Last night.
The bar where Carter and Kai were there… We were celebrating the start of the circuit, or pre-celebrating, since the real festivities don’t kick off until the weekend. I was being good. Sticking to soda. Watching the crowd.
There was a woman. Dark hair, pale ice-blue eyes, almost white around the edges. She was pretty, in an obvious kind of way. She kept finding excuses to touch my arm, lean close, laugh at things I didn’t say. I wasn’t interested, but I wasn’t not enjoying the attention either. Ego is a hell of a thing.
And then…
Nothing. A gap. Like someone took scissors to the film reel of my memory and cut out the important parts.
I punch the shower wall, and the pain in my knuckles helps. Grounds me.
What the fuck happened last night?
By the time I get out, I feel marginally more human. I don’t have a change of clothes, so I pull on last night’s jeans and button-up, trying to ignore the wrinkles and the faint smell of perspiration to the fabric.
The lobby is empty except for an older guy behind the desk who’s maybe sixty, balding, and reading a newspaper like it’s still 1985. He glances up when I approach, expression neutral.
“Hey.” I lean against the counter. “You remember me coming in last night?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Just started my shift an hour ago. Night guy’s already gone home.”
“You got cameras? Anything that might show?—”
He cuts me off with a look that’s seen a thousand guys like me stumbling through his lobby. “This is the kind of motel where we don’t ask questions about who you bring to your room. No cameras. No records. That’s the whole point.”
I groan, rubbing a hand over my face. Great. So much for that lead.
“Thanks anyway,” I mutter and push through the front door into the morning.
The parking lot is mostly empty. The motel is old, run-down, the kind of place that peaked decades ago and has been slowly dying ever since. Beyond it are just trees and rolling mountains. The road into town stretches out in the far distance, leading to the main part of town. It’s quaint streets, wooden storefronts, the kind of main drag that looks like a postcard.
A shiny red pickup truck rounds the corner and pulls into the lot. Carter is behind the wheel, grinning like Christmas came early. He’s got those backcountry good looks the women in town lose their damn minds over—deep blond hair hanging to his shoulders, with a short beard and ’stache kept trimmed so tight it’s more threat than fluff. Those green eyes hit the light when he turns his head, sharp and smug.
He’s in one of his usual checked button-ups, sleeves shoved up.
I climb into the passenger seat. “Not a fucking word,” I warn him.
He holds up both hands in mock surrender, still grinning. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I mean it.”
“I heard you. Not a word. Absolutely silent over here.” He pulls out of the lot, tires crunching on gravel. “Totallyspeechless. Can’t think of a single thing to say about finding you at a motel that looks like it was decorated by someone’s senile grandma.”
“Carter.”
“I mean, when I saw your text, I thought maybe you’d ended up at the Riverside Inn or somewhere half decent. Butthis?” He gestures at the fading motel sign in the rearview mirror. “This is commitment to whatever bad decisions you made last night. I’m impressed.”
“Are you done?”
He glances at me, eyes bright. “I feel like I could go on. Really explore the depths of whatever the fuck happened to you last night.”
“I will throw you out of this truck.”
“It’smytruck.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
He laughs, the kind of chuckle that makes it impossible to stay pissed at him, and he reaches over to crank up the radio. Some old country song fills the cab, and for a minute, we just drive, windows down, morning air cutting through the lingering fog in my head.
