by Kate Morris
He didn’t answer, just chuckled once and ignored her.
“That was so strange,” she remarked, suddenly feeling the need to talk about it. Her voice shook.
“Yeah,” he agreed and didn’t say anything else.
“What was wrong with him? Did…did you hear…I don’t know. I think I was overwhelmed or something.”
She wanted his opinion on the man’s odd use of sounds and guttural words that she couldn’t understand. For some reason, she needed to know that he heard it, too, and that she didn’t just imagine it. There was a long pause, a silence that replaced the heat in the cab and filled it with a void that made Avery uncomfortable. She was used to a lot more noise. At her house, someone was always talking, playing music, playing their piano, or making noise of some kind. Tristan seemed like a lot quieter person.
“D-do you think he was on drugs?” she asked.
Again, silence.
“I think maybe he was on drugs,” she answered her own question, needing to fill the silence. Her eyes darted around nervously. Maybe this was a bad idea. She was starting to feel unsafe.
“You saw him earlier?” he asked finally.
Avery nodded, then frowned because her head hurt. “Yes, when I went to the restroom with Joella. I didn’t want her to go by herself. You know, because she was so…um…”
“Drunk,” he finished for her. “She was piss drunk.”
Avery frowned, then frowned harder because it hurt. She wasn’t used to being around someone who swore so much.
“Yes, she was very intoxicated. But I saw him earlier. He was back that hallway. I saw him there.”
“Waiting for the bathroom,” he stated.
Avery nodded and regarded his profile under the dim dashboard lighting. “Yes. He hit on us, I suppose. To put it simply, of course.”
“Your friend said he hit on you, not her,” he corrected. “She didn’t say anything about him hitting on her. His friends said he was watching you all night.”
That made her shudder. He didn’t seem to notice or probably didn’t care. She was making a mountain out of a molehill.
“Um, I guess so. He wanted me to dance with him. That’s all.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared hard at the winding road ahead of him.
“What?”
Tristan sighed, “He didn’t just want to dance with you. Nobody in there wanted to dance with you.”
“Oh,” she said, not quite understanding what he meant. “I think…”
“Men don’t just want a dance,” he interrupted with an angry face that he turned right on her. “You’d do well to remember that.”
She felt like he was reprimanding her. That irritated Avery. This wasn’t her fault.
“You should carry some mace or something,” he kept going.
“Noted,” she said curtly.
“Or an M60,” he added with a smirk and looked at her in the darkness of his truck’s cab. She saw the hint of a dimple in his left cheek through his short beard.
“I don’t need to carry a machine gun,” she said.
His head shot backward an inch with surprise. “You know what an M60 is?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “It’s a very high-powered rifle that takes a 7.62 cartridge. Belt fed and used by the U.S. military.”
“Okay, kid,” he commented.
“Excuse me? I’m not a child,” she rebutted irritably.
“Homeschool kid,” he corrected.
Avery was becoming vexed with him. “Yes, I was homeschooled. But I’m not a kid. I’m an adult. I live on my own, have my own car, have a very successful career underway.”
“At nineteen?”
“Yes,” she immediately answered very pertly.
“Are all homeschooled kids nerds like you?”
She sent him a glare full of daggers. Avery didn’t like being judged by people, especially not for the decisions her parents made about her education. A good education was the most important thing in the world, according to her father.
“You’re still just a kid, though,” he stood by his comment.
“I don’t appreciate that,” she said and folded her arms over her chest. She wanted to throw his dumb jacket on the floor of his stupid truck and stomp on it. Instead, she hissed as she crossed her arms because her right one was really sore. “Besides, how old are you?”
“Actually, I thought you were older,” he said. “I was surprised when your friend said you were only nineteen.”
“I’ll be twenty in a few months.”
“Wow, the big two-oh. You’ll be ancient,” he joked.
She scowled and repeated, “How old are you?”
He paused and said, “Twenty-five technically, but I’ve got some city miles on me. You don’t.”
She stared out her window and tried to ignore him. He was rude, and Avery didn’t like rude people. He was assuming a lot of things about her. He wasn’t that much older than her. Just because he had a bunch of ugly tattoos and a beard didn’t mean he was older and cooler and whatever ‘city miles’ meant.
“Oh, no!” she blurted
“What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“My phone. It’s not in my pocket. It’s gone. I must’ve lost it in the bar when I fell.”
“Do you need it right now? We’re almost to the hospital.”
She debated answering him. The way she answered his question would only further form his opinion of her. Instead, she shook her head and hoped her mother didn’t send out the sheriff looking for her for breaking curfew in an hour. There was no way she was going to tell him she had a curfew. He was already kind of a pompous jerk. As he pulled into the Emergency Room parking, Avery had to amend her opinion. He was a pompous jerk who drove her to the hospital. And lent her his jacket. And also saved her from being hauled away by an insane man with garbled speech.
Chapter Five
“I just live down the next lane. Yep, this one,” she said beside him. He was pretty sure she was a little buzzed from whatever they gave her in the hospital for pain. She talked a lot, which was really annoying. She talked a lot before the drugs. She was kind of a chatterbox high on drugs. “Right here. See? That’s my mailbox. The green one. Blends in with everything. Doesn’t really work well for an address marker.”
“I know where you live, Avery,” he said, the sound of her name on his tongue doing something to his insides.
“You do? Y-you remember?”
“Yes, I remember seeing you,” he admitted and turned down her lane. It was long and winding, and the property sat back really far from the road. It was a hideaway, the perfect place, in his opinion. Someday when he retired, he wanted something similar.
“Oh,” she whispered.
The sun was just starting to rise as he pulled in, and the sky was gray and dreary.
“Where’s my car?”
“They said they’d drop it,” he reminded her and smirked.
“That’s good,” she said. “If my mother looked out, she would’ve seen it in the lane. Here. Stop here.”
“I can drive you up to the house.”
“I don’t live in the house. And I don’t want my mother to see me being dropped off by…someone.”
“One of her patients?” he asked grumpily.
She shook her head and rubbed at her pert little nose. “No, a guy. She’d flip out.”
“Right, ‘cuz you’re the responsible good girl,” he assumed. “Always protecting your friends when you go out, looking out for them, taking care of them, cock-blocking, and making sure they don’t make bad decisions like taking drinks from a dude, right?”
“Yep, that’s me,” she stated and laughed. She sighed long and loudly, “Ahhh. Wait, what’s cock-blocking?”
She was totally high as fuck. He ignored that question.
“So, if you don’t live in the house, where do you live?”
“In the garage, silly,” she said and patted his arm. Then she drew little circles a
round the skull wearing a beret with the dagger stabbing through it. “Death…” she squinted. “Death… b-be… death…”
“Death before dishonor,” he aided her in deciphering. He’d had many women check out his tattoos before, marvel at them, at the muscles underneath them.
“Tattoos are ugly,” she said, shocking him.
Nobody ever said that! Tristan said too loudly for the cab of the truck, “Ha!” and she startled. “Wow, you don’t hold back, do you?”
“Why? Should I? Did I hurt your feelings? You hurt mine,” she informed him and kept running her fingers over the different ink on his right arm. She shouldn’t do shit like that, but there wasn’t an easy way to tell her that her touch was doing things to him, to certain regions in particular.
“How’d I hurt your feelings?” he asked and immediately wondered why he cared. He didn’t.
“You said I was a homeschool nerd,” she informed him.
“Well, you are,” he clarified, getting an angry little sneer from her.
“No, I’m not. I’m just educated. Probably the kinds of dumb bimbos you go out with don’t even have an education past the sixth grade.”
“That’s probably true,” he considered, thinking back over it. He didn’t actually ‘go out’ with women, either. It was more of a meet up and spend an evening together kind of thing.
“I got a thirty-four on my ACT,” she bragged.
“So? And you’re just proving my point anyway. You’re really not helping your own argument of not being a nerd,” he challenged and raised an eyebrow. “And I got a thirty-three. Big deal.”
“You did not,” she argued.
He chuffed. She was a spunky little woman. She said whatever she wanted, didn’t have a filter. She had pluck. Her hair had come undone, or a nurse took it down at the hospital to examine her. It hung in pale waves over her shoulders and down her back and was tangled and sexy, not the smooth and neat way he’d seen it earlier and the other day when he’d seen her getting out of her car in front of her mother’s home. Tristan also noticed the spots of blood on her white dress, which had been so cute on her before everything happened.
At the hospital, he’d gone back with her but waited outside the room while she was examined. The doctor had declared she had bruised not cracked ribs, which was good. But her arm was going to be sore for about three or four weeks. She didn’t need stitches on her chin, but they’d cleaned and bandaged it. When they’d taken her for x-rays, Tristan went for a coffee. That’s when he’d noticed how busy the hospital was. There were even boxes of face masks available for people to put on. When he’d asked a nurse at the desk about that, she’d told him there was a bad flu bug going around. He hoped he didn’t get it. He hadn’t been sick since he was a punk kid. He’d gone back and waited for Avery in her room instead of staying in the lobby because after he’d gotten a better look around, he did notice that a lot of people looked really sick. The doctor diagnosed her injured arm as tennis elbow and put it in an elbow strap, which she had complained about the whole ride home. She was spunky, annoying, talked too much, and was entirely too damn gorgeous for her own good. If she was an angel, she was certainly a sassy one.
“I did. I’m a super nerd like you,” he informed her and tried to ignore her long, graceful fingers twirling around and tracing his different tattoos. “How come you don’t get a tattoo?”
He knew the answer to that but wanted to tease her.
“What?” she screeched, then started laughing and fell back against her seat. “No way! So…ugh, gross!”
“Gross? You know, most chicks I take out like them,” he told her. Tristan had no idea why he was idling his truck in her drive and talking to her. “I’ve never heard anyone say they’re gross.” He’d never had anyone blatantly insult them, either.
“You must date girls with very low standards,” she informed him in a haughty tone of superiority.
“Maybe that’s how I like it,” he said. That part was true. He didn’t want a committed relationship. No girlfriends. Sure as hell no wife. Maybe he’d get a dog someday. A dog and some hideaway property for retirement. That sounded pretty damned perfect.
She just laughed hysterically again. Tristan got the feeling this was not a side she would be showing him right now without the aid of narcotics running through her frail system.
“The Bible says you shouldn’t mark your skin, ya’ know,” she informed him.
“You learn that in homeschool?”
“Sunday school.”
He snorted. “Figures. Let me walk you to the door. It’s still kind of dark out here. You got your key?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a key. I don’t lock my place. Gosh, who’d rob me? Look around. This isn’t exactly a populated area, Mr. Paranoid.”
Was that another insult? Felt like it.
“I’m still walking you to your door. Wait there.”
He got out and rounded the back of the truck, looking around as he went out of habit. He was always situationally aware. When he opened her door, Tristan found her dead asleep, resting her head back against the seat.
“Hey, you,” he said softly and touched her arm. Her head lolled toward him, and her pale eyes popped open.
“What took ya’ so long, slowpoke?”
He groaned. This chick was so annoying. And pushy. He helped her down anyway. His mind tracked back to that moment in the bar when she’d been snatched by that asshole. He hadn’t even paused, hadn’t thought it through. Training for the last eight years had led to his fast reaction time. It still wasn’t fast enough, though. He had his arm around her waist before Tristan could stop it from happening. He’d seen the drunk asshole creeping up behind her. It was the only way he could describe it. Creeping. He was a relatively big guy, but Tristan was bigger.
“I know the way to my place,” she said once her feet were on the ground. She swayed, so he snatched her uninjured arm to stabilize her. “Hey, Mr. Handsy.”
He gritted his teeth and removed his hand from her arm. “Lead the way, homeschool.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and started walking down the lane. About fifty more yards and she veered off to the left down a well-worn dirt path through the woods that surrounded both sides of the gravel drive. The first time he’d come for a session with Dr. Andersson, he’d thought he had the wrong address.
“Come on,” she demanded quietly and pushed a branch out of her path. “This way.”
“You’re leading,” he told her and followed closely in case she got dizzy again.
They came to the long garage he’d noticed at the crest of a small hill off to the left in front of the house. She came in behind it, and he followed, stepping onto a stone walkway. The landscaping was insane. Vinery grew up the side of the barn. Hosta plants as wide as four feet across lined the path and grew around the many species of colorful flowers and flowering bushes that marked their way.
“We’re here,” she said and stopped at a door under a deck system above it.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“My place,” she answered. Then added as if she found him dense, “The garage.”
Tristan figured she probably was high for sure. This really was the garage. Surely, she didn’t sleep in the garage.
“What?” he questioned.
“My apartment,” she answered more clearly and pointed up. “I live up there.”
“Oh, above the garage?”
“Yes. Duh. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said with sass. “Thirty-two my butt.”
“Thirty-three, smarty pants,” he corrected. She rolled her eyes, which made him want to discipline her for her impertinence. “Okay, then.”
“Wait,” she blurted and grabbed his arm.
“What? Want me to come up and check the place out? Make sure it’s empty?”
She scuffed the toe of her cowgirl boot on the stone patio and nodded.
“No problem,” he said and stepped past her.
/> Tristan didn’t like that he just turned the knob and entered without the hindrance of any locks. He went first up the steps which were a really cool wood, something exotic, and curved around like the staircase belonged on a ship or in an old library. When he got to the top, Avery ran into his back. So much for waiting for him to check it out first.
She followed right on his heels as he went down the hall to another door, which was glass. He opened and went through. As he walked down the hall, the lights came on. It caused him to startle. She laughed like a drunk person.
“They come on automatically,” she whispered.
He scowled over his shoulder. Who the hell would want a feature like that? Talk about creepy.
Tristan checked the first room, which was obviously her office. Then he looked in a bathroom. The next room was her bedroom, which he thoroughly checked. He told himself he was being thorough to make her feel better, but he was actually just curious. Her room had a wall of windows and a set of sliding glass doors that led out to the deck connecting to the one he’d just stood under. Her bathroom and bedroom were both painted white and pale gray and had plush gray carpeting in the bedroom. The bathroom had a black tile floor but was white tile and marble everywhere else with the exception of some sort of wooden bench in the shower that also had a wooden floor. There were way too many windows in there, too, even in the shower. Creepers could see her showering if they stood in the woods with a good set of binoculars. The idea of that pissed him off for some reason. They went to another much smaller room, which was just storage boxes and no windows at all. Then it was on to the living and kitchen spaces which were open to each other without dividing walls and had a tall, peaked ceiling. The place was really cool, definitely a lot higher end than most first apartments.
As if picking up on his questioning look, she explained, “My dad loves architecture.”
“I guess so,” he said. “Nice place.”
Tristan wandered over toward the floor-to-ceiling glass wall and looked out at the property and the actual house where her mother’s office was located. Her apartment was nicer than any place he’d ever lived. Digs like this in a big city like New York would easily reach a few million dollars.
