Page 70 of Wild and Wrangled

“Great,” Mal said. “I just need some information from you.” I listened as Dusty listed off his first and last name and gave Mal his driver’s license. “Cash or card?” she said.

“Cash,” Dusty responded and pulled his wallet out of the inside pocket of his tux. I watched him pull out a hundred and put it on the counter. Mal slid a key across it at the same time.

“You’re going to be in room forty-eight,” she said. “You can go out the back door behind me. The walkway is covered, soyou don’t have to worry about the snow. Your room is going to be toward the right, nearly at the end of the walkway.”

“Thank you,” Dusty said as he swiped the key off the desk. He looked back at me and gave me a nod before walking toward the back door. I followed. When we got outside, I went to walk on the outside of him, but he put a hand on my waist and gently pushed me to his other side, farther from the elements—as if making sure I was safe. We walked in silence.

When we got closer to the end of the walkway, I started looking at the room numbers, until I saw ours. The four was metal, but it looked like the eight had fallen off.

Dusty put the key in the doorknob and pushed it open. He let me go in first. He was right—it wasn’t bad at all. It was rustic, with flannel quilts on the beds and wood-paneled walls, but it was also clean and cozy.

“I’m going to raid the vending machine,” Dusty said, his voice still hard. I hated it, and I hated that it was directed at me. “Get us some waters and some snacks. Any requests?”

My stomach growled at the mention of snacks. “If they have those little powdered donuts, I want those,” I said. Dusty didn’t respond. He just nodded and left me alone in the motel room.

I sighed as I flopped down on one of the beds and slipped my shoes off. Dusty’s words rang in my head over and over again, banging on the sides of my skull like a drum. I couldn’t deal with that right now.

I got up, walked to the back of the room, and turned on the light in the bathroom, which was also surprisingly clean and nice-looking. Thank god. I needed a shower. I turned on the water before walking back out to the bed. I slipped off my coat and dug through my purse.

You’ll never catch me leaving my house without these five things: a makeup wipe, contact lens solution, a claw clip, some sort of moisturizer, and at least eight Chapsticks and lip balms. Right now, I was immensely grateful for that.

Back in the bathroom, I slipped my dress off—thank god it was a side zip. I put my hair up and stepped into the shower, letting the warm water cascade down my body. I rubbed at my shoulders and held my face under the stream of water.

I tried to empty my mind. Well, I tried to push everything I was feeling into a little compartment that I could shut and lock. That’s where I kept everything about Dusty—shut tight and locked away. Out of sight, out of mind.Just like his little wooden box.Goddammit.

But Dusty was no longer out of sight. He was here. With me. And he took up every spare part of my mind.

I didn’t know how long I stayed in the shower, but once my skin was an angry shade of red from the hot water and it was hard to breathe from all the steam, I turned the water off, got out, and wrapped myself in a towel.

When I opened the bathroom door, steam billowed out. Dusty had returned from his vending machine run. There was an array of snacks set on top of the mini fridge—including mini powdered donuts.

The man himself was lying on the bed. He had taken his suit jacket and shirt off, and he was bare-chested with his hands behind his head on the pillow. It was the first time I’d seen him with his shirt off as an adult. His chest and stomach were just like the rest of him—toned and smattered in tattoos. The dagger that stretched from a few inches above his belly button to his sternum caught my eye. His eyes were closed. When he heard me, he sighed before blinking them open.

“I want to talk to you,” he said without looking at me. His eyes were on the ceiling.

“Okay,” I said softly.

“And I need you to talk back.” He looked at me this time, and I watched his eyes give me a once-over. I padded over to the other bed and sat on the edge of it, facing him.

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry for raising my voice at you,” he said.

“You didn’t,” I said.

“But I got mad,” he responded. “I just…For the past year I’ve been trying to keep my distance from you because you were engaged, and I didn’t know I could actually be friends with you without wanting something you couldn’t give. It just hurt, I guess, knowing that you were picking somebody you didn’t even love over…well, over me—over even being my friend.

“And I’m so fucking mad at you for thinking that was all you deserved.” I looked down at my bare feet. I didn’t know what to say to that.

“What am I to you, Ash?” he asked. “And if you say that we’re just friends, I swear to God, I’m going to make Mal find me another room—I don’t care if I have to sleep in the same bed as a random trucker.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“What do you want me to be?”

“I don’t know,” I said again. This time, I wasn’t honest, and he must’ve heard it.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “Try again.” His eyes were on me, and they showed no sign of letting up. This was the first time he’d pushed me—really pushed me—since we startedbeing in each other’s lives again. He was the only one who knew how and when to do it.

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