Page 30 of Psycho

Roman shot me an inquisitive stare.

I wondered if I had been this annoying when I gave him shit about Ryleigh.

“Hmm, I don’t think he will tell me. Does it have to do with a girl?”

Dominic’s eyebrows rose at that as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Does it?”

I finished my beer and stood up. I patted Roman on his shoulder, squeezing it affectionately, nodded to Dominic, and walked off, ignoring the words being said about me between the two.

In three days, Lainey Reyes would be mine, and that was all there was to it.

5

LAINEY

I cameout of my room to the darkened trailer.

Dusk was approaching, and the sky was turning a deep twilight blue.

Dad had been off somewhere I didn’t care to know.

I hadn’t seen him since this morning, before I left for the nursing home, when he was passed out on the living room couch. If luck were on my side, I wouldn’t see him for a long while to come—preferably until Saturday, when I had to work at the cage fights.

The car honking outside the trailer caught my attention, and I quickly grabbed my purse and walked out of there, getting in the Corvette.

My eyes moved across the lawn as I put on my seatbelt to find Edger standing on the little makeshift porch of his trailer. His eyes trained on me before they moved over to Garrett. It might have been the trick of the eye, but I swore it seemed like the larger man was glaring over at him.

Garrett noticed, too, as he quickly pulled out of there, not saying anything.

We stopped at a local fast-food joint and ordered two cheeseburgers to go before we drove over to the small cliffside about half an hour away.

It was one of my favorite places to go.

I liked the silence.

I liked that my problems seemed to get smaller the farther we got away from the city. Even though I knew I couldn’t leave Sacramento, this seemed like a better option than staying in the trailer.

I rolled the window down as Garrett pushed the Corvette uphill, the car whining a bit from the incline.

I munched on my fries until he finally pulled to a stop and turned off the headlights and the engine, encasing the space in total silence.

“Are you okay?” Garrett asked.

I took a sip of my soda before I answered him. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve just been quiet since you got in the car—you know, more quiet than you usually are.”

Unlike me, Garrett hated the silence.

I was sure that my not talking to him felt like I was mad at him.

I just…

I didn’t really have anything to say.

At least, nothing I wanted to say to him.

---