Then a song comes on the radio and punches me in the chest. Not just any song—our song. Pointer Sisters. Slow Hand.
I see her flinch, too. Her cocky armor slips, and I know it’s slicing into her.
I haven’t heard this damn song in years. So, of course, it shows up now, in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. And with her.
Then the air goes weird. Thick. Awkward.
I don’t know how the faint rumble catches my attention, but I glance out the window into the parking area—
“What the fuck?”
“What?” Her head spins.
We watch her motorhome kicking up a cloud of dust as it speeds away, with brothers waving out of the back window.
Those fucking assholes stranded me here with Jade.
19: DO NOT STRANGLE THIS MAN WITH HIS OWN BELT
JADE
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I WANT TO run.
I want to scream.
I want to chase down the RV.
But instead, I’m frozen in place, stuck here with him. And this blasted song is ringing in my ears, dredging up everything good we ever had, as if it still means something. But I know they don’t.
There’s no need to panic. My sisters are going to stop and turn around to pick me up.
Laughing.
Teasing.
Joking.
All in good humor.
They have to. Right?
“Buy this for me, would ya? I’ll meet you on the bus.” Hart tosses a big bag of chips at me.
I snag it mid-air and hurl it right back at him. “Buy your own chips.”
“If I have to drive you all the way to the rodeo, the least you can do is buy my chips.” He tosses them back at me. “I need something to munch on.”
Imma ‘bout ready to lose all the manners my Mama instilled in me.
“Big bag of chips to be ‘munchin’ on, and we are not driving together.”
“It would appear as though we are.”
Because my sisters abandoned me. Left me behind in this hellhole with the man who broke me in ways I’m still not whole from.
“Over my dead body.” I keep my chin high.
