That throws me a little.
“We’re not even out of Missouri yet. You made it sound like this was atime-is-of-the-essencesituation, and we would drive straight through, and now you want to stop?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at me, but the malaise that’s fallen over him is obvious to anyone with half a brain cell.
Something inside me softens, whether I want it to or not.
“Okay. We can stop and you can sleep. I don’t know how to deal with this version of you, it’s bumming me out.”
That almost gets a laugh out of him, but not quite.
Once the option of rest is on the horizon, all the aches and pains I’ve accumulated in the last 24 hours start to insist on their presence, and I’m abruptly grateful for the excuse to stop. It doesn’t make me less confused by Fallow’s sudden personality shift, but I don’t have the energy to get worked up about it right now.
My wrists hurt from being tied up. My shoulders hurt from being held over my head. Every part of my lower body hurts from desperately fucking up into Fallow while I was tied to a chair—worth it, but still—and I cannot begin to imagine how dehydrated I probably am. Fuck it, I’m stopping at a Walgreens before we find someplace to sleep. There’s no one here but him to see me first aid myself and he already thinks I’m a pussy.
I don’t know why I even bother with the too-tough-to-care routine anyway. It’s more of a habit than actually caring how tough the other Banna guys think I am.
The rest of the drive continues in a semi-comfortable silence. I get a little more of the highway behind us so we’re at least into Oklahoma and then take the next exit where I can see a Walgreens sign on the horizon.
The scenery here is painfully familiar. We’re going to go straight through Oklahoma City and I’m going to do everything I can to pretend it wasn’t my home for twenty years. It’s not the city’s fault. Not per se. And it’s a hell of a lot better than the shithole rural town I came from before that; the one I’ve worked very hard to erase from my memory.
There are no fond memories for me of the reason we had to leave in a hurry. I thought I was going to die on the steps of the fucking courthouse when the Brotherhood attacked us, and then I spent a week convinced that Sav was going to die from his injuries. It was miserable.
But the silver lining was getting me to a new town for a fresh start. Possum Hollow isn’t that different from where I was born, but it’s different enough that it feels like a whole other world, where I am nothing like the people I came from.
I didn’t expect to care about driving through Oklahoma. We’re barely stopping, and there’s not a lot to look at. But every time I see a certain kind of a tree, or a fucking Braums, it just reminds me that I’m back in a place I was ecstatic to finally leave.
I’ve never been someone who dwells on my past. But being here again is making all my shitty memories bubble to the surface in a way I didn’t expect. At least it’s a reminder that there’s a reason I do what I do, and all the alternatives to this job are a hell of a lot worse.
Exhaustion really must be getting to me, for me to be sitting here dwelling on my feelings and shit like this. Without meaning to, I sigh loudly enough that Fallow flicks his gaze to me for the first time in hours, but I don’t say anything to explain and he doesn’t ask. He also doesn’t ask what we’re doing when I park up at the Walgreens, but he does get out of the car and follow me inside.
Once I’m on my feet after sitting for a few hours, I feel dizzier than I’d like to admit. Getting out of the air-conditioned car meant I go slapped in the face by the heat and humidity. The waves of heat rising from the asphalt that have been collecting there all day only to start releasing now that it’s getting dark. Then fifty feet later, we’re walking through automatic doors to get slapped in the face again, this time by cold and the smell of Freon. The overhead lights are too bright, and one of them is flickering in and out with a low buzz that’s already pissing me off.
I swallow down the dizziness and focus on where I’m going. I’m pretty sure Fallow is watching me, but I refuse to turn around and look. My attention span is for shit as I grab a basket and then walk through the aisles, throwing in painkillers, bandages, and other shit at random. There’s a sound of rustling behind me at one point, followed by Fallow reaching over to throw lube and condoms into the basket.
That does make me turn to look at him. I’m trying to glare, but the exhaustion is digging its heels in so it’s half-hearted and he doesn’t care either way.
“Don’t pretend they won’t get used,” he says, raising one eyebrow at me.
I don’t care enough to fight about it, so I take the whole thing and pay in cash without making a big deal about it.
The silence continues as I get us to a discreet-looking motel back by the highway. They let me pay cash and not give ID, so Idon’t really care if it’s a shithole. Fallow raises an eyebrow at me when I ask for one room with two beds instead of two rooms. He can think whatever he wants, but the truth is that I don’t trust him. If he runs off in the middle of the night, I can’t protect him, and if anything happens to him it will 100% be coming back on me.
The room is as dingy as I expected, but there’s a decent lock on the door and a heavy-enough curtain that I plan to fall asleep before the sun even finishes setting.
To that point, I throw the duffel bag and Walgreens bag on a threadbare chair and then throw myself face first onto the bed farthest from the door. The whole thing sags beneath my weight as air explodes from my lungs, but it feels so fucking good. I can feel my hips spreading open, my shoulders flattening, and my face burrowing into the pillow as all of my weight settles onto this crappy mattress, and I resist the urge to groan in relief.
“Wow. You really know how to romance a girl,” Fallow says before throwing something at me that bounces off my butt.
I think it’s the gum I just bought him.
“This is supposed to be a work trip, not a romantic getaway,” I say, although the words are completely muffled by the pillow and I refuse to move. “Unless you made all the other stuff up just to get me here. Which doesn’t really seem like your style.”
It’s a joke, because there’s absolutely no way Fallow gives enough of a fuck about me to lie about anything. And although this day has been beyond intense,romanceisn’t exactly a word I’d attach to it.
But when he doesn’t say anything, it makes me unsettled.
I don’t look up. As much as Fallow comes across as controlled and confident, I get the feeling it’s only when things are on his terms. Easy money says that if you peek beneath the surface, he’s a lot more skittish than he wants anyone to know, and I don’twant to spook him. I’m done pretending I’m not interested in him, but I’m not going to scare him off, either.
