Page 8 of Live for Me

“Iaskedyou to stay within driving distance and not to stay out all night in case you got into shit and needed me to save your ass. Perfectly reasonable requests for the purpose of keeping you safe, Indy,” I said, turning to face him. “And pleasestopcalling me that.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“What are we fighting about tonight, boys?” Memphis asked, taking her regular spot next to Indy.

“He wants us to stop calling himDaddy Utah,” Indy said.

“Isn’t that in the neighborhood of blasphemy?” she asked.

I ran my hand along the stiffening muscles at the base of my neck. Triss pretty regularly called these two the tech twins, but what they really were was the bane of my existence and the source of every single headache once they joined forces. The more time I spent with the combination of the two of them, though, the more I was able to experience a semi-relaxed side of Memphis. Something about having Indy with us made her feel comfortable enough to not hold back the kind of snark that apparently lived inside her permanently. Having to tolerate their weird-as-fuck twin shenanigans was a small price to pay for those brief glimpses into who she really was.

She was right back to uncomfortable and tense by the time she was climbing up into the passenger’s seat of my truck to leave for New Jersey. I was almost a dumbass and nearly reminded her that we hadn’t even left yet if she still wanted to jump out and run for it.

“We’ll drive straight through,” I said to Indy when he appeared at Memphis’ window. “Don’t make us stay in the city,” I added after a couple seconds.

“Cozy countryside bed and breakfast. Hear you loud and clear.”

“Um—” Memphis started to say.

“He’s joking,” I interrupted Memphis to glare at Indy.

“You’re the only one available to be on Bible duty while this is happening,” he said to Memphis. “And please,please, do absolutely everything that I would do, as long as you report back to me after the fact.”

“Bible duty?” I asked.

“Okay. Bye, Indy,” Memphis said quickly and hit the button to roll her window back up. “Please start driving before he just comes around to your side,” she pleaded quietly.

“You want to drive?” I asked her once we were out on the road.

“I don’t knowhowto drive. I know you know that.”

That felt more like the comfortable version of Memphis.

“Alright. I’ll try that another way. Would you like me to teach you how to drive, you pretty little sasshole?”

And just that quickly, I’d managed to rip any level of comfort she felt right back out of this truck with a single question.

“Was it because I called you pretty or because I suggested you try something you’ve not mastered yet?” I chuckled.

“Sassholeisn’t a word,” she said quietly, ignoring everything else I’d said.

“Why don’t you want to get your license?” I asked instead.

“If I wanted a license, I would just make one. It’s not like I could go to any license branch with my lack of proof ofrealidentification and ask to take their driving exam anyway.”

“They didn’t try to make you do all this before you finished high school? You know, like the rest of us had to do? Or did you graduate high school when you were nine and you just weren’t allowed to drive that early?” I asked and laughed at myself, until I glanced at her, and saw she didn’t even so much as crack a smile.

“I didn’t finish high school.”

That explained a few things in one direction.

Opened up a plethora of questions in another.

“Well, from my experience with it, you really didn’t miss much,” I offered. “Football players who thought they were gods, cheerleaders who acted like they had gold between their legs, and rich kids who didn’t actually have to go to classes to get into the best college.”

“Sounds like I would’ve had a lot of fun knocking some kids off their pedestals.”

“Did you really send some kid’s dick pics all around your school?” I asked before I could stop myself. It’d come up a couple times around the house, but there never felt like a good time to ask if this actually happened, or if it was just a funny story that changed through the years to become something more than it was.

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