Page 26 of Last Light

“You too!” The woman and one of the men—not Jimmy—wave as the group pedals off down the road.

Travis is frowning as he gives me a little nudge. I slide over into the passenger seat, allowing him to sit down and pull the Jeep back onto the road.

I wave as we pass the bikers, and they’re out of sight in less than a minute as Travis accelerates.

His eyes are narrowed as he turns to glare at me. “Told you to drive away if you saw anyone.”

“You told me to drive away if there was any trouble. And there wasn’t any trouble. Those people were harmless.”

“You couldn’t know that.”

“Yes, I could. They thought I was alone, and their offer was genuine.”

“Genuine?” Travis is sneering out at the road in front of us.

“Yes, genuine.”

“Did you want to hook up with them?” He’s shooting me quick looks now.

“Of course I didn’t want to hook up with them. But they didn’t mean any harm.”

“They wanted to stick you in bed with that old man!”

His gruff outrage is making me strangely shaky. I have no idea why. But because I’m flustered, I say the most irrelevant thing possible. “I don’t think he was really an old man. He’s probably just in his forties.”

“And you’re what? Twenty-one? You really want to fuck him?”

“Of course not! What’s your problem? I’m just saying it wasn’t a big deal. You don’t have to get all growly and fierce about it. I was fine.”

“Okay.”

“I was fine.”

“Y’already said that.”

“All right.” I make myself relax and stop arguing. There’s no reason for me to feel all out of sorts like this.

And there’s no reason for me to like the memory of the weight of Travis’s hand on my shoulder and the roughness of his voice when he said that he was my man.

We drive without talking for a while.

I think about why I might have liked the idea of Travis being my man and what it might say about me.

“You mad?” Travis asks after a couple of minutes.

“No.”

“Thought it best to just scare folks like that away so they don’t get ideas.”

“I understand. I’m not mad.”

“So what’s wrong?”

If I’m getting to know Travis better, then he’s obviously getting to know me too.

“Nothing.” I shake my head as I try to find words for it. “It just makes me feel weird.”

“What does?”

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