A world without this girl would be a horrible void. I can’t handle thinking on it for too long. So I’ve got todosomething about it.
I scoop Cathy up and drop her onto the bed, throwing her legs apart and diving between them. She squeals and tries to pin her thighs together. “Wait, Heathcliff, wait—I have to pee first!”
“Fine.”
But after we’ve taken turns in the bathroom, she seems jittery, reluctant, so I don’t push for sex. She’s scared she’ll blow apart the motel, and after what I saw last night, I’ll admit it could happen. So I suggest we go out to breakfast instead.
This overnight, plus what I have planned for us today, it’ll set me back financially. Motels near the coast aren’t cheap. But at least it’s the off-season, so I got a break on the room rate. Besides, Cathy is worth whatever I have to spend. Whatever I have to do.
I pull the truck into the parking lot of a dingy diner near the motel. Looks like the kind of place that serves a good, hearty Southern breakfast. My kind of food.
“This okay?” I glance at Cathy. She nods. She’s wearing the change of clothes from her beach bag—a pair of shorts and a soft gray tank top. No bra, no makeup, and she looks goddamn beautiful, like always. I want to give her everything. All the fancy cosmetics girls like, a big closet full of designer clothes, a car, a house…
I gotta quit thinking like this. Got to follow the plan, take my time. Work my way out from under Hindley’s thumb.
Inside the diner, we slide onto the red-leather seats of a booth and scan the menu. Cathy looks like she’s starving but she only orders a muffin. She’s either trying to save me money or trying to pretend she doesn’t need to eat much for some reason. Screw that. I order a bunch of stuff—pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs, hash browns, more than I can eat. When my food comes, she sneaks envious looks at it until I start piling fried potatoes, eggs, and sausage onto her plate.
“I was trying to save you money,” she mumbles, with a cute half smile.
“Who says I’m paying?”
Her mouth and eyes go wide for a second, and I laugh.
“Of course I’m paying. Eat up.”
11
Cathy
Heathcliff and I talk all through breakfast. Random stuff. I talk more than him, but I don’t think he minds. He looks perfectly content, gulping black coffee and listening to me with an intense focus I’ve never experienced from anyone. It’s like he’s trying to learn me. Like he’s devouring everything I say. He’s monosyllabic mostly, but I discover that he likes the kind of reality shows where they forge swords or do glassblowing, or where people traverse obstacle courses and the winner gets cash.
“Always thought I’d be good at that,” he mutters. “Obstacle courses and shit.”
“Are you kidding? You’d be great.”
He shrugs, sticking a huge forkful of sausage and eggs into his mouth. My eyes follow the motion, and I notice something beneath the swirls of the tattoo on his forearm.
My fingers slide over his wrist, and he freezes.
I was right. There are scars on his skin, here and there. I guess I was too worked up to notice them last night. My hands were mostly on his chest anyway, not his arms.
“These scars,” I murmur, tracing one with my fingernail.
“From Hindley,” he says. “Broken beer bottle.”
“Your brother did this?”
He nods. “And his cousins. That’s most of the scars, anyway. There’s some I don’t remember getting and some I don’t talk about.”
“More secrets.”
Slowly he leans back in the booth and pulls his arm away. “Yeah.”
He pays the bill, then does something on his phone while I finish my last piece of bacon. When we get back in the truck, he heads down the main street of the little town we’re in. Not much of a main street, actually. Shabby, weatherbeaten buildings, all the same shades of gray-streaked white and faded red brick. Dingy shops, mostly closed, in two broken rows under a dull gray sky.
Heathcliff turns down a side street and steers into a narrow parking lot with grass sprouting through broken pavement. There’s a smoky glass door with a sign over it.
“Teagan’s Tattoo Shop,” I read aloud. Then I turn to Heathcliff, my eyebrows raised.
