Couldn’t he for once ease into the pain? I groaned his name. “Tug.”
Tug turned to Beck. “I really, really regret what I did to you. I’ll make restitution for the things I stole. I’ll deal with the law if I have to. If I can earn your forgiveness, fine. If not, it’s all right. That’s the best I can do. I’m so sorry I hurt you, Beck.”
Beck wasn’t ready to forgive him. We could all see that.
“I’ll be staying in St. Nacho’s for a while,” Tug added. “I have a job at Miss Independence Pies. I’ll pay you back in installments.”
“Fine.” Beck left to pack up his instrument and collect his dog, who seemed much calmer now that he was nearby. She greeted him with the happiest of doggie smiles and nudged into his legs until he kneeled to bury his face in her fur.
“We’ll be in touch.” Lindy followed Beck.
“Nice to meet you, Luke,” said Shawn. “Will you be staying here too?”
I shook my head and did my best to sign, “I live in the Central Valley. I’m leaving for home tonight.”
“Shame.” Shawn signed something I didn’t recognize to Cooper. Then he said, “You’d like it here.”
I nodded because I already did like it. “I need to get back for work.”
Cooper waved, and together they drifted a little farther away. Tug didn’t approach them again. We watched Beck and Lindy make their way up Main Street together. Tug held my hand as if he couldn’t let go. I glanced at him, then past him out to the west where the sky had blossomed with every shade of red and gold around the setting orange sun.
As if someone turned up the volume, the world around us came back into focus. Mariachi music seeped from behind the closed doors of Nacho’s Bar. The fragrance of coconut sunscreen and roasting meat filled the air.
As for Tug—who had arguably done the hardest thing in his short grim lifetime—the very life seemed to drain out of him. I wondered what he must be thinking, how he must be feeling, after confronting Beck and his friends.
“Do you have to go tonight?” he asked with sudden, almost breathless ferocity.
“What do you mean?”
“Could you stay here just one more night? Leave tomorrow—”
“Don’t you have a curfew?” I asked. “Don’t you work tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but it’s only six. And I was thinking… I need… um. I mean, I just wish—”
“What?” I asked as though I didn’t already know what he was saying.
If he’d said the words out loud, I might have been able to make the sensible choice. The wiser choice. But with our old goddamn habit of talking in code and euphemisms and leaving hard things unspoken, I was just as complicit in any miscommunication we had.
“Could we maybe just go somewhere quiet?” he asked. “Where it’s only us, and we can be together?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please?” he begged. “It’s… Maybe it’s not a good idea, but it’s the least bad one I have, and right now I’m all out of good ideas.”
It was a bad idea. Maybe not theft bad. Maybe not heroin bad. But it was dragging my feet over the do not cross line bad.
But I wanted to feel something right then too. Anything besides the anxiety and grief that had dogged me since I’d met Tug. I shared the craving to escape my emotions, and Tug was a bad idea made flesh.
I wanted him, and I said yes knowing full well it meant crossing the line.
Even after the meetings, and the books, and the homework, I couldn’t say no to Tug when he looked at me like that. God help me, I wanted him.
Live and learn.
Even knowing Tug, knowing he’d played me in the past, knowing I couldn’t trust him to be stable in the future, I went along because I wanted him just as much as he wanted the distraction I offered.
Chapter Twenty-One
St. Nacho’s, Day 5
In my defense: Luke.
I wouldn’t have started it with anyone else.
I wouldn’t have let it get that far with anyone else.
It could never have happened with anyone else, except it was Luke.
Tug
At the SeaView Motel, the old man at the desk wore a virtual reality headset. He wore controllers on his hands and moved them in quick punching motions, probably playing a game.
“Just a second.” He held up a hand for us to wait. Apparently that was the wrong move because a second later, he gave a quick, downward slap. “Oh, shoot.”
Tug and I eyed each other. Tug’s eyes traveled from mine to my lips and back. I fidgeted, waiting for the man to finish whatever it was he was actually doing.
Time was in short supply. Tug’s hand slid up my arm, and our gazes met again and locked.
Tug’s eyes softened with something like sorrow.
The hand on my arm became a caress I leaned into. His fingers slid to my shoulder, then to my neck where they curled around my nape and stroked the fine hairs there. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. Something about Tug’s mouth did extraordinary things to my dick. I’d never been that turned on before.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered.
I shivered all over.
He leaned up and pressed his mouth to my cheek. The kiss was brief, but I turned to him, pressing my hot forehead against his while the very air around us seemed to crackle with tension.
The old man behind the registration desk shouted, “Take that, asshole!”
He whipped off his goggles and blinked against the light. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’d just gotten to the fight when you came.”
I turned to him. “Do you have availability for tonight?”
“Indeed, I do. The holiday-goers have fled, leaving plenty of rooms. You want upstairs or down.” His gaze was assessing and, I thought, amused. I must have looked like one of those Love-o-Meter machines with flashing red lights and sirens going owooga all the way to “Uncontrollable.”
“Up.” I said at the same time Tug said, “Anywhere.”
“I’m Carl.” The man hid his smile. “I’ll put you upstairs. I’ll need a credit card.”
I gave him mine.
“And fill this out please.” Carl handed me a brief questionnaire about my car with a bunch of legalese.
“Thank you,” I said, handing it over after I’d scribbled my answers. My mouth had gone dry, so the words were little more than a croak.
“Park on the left. It’s the fourth room from the front.” I took the key card with nerveless fingers. Tug, who hadn’t let go of my neck, led me outside.
While he waited, I parked my car by the stairs. Our gazes met and held once more before we took the steps to the second level. Without asking, I bought two sodas and two bottles of water. He smiled with gratitude as I handed them over to open the door.
Gathering the drinks in one arm, he wrapped his other hand around my neck again, making a kaleidoscope of butterflies take wing low in my belly.
“You okay?” he asked. “You’re trembling.”
I nodded.
“You sure about this?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure at all, but I was well past the point of caring about the consequences. “I want this.”