Page 31 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

Carter seems to enjoy pissing Ashes off. We all warned him that it needed to be her choice to move into our apartment, but he just went ahead and bulldozed over her anyway. Not to say I disagree with the outcome, I just think he was a moron for his approach.

Fuck it, not my problem. I’m more than happy to reap the benefits while he’s in the doghouse.

H eath had been waiting in my car the whole time we were visiting Royce’s mom and had brought his laptop and textbook along to work on his assignments. I had—reluctantly—given him my keys if he’d wanted to go to a diner or something, but he’d opted to stay put.

“I’m starving now though,” he admitted when I commented on that fact.

“Same,” Royce agreed, grinning as my Firebird roared to life. “Let’s grab lunch before we head back.”

I checked the time on my phone and quirked a brow. “Lunch at four in the afternoon? I mean, sure. Why not? Do you know anywhere nearby?”

It was a silly question, given that Royce had been visiting his mom in this town every month for basically his whole life. He took us to what he described as his favorite eatery, where the gray-haired waitress recognized him with a warm greeting and escorted us to a booth in the back.

She offered us menus, but Royce declined, announcing we’d all have his usual. Whatever that was.

“If she comes back with something weird, I’m not eating it just to be polite,” Heath stated, draping his arm along the seat back behind me.

Royce gave an exaggerated gasp. “You mean you don’t like puffer fish sashimi smothered in bat excrement? Since when did you have the palate of a six-year-old, Briggs? Live a little.”

I grinned, because clearly he was teasing. He was teasing…right?

“So how was Katie this month?” Heath asked, changing subject. “She ask about me?”

I whacked him with the back of my hand. “You did not just imply what I think you implied, Heathcliff Briggs.”

He chuckled. “Just joking, obviously. But I bet she loved meeting you, Ashes. Did she think you guys are dating?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, rolling my eyes with a smile. “And Royce trying to insist we’re friends only seemed to make it worse.”

Royce’s jaw tightened and he shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter what my mom thinks we are. What did you think about her story?”

The humor faded away as I drew a deep breath. “I can see why you brought me to meet her, for sure. I wonder if there’s some way to prove whether she was under hypnosis or something?”

Royce shook his head. “There’s not. I’ve spent years with my uncle, trying to find all the evidence surrounding her arrest and the murders…

there’s nothing useful. It’s just her word against a mountain of proof and our new gut feeling that hypnosis could be involved. Which, again, how do you prove it?”

“We can’t exactly just ask Dr. Fox now, can we?” I agreed with a groan.

Heath winced. “Sorry, that’s my bad.”

Royce’s lips tilted with a lopsided smile. “Bro… my bad ?” He snickered, shaking his head at—I had to assume—Heath calling violent murder my bad .

A food runner appeared then, delivering three huge burgers with mountains of fries and three enormous Cokes.

“Mmm, real Coke shits all over Pepsi,” Royce hummed after taking a sip.

“They’re the same thing,” Heath replied, picking up his burger in both hands and licking his lips. “Now this is the sort of puffer fish sashimi I can get on board with.”

Royce picked up a fry and threw it at Heath. “They are not the same thing, you heathen. Squirrel, please tell me you’re on my side with this?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “One hundred percent. In fact, I just became twenty percent less attracted to Heath for not immediately knowing they taste different.”

Heath just laughed, licking grease off his thumb. “Liar, you love me.”

And then I choked. Fucking infuriating men needed to stop saying things that panicked me while I was eating or drinking.

Thankfully, it was just a droplet of Coke that I’d inhaled, which probably wouldn’t kill me…

but my face burned all the same. Didn’t help that both Heath and Royce were looking at me like I couldn’t be trusted to eat solid foods without adult supervision.

The thing was, though, I still didn’t feel totally comfortable or secure in this relationship with Heath or Carter. Not secure enough to go tossing my heart out for everyone to see and stomp on, that was for sure. Regardless of how true Heath’s statement might have been.

Royce seemed to take pity on me, asking Heath instead about his classes, and the two of them carried the conversation while I quietly enjoyed my burger. It was a great burger, so Royce had good taste.

Once we were finished, Royce paid the bill and must have tipped heavily because the waitress shook her head in disbelief, then hugged him. He patted her back and murmured something about seeing her again next month as we left the diner.

“Want me to drive?” I offered, despite the fact it was my car. Royce just scoffed and slid into the driver’s seat like it was his second home, leaving me to roll my eyes in amusement. “I guess not. I’ll sit in the back, then.”

Before Heath could insist he was fine back there—he absolutely was not with legs that long—I clambered in and got comfy.

“I suppose you do fit a little easier,” Heath admitted, pushing the passenger seat back into position and sliding in. “I forget how little you are sometimes.”

“He means because you’ve got big-dog energy,” Royce informed me with a smirk in the rearview mirror. “You act like you’re six foot sometimes. Not a little yappy dog, like Jade.”

I scowled, not so sure if that was a compliment or an insult. Heath saved me the need to respond by turning on my stereo and spending the next half hour arguing with Royce over what radio station they should listen to.

At some point, I curled up in a ball and went to sleep. Long drives always made me so tired.

“Watch out!” Heath’s startled shout jerked me out of deep sleep a split second before the car swerved sharply, then crashed to a stop like we’d just hit something. Hard.

“Fuck!” Royce exclaimed. “He came out of nowhere! Shit, Squirrel, you okay?” His seat belt unclicked, and he all but climbed between the seats to check on me, and I groaned as I rubbed my head. I’d smacked it somewhere in that abrupt stop, and it throbbed.

Royce swatted my hand away and grabbed my head between his hands to check if I was bleeding, but I was pretty sure it was a minor bump at worst.

“What happened?” I asked, batting his fussing hands away. It was dark outside, but given the time of year and how late we’d left the diner, that wasn’t surprising. “Where are we?”

“Deer,” Heath replied, sounding a little pained. “We hit a deer. Or he hit us. Jumped out of the bushes with exactly zero warning.”

I gasped, shoving Royce out of the way and gaping at the dense spiderweb of cracks that my windshield had become. Horrified, I heard a little whimper escape me. “My car…”

Royce winced. “I’m so sorry, Squirrel.” He popped open his door and climbed out, then leaned in to lever the seat forward to let me out to survey the damage.

When I saw the full extent, I nearly fainted.

My shattered windshield was far from the worst of it, and I wanted to vomit when I saw how twisted and caved in the front end of my beautiful car was.

“I’ll get it repaired.” Royce tried to placate me as I circled the car, wringing my hands with anxiety. “I know a guy that will do an awesome job getting this back to how it was. You won’t even know anything happened when he’s done.”

He was attempting to be reassuring, and I appreciated it.

But even my inexpert eyes could see this might be a total write-off.

Fucking hell, Dad was going to be so disappointed.

Tears pricked at my eyes, and I swallowed hard to hold them back.

It was an accident. Obviously it was an accident. But…my car!

“We had to get off the freeway about a half hour ago because of a truck roll-over,” Heath said, rubbing his chest with obvious discomfort. “So we’re firmly in the middle of butt-fuck-nowhere right now.”

“With no cell reception,” Royce groaned, checking his phone. “Fucking hell. Squirrel, I am so sorry.”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to cry. “It was an accident,” I croaked. “And you handled it better than I probably would have. We’re all alive, right? Though…Heath, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he wheezed. “I’m good. Seat belt probably left a mark, that’s all. We just passed a town not long back. We could start heading in that direction?”

They both looked at me for confirmation, but I just shrugged.

“Fuck if I know. Yeah, that sounds like our best option if there’s no reception out here.

And”—I glanced around in dismay, thankful that the huge moon provided some light—“it doesn’t look like the busiest road, so we could be here for hours if we wait for another car. ”

Royce leaned back into the car and fetched my handbag, which he passed to me, then grabbed Heath’s laptop bag and looped it over his own shoulder before locking the doors.

A little pointless, considering the car couldn’t be driven anywhere, let alone stolen, but still it made me feel a little better to have the keys in my bag once more.

“Come on, then, let’s get walking. How far back do you think that town was, Heath?” Royce turned the flashlight on his phone as he led the way back down the road in the direction we’d just come. “It wasn’t crazy far, was it?”

“Nah, only about five or ten minutes maybe?” Heath grimaced as he rubbed his chest, then took my purse out of my hand and looped it over his arm. It was cute but so unnecessary.

“It’s not heavy,” I laughed, holding out my hand to take it back.

Heath shook his head stubbornly. “What kind of asshole do you take me for? Even a five-minute drive could take us over an hour to walk. Hopefully we can get cell reception before we go the whole way, though.”

As if the universe was laughing at us, the walk took the better part of two hours, and we still had zero bars when we arrived on the outskirts of the little town.

It was weird, and I’d spent far too much of those last two hours detailing all the different ways we could be picked up by a serial killer and brutally murdered.

“You’re a bit sick, you know that?” Royce asked as we approached the run-down motel with a flashing neon Vacancy sign. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s hot. But also now I see why you were so clear-headed last week with the, um, situation.”

With covering up the murder Heath had accidentally committed, he meant. It was a valid point.

“I’m just saying, this feels like one of those scenes out of a Hitchcock movie. If the shower curtain is one of those plastic things, I’m not going in there alone. Just so we’re clear.” Then I frowned and swiveled my head to stare at him. “Did you just call me hot, Roycey?”

He held my gaze unflinchingly. “Yeah. What of it?”

“I’m always happy to share the shower with you, Ashes,” Heath offered with a grin. “Even if it is Carter’s thing. I’ll put on a fake British accent and everything.”

Why the fuck that got me all tingly inside, I couldn’t say. Maybe it was exhaustion. I just laughed and gestured for them to enter the little reception office ahead of me—just in case there was a chainsaw murderer hiding behind the counter.

As it was, there was no one behind the counter at all, but the bell chime of us entering brought a plump woman out of the back room within a minute.

“Good evening.” She greeted us with a tired smile. “Looking for a room?”

“Yes, please,” Heath responded politely. “Two if possible?”

She shook her head with a grimace. “Sorry, not tonight. That crash on the freeway has everyone diverting through our town, and we’re almost at full capacity already. I can offer you one room or point you in the direction of Motel Seventy-Seven, about an hour’s drive south of here.”

“One room is fine,” I said quickly. “We actually hit a deer on the road south of here, but there seems to be no reception to call a tow?” I checked my phone again, in case something had changed, but nope.

The woman nodded. “Yes, that’d be because of the crash. The truck literally collided with our cell reception tower and took the whole damn thing down. Landlines still work, though, if you need to make any calls. As for a tow truck, my cousin Larry can sort you out in the morning.”

“That would be amazing, thank you,” I replied, mustering up my best smile.

Heath sorted out paying for our room—thank fuck he had cash, since the internet was also down—and the woman handed us over the key.

It was hanging on a big, plastic heart key ring, and she winced as she passed it across.

“It’s our honeymoon suite, but I only charged you the standard room rate since there’s just one bed. It’s big, though, and there’s a sofa.”

Honeymoon suite? Who the heck was honeymooning at the Lucky Star Motel in the middle of nowhere? “I’m sure it will be fine,” I murmured.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Well, the minibar is fully stocked, but if you want food, I’d suggest checking out the Drunken Cactus down the road a little ways. Their kitchen is only open until ten, though.”

We thanked her, then went in search of our honeymoon suite. It wasn’t hard to locate, and once Heath unlocked the door with the key on the big heart, I had to do a double take in case my eyes were messing with me.

“Oh, wow,” I chuckled, stepping inside and gaping at the enormous heart-shaped bed. “I mean…she wasn’t lying about it being big enough, but how on earth would they get sheets to fit that?”

Royce waggled his eyebrows as he crossed over to the head of the bed, where there seemed to be a coin slot. “If this thing vibrates, we’ve probably all died in that car crash and stepped into such a wacky afterlife. Heath, bro, got any quarters?”

Heath sighed but stuffed his hand into his pocket to pull out a handful of change, which he handed over. Royce inserted four into the coin slot, then twisted the lever.

Nothing.

“Aw, man. Anticlimax from hell.” He pouted and flopped down on the nonvibrating bed.

Heath laughed and poked around at drawers and cabinets until he found the minibar, then gave a little cheer. “She wasn’t exaggerating about the minibar being stocked up, though! Shots, anyone?”

He held up a handful of tiny bottles and the grin on his face was way too infectious to say no to. And really, after nearly dying in a car crash, I think we deserved it.

I took one of the little bottles from him and cracked the lid, then waited for the boys to do the same before offering mine for a toast. “To the deer,” I announced, clinking bottles with them both.

“To the deer,” they responded, and we all drank in unison.