“I don’t think I’m down for sex right now.” I never thought I’d be saying those words to him, of all people, but I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin. I can still feel Jonah’s hands on me, and I can still see the bitter madness in his eyes, and no amount of fucking Pax will shake that. I need time. I need to work on shoving all of those terrible memories back behind that steel reinforced door inside my mind.
“I’m not trying to fuck you,” Pax says stiffly.
“Then…why…”
He huffs. “Can you please just take my hand and come with me? You’re making this way harder than it needs to be, and I’m—I’m not fucking good at this, okay?”
He’s so earnest, entirely not himself, that I take his hand. He guides me up the stairs and into his room, then over to his bed. “Wait here.”
He heads to his chest of drawers—the very same one he sat me on and told me to spread my legs, the first time I came into this room—and pulls out a t-shirt from the second drawer down. He gives it to me, rubbing the back of his neck. “Change into that. You’ll be more comfortable. You can get into the bed, or you can sit by the window or read or whatever. I’m gonna go grab Dash. He needs a ride. When I get back, I’ll make sure not to disturb you.”
I stare at the t-shirt in my hands, a little dumbfounded.
Who is this guy?
I don’t recognize a single part of him.
That isn’t to say that I don’t like him. I like this version of Pax way more than I should.
“Okay. So…” Pax looks awkwardly around his room. “Yeah.”
And he goes.
35
PAX
* * *
Dash doesn’t need a ride.
I just can’t be in the house. Not when I’m this close to going nuclear. I head down the mountain, and I drive around town, hoping. There’s a chance. A possibility. Mountain Lakes is small, after all. It’s not unimaginable that I’ll run into the guy, and heaven fucking help him if I do. My little storytelling ploy didn’t work on Chase. I intend on honoring the promise I made to her back at the academy, but that doesn’t mean I won’t beat the truth out of that Jonah piece of shit if I run into him on the street.
Realistically, there are only three places a guy like Chase’s brother—fuck, I didn’t even know she had a brother—would be in a town like Mountain Lakes. There’s the diner, Screamin’ Beans, then there’s the bowling alley, and then Cosgroves. I burn past the diner and the place looks deserted. No one sitting in the booths by the windows. The bowling alley’s on the other side of town, so I head for Cosgrove’s to check the bar on the way. Shit, if this fucker’s at Cosgroves, he has no idea how much trouble he’s in. He’s going to rue the day he was born. Wren’s been low key grumbling about giving the bar a makeover. Most of the furniture is older than Patterson, the ancient bartender who’s worked at Cosgroves for the last thirty years. If I break every stick of furniture in the place over that motherfucker’s head, I’ll actually be doing Jacobi a favor.
I’m about to turn left and burn down Main Street until I hit the parking lot across from the hospital, but then I see something that makes every hair on my body stand on end.
What the…
I say it out loud.
“What the FUCK?”
No.
Fucking.
Way.
My eyes are playing fucking tricks on me. Only they aren’t. There, behind the seven-foot-tall chain link fence that surrounds Moody’s Autobody and Collision Center, is a murdered-out midnight blue Mitsubishi Evo. And the driver’s side nose of the car is totally fucking destroyed. I turn into Moody’s before I can even properly process what I’m seeing.
I’ve only had one encounter with Old Man Moody. The guy fixed something on the Charger and did a good job of it, but he charged me a small fortune. The locals around here always gouge academy students ’cause they know most of us come from money. I’ve made sure to fix the car myself ever since. It’s his son that steps out of the shop, wiping oil from his hands with a rag when I screech to a halt.
“Whoa!” he says, laughing. “Where’s the fire, man?”
“Who…owns…that?” I stab a finger at the Evo. I already know who owns it. I don’t need to ask. I don’t believe in coincidences, and seeing this heavily damaged, extremely familiar vehicle the same day I meet Chase’s asshole brother is just too much of a fucking fluke.
Moody’s son stutters. “Uhh…I don’t…so…I think…that…”
“Spit it out!”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to just give out that information. Customer…confidentiality?”
“You fix cars. You’re not a fucking doctor. Who owns the Evo?”
Flustered, he shakes his head. “I dunno. I mean…some kid? I can’t remember his name. He was just in here. His old man’s setting up some Italian restaurant at the end of street. He dropped the car off a month ago and just disappeared. This is the first time he’s been back since.”
I parse this information, and everything snaps into place. Yeahhh, this car belongs to Jonah. Jonah was the asshole who dumped Chase’s half dead ass out of the car, the night she nearly died. Jonah was the one who nearly fucking killed me when he took out that wall. His outlook on life just got even bleaker, and it was looking pretty bad to begin with.
“That Charger’s a sweet ride, man. You thinking about selling?” Moody’s son asks. He asks another question as I storm back to the car and hurl myself into the driver’s seat, too, but I’m not listening. My mind is working a mile a minute.
Main Street streaks past me in a blur. I hit the brakes when I see the building at the end of the street—the truck parked outside, delivering tablecloths. The other guy wearing a plaid shirt standing out on the street with his hands on his hips, staring up at the sign above the front door.
I park very badly across the street, get out, and cross over to him. The guy, who definitely looks ex-military—you can tell by the way a man holds himself a lot of the time—doesn’t even look at me as I come to a halt next to him. His frown deepens. “Hey. Do you think that looks a little…lopsided?” he asks.
The sign, which says Love Me Tender, Love Me True, is absolutely lopsided, but the text is in cursive and at an angle, anyway. I fold my arms across my chest. “Yeah. It does.”
The guy sighs deeply. “Okay. Well. Fuck it. It’s up there now.”
This is Chase’s Dad. Naturally. I’ve never met him before, but they have the same nose, and chin, though Chase’s is a little elfin than her father’s. His hair is mostly brown, but auburn flashes in it when the sun breaks through the clouds and lights him up.
He grumbles as he heads back inside the building. He doesn’t say a word until he realizes that I’m right behind him. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry. We’re actually not open yet.” He gestures around at the chairs, still in their plastic. There are boxes everywhere. The place smells like fresh paint and newly planed wood. The décor is clean, and white, and modern, but the upholstered, padded seats in the booths are sumptuous and look comfortable as hell. It kind of reminds me of my mother’s pristine living room, only these couches are supposed to be sat on.