I was sick of the road.
Sick of empty hotel rooms.
Sick of not having a passenger princess to shake her head when I belted out a power ballad or pointed out hilariously bad billboard ads or PSAs.
I was sick of wondering what Lula was doing, if she was missing me as much as I was missing her.
I needed to get my ass home to see.
“You’re gonna have to do better on those pocket pistols. Who the fuck wants guns that are only designed to be center-massaccurate at seven yards?” I asked. “One sec,” I added, reaching for my phone.
It was a text from Arty.
A text I had extremely conflicted feelings about. Namely, excitement—for Lula—and dread for me. Because I wanted her to get her money back. I wanted her out of that damn motel. I wanted her to be able to enjoy her little pleasures in life. But, fuck, I knew that once she was back on track, the chances of her giving me the time of day again were slim to none.
It turned out Drake wasn’t the genius he clearly thought he was. It took Arty less than three days to get the asshole to click a link that gave him full access to Drake’s digital wallet. From there, it was a quick matter to transfer the funds to another wallet and give access of that to Lula. Who could then download an app to transfer the crypto to her bank account.
In my mind, I could see her over in Shady Valley, waking up to the best news she’d had in months. And my heart hurt that I wasn’t there to celebrate with her.
“I can do half on the pockets,” the guy said as he turned to spit the saliva that built up from him sucking on his snuff since we started talking.
“Then we have a deal,” I said, tucking my phone away and passing him the cardboard box to load the guns in.
I took it, handed over the cash, then waited for him to leave before I set the box on my hook, putting on gloves, then taking out each gun, checking to make sure they were empty, then loading them one by one into the hidden panels in the car.
Finished with that, I climbed in, took off the gloves, and made my way back to the highway, ready to fight the exhaustion and keep my stops to a minimum to see if I could shave a little time off the thirteen hours ahead of me.
What was I going to do or say when I got back? Yeah, that was the question I pondered the entire fucking ride—throughtraffic jams and construction zones and deer who seemed intent on suicide that had me nearly offing myself to avoid hitting them.
The problem was, as I pulled onto the main street in Shady Valley about fifteen hours later, I was no closer to coming up with a solution than I’d been when I’d started home.
What I was closer to was stinking, starving, and so tired I was a little worried I might pass out on the walk into the clubhouse from the car.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Sway called as I moved inside. “Not you,” he added to Cat when his head lifted.
“Wow, you look like shit,” Saint said.
“Nice to see you, too, man,” I said, tossing the keys to him. “Car is full. I’m exhausted. If Slash happens by, tell him I need to talk to him. Preferably before Huck gets a hold of him.”
To that, Sway stiffened. “What happened in Golden Glades?”
“Shit,” I said, grabbing a mostly empty bottle of whiskey off the tray as I passed.
“You okay?”
I turned around, walking backward, and held up a finger for each word, “Stinking, starving, exhausted.”
With nothing else, I made my way to the elevator, then up to the second floor, where I stripped out of my clothes in the bathroom across from my bedroom and scrubbed the road off of me while I chugged the liquor, enjoying the slow, warm curl of it through my body and my mind.
A quick toothbrush and I walked stark naked across the hall and dropped into my bed, out cold before I could even slide under the covers.
But my sleep was riddled with weird, nonsensical, dark dreams spliced with bright flashes of memories shared with Lula. Until, eventually, both dreams collided and I woke up witha gasp, my heart pounding until I realized it was just a dream, that Lula was fine.
“Any reason you’re in bed, ass out, instead of telling me whatever it is that went down in Florida?”
“Christ,” I hissed, turning on the mattress to see Slash sitting in the chair near the door. “How long have you been here?”
“Two or three minutes.”
