“Absolutely.”
I grabbed my backpack and threw in some clean clothes and my toothbrush, not overthinking my packing, mostly wanting to get out of there. “I’m ready.” I went to throw it over my shoulder, and he took it from me.
“I’ve got you.” He put it on his. Such a gentleman-like alpha thing to do. It was too bad he lived so far from here.
“I’m leaving and taking the keys,” I called out, not giving them any more detail than that.
They could piece it together. There was exactly one motel in town and, aside from the bar which was easy to walk to, where else would we be going.
I kind of wished there were more motels in the area for the first time because that would mean we’d have some sense of privacy. And wasn’t that a different way to think about it from my norm? Usually, I’d be worried about my safety, but with Gabe, the first thing that popped into my mind was privacy.
They didn’t call back, and I took that as them agreeing to letting me take our car. We left, me locking the door behind me. As if they had anything to worry about in our town.
“Your place is kind of crowded.”
“Yeah, it’s what I can afford.” How I’d have loved to have a huge place where I didn’t have to see my brothers unless I wanted to. That wasn’t in the cards for me.
“What you can afford? By that you mean, all of you?”
“I meant more me, but maybe could we not talk about it right now? My brothers were nicer to me than they’ve been in a while and I kinda want to hold onto that.”
It had been years, if I were being honest. I wasn’t about to show Gabe how awful things really were, though. It was bad enough he saw our fight. As much as I knew in my heart I’d doneall I could to not have the situation be that bad, no one on the outside could know that. They’d think that I had a part to play in it too, and there was one thing I didn’t want and that was for Gabe to think less of me.
My car wasn’t anything fancy, and technically it was all of our car, but they didn’t say anything when I said I was taking it, so for tonight, it was mine. It wasn’t like they didn’t have four feet to run where they needed to go if need be.
“I don’t need fancy. If you said we had to walk, I’d be okay with that too.”
I wouldn’t have been. I wanted to get there as soon as possible.
This was so unlike me, standing next to a man as I envisioned what we were going to do next—and that next being something very, very naked. At least that was where my mind was going. We hadn’t discussed it yet. He might be thinking I was going to book my own room to get away from my abusive brothers. How disappointing that would be.
We got to the car and when I opened it up, I almost wished I had told him we were walking. It was filled with empty soda cans, chip bags, and random trash, including tissues and an oil bottle. I went in the glove box where I kept garbage bags because this wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time the car would be in this state, and started to bag things up, apologizing as I went.
“I can do that,” he offered.
“No, it’s not your car. I’ll do it.” If anyone was going to touch or discover something gross, it was going to be me.
“It’s not your trash either.”
“How do you know? I could be disgusting.” I wasn’t, but this was my car too.
“Because at the diner, you were either drinking coffee, water, or iced tea. No soda. This has ‘your brothers’ written all over it.” He’d been watching me that closely.
“Yeah, we share a car. It was our dad’s, which was the only reason they let me have any part of it. I think they were afraid they were worried I was going to ask for a buyout or something they heard on one of their television shows. It wasn’t like this was a house.” At the time, it had been our father’s only asset.
The car was probably worth about a thousand dollars now, and even that was pushing it with all the rust and the current state of the back seat cushions. I doubted it was good for scraps and parts at this point, but by some miracle, it kept on chugging along.
I finished throwing everything in and popped it in the dumpster behind our building. “Ready now.”
I hated that he was riding in such a gross vehicle, but he didn’t seem to mind, climbing inside and acting like this was all normal and he was in a nice clean car with two people on a leisurely drive. At least he only had to stay in it until we picked up his car by the diner.
Not two virtual strangers heading to the local motel to get it on.
Please let that be what we were doing.
Chapter Ten
Gabe
