he had it pinned against my side and stroked over the tips of his hair.

Soft boy with his soft hair and his soft lips and maybe he would feel better if I kissed him?

“I can’t smell you anymore,” he said with a wince.

“I couldn’t find you.”

I got both hands free and cupped them to either side of his face.

To steady him. To steady myself because the trailer park was twirling.

His eyes met mine, shimmery wet and sparkling.

Like the sky. Like the stars.

So pretty.

I tried to pull him to me for a kiss but, rather than bend in, he pushed me off.

“Indy, where were you?” The question was chased by a whine.

A decidedly canine noise.

My mouth fell open then shut before I babbled, “I went across town. Just for a minute?—”

“Where?” he repeated.

My thoughts were alphabet soup.

Letters that refused to form words.

I was the quiet one for once, and Loren filled the void.

“It’s the middle of the night,” he said.

“Nothing’s open except…”

The drugstore , I almost yapped, and damn if that wasn’t on the nose.

I’d gone to the drugstore, all right.

The one inside Chaz’s stupid leather vest.

“You got drugs.” Loren sounded flat, and I would have sworn I heard something inside him crack.

“A few,” I said despite knowing damn well that wasn’t the point.

His lack of worry might have been a relief, but this was a lack of everything.

No fear, no sorrow, no anger.

He shifted backward so we were no longer touching, and his face went slack.

My high collided with his low.

It often happened that way.

We were opposites, yin and yang, mania and depression walking hand in hand.

I tried sometimes to pull him up with me, away from the darkness he had inside.

I wanted to believe I saved him, the way he claimed, but as I watched his revelation wash over him like rolling waves, I felt more like the undertow.

Loren nodded, and his hair fell forward around his face.

“Okay,” he replied.

“Okay?”

Another nod.

Then nothing.

He was still pretty, but the sparkles were gone.

And while I was far from sober, he was somber enough for both of us.

We’d fought about this shit for decades.

He put me in rehab over it, which wasn’t even logical.

I had been freshly reborn.

Ignorant. If anything, I might have learned about drugs sooner than I would have otherwise.

It was all those people talked about.

Therapists and nurses and junkies yapped about every illegal substance on god’s green earth.

It was a hell of an education, and Loren left me to it.

Alone. For weeks. The ultimate silent treatment.

He was good at that.

Stabbing my hand into my pocket, I pulled out the pill baggie and thrust it toward him.

“Here.” I flapped it.

“This is all there is.”

He gave the drugs a brief glance, then muttered, “Keep them.”

“What?”

“You wanted them,” he replied.

“Keep them.”

The bag hovered in the air between us, pinched in my grip.

“If I keep them, I’ll use them,” I said.

I didn’t mean for it to sound so much like a threat.

Loren sighed. “Okay.”

No, it wasn’t.

This wasn’t okay, and he wasn’t okay, and goddamn it.

When Loren turned aside, I flung the pills on the ground.

The Green Apples looked bright on the bland gravel.

“I don’t want them, Lore!” My shout rang out in the otherwise peaceful night.

That was a lie, but the whisper that came out after carried a heaping dose of truth.

“Not more than I want you.”

“Okay,” Loren said.

I was getting sick of that word.

He pulled farther away, curling into himself with his arms wrapped around his middle.

“You know that, right?” I pressed, nearly able to reach him but not daring to try.

Instead, I balled my hands into fists and squeezed with all the determination I could muster.

“I don’t want anything more than you.”

He ducked his chin to his chest. I thought in a nod until he didn’t look back up.

“Okay,” he mumbled.

My eyes stung with dry heat that made me wish I could burn.

Vent this off rather than let it fill my insides until I blurted, “Damn it, Loren!”

He looked at me.

His eyes drooped with exhaustion, and not the physical kind.

“Can we go to bed?” he asked.

“Please?”

I gazed past him at the Airstream parked a short distance away.

Light cut around the curtains, spotlighting the rainbow flag flapping against the awning arm.

A symbol of pride. I wasn’t proud at all right now.

Loren didn’t wait for my answer before starting toward the trailer.

My attention dropped to the pills lying on the ground.

I did want them, and I needed them too much to leave them out here like litter.

I paid good money for the fucking things.

Might have broken my boyfriend’s heart over them.

Stooping, I scooped up the baggie at the same moment Loren glanced back.

I bucked upright, then damn near went down with the vertigo.

But I didn’t drop the pills, and Loren didn’t stop staring.

My face warmed as I closed my fingers around the bag.

“I can’t leave them out here. Some kid could find them and…”

He didn’t wait for me to finish before turning and resuming his walk to the Airstream.

His departure jolted me into motion.

I ducked into the Firebird and killed the engine, then flung open the glove compartment and threw the pill baggie inside.

I closed the car and started after Loren, hissing and grimacing through each step as the gravel bit into my sore feet.

Back at the trailer, Loren took off his shoes, hung up his sweater, and went to our bedroom without a word.

I trailed behind, wide the fuck awake and parched but unwilling to stop for one more thing.

I entered the bedroom to find he’d decided to sleep in his jeans and button-down.

More like pretend to sleep.

I doubted either of us would be getting much rest tonight.

He lay on his side, facing the wall, and I should have respected the distance.

Obeyed the signs telling me to stop, stay away, and keep my mouth shut.

I slipped under the covers and inched close to him, suddenly so choked up that all I could do was press my hand to his shoulder and squeak, “Lore?”

My touch repelled him.

He moved off the bed and stood so swiftly I wondered how far he would go.

He’d slept in his truck for two months, but that was gone now, and he seemed to realize it as he stalled in the middle aisle of the trailer.

I sat up and watched him turn a slow circle, seeming lost until he dropped onto the couch with a sigh.

He cupped his face in his hands and covered his eyes like there was something he couldn’t bear to see.

I was right there with him, flopping back on the mattress and folding the pillow over my face.

It blocked out the light of the bedside lamp and deafened me to the sounds I was too afraid would follow.

Loren wasn’t a crier, and I should have been.

Everything was backward, upside down, and racing like a roller coaster.

I wanted to get off.

I didn’t want to ride anymore, but the cart was climbing, I was buckled in, and I’d given the controls to a little green pill.

Too late to turn back now.