Page 28 of Look at Her and Die

I waited her out, knowing when to test her limits, until we were about a quarter of the way home and her shoulders had relaxed.

Her shoulders slumped even further, and I said, “Want to tell me what happened?”

She bit her lip, her expression wavering, and that’s when I knew that whatever had happened tonight had been bad.

She wouldn’t have considered telling me if it wasn’t.

That’s when my own stomach started to twist into knots.

Spotting a 7-Eleven, I pulled over into the nice, well-lit parking lot and turned the car off.

She remained silent for so long that I considered asking one more time, then she started to speak.

“Bryan asked me to go home with him, and I did. I didn’t agree to have sex with him, which he didn’t like. When I told him no, he tried to force me. I kicked him in the balls and called you,” she muttered.

Anger surged like a roiling storm inside of me, and it took everything that I had not to turn the car around and drive it straight through their front door.

The plan had merit.

It wasn’t like I had a great car.

Hell, it’d probably survive just fine.

And I could make it look like an accident.

However, the thought of my insurance going up any more than it had to was slightly devastating to think about.

But, just because I couldn’t drive my car through his front door didn’t mean that I couldn’t do other things.

I started the car and began driving again.

Calliope didn’t say anything until I missed the road that would lead home.

“Where are you going?” she asked, looking confused.

“There are some boxes of instant mashed potatoes at the diner that I was going to throw away because they spilled all over the ground in the kitchen. I was contemplating saving them and eating them at home, though. But then I decided that it was too gross for even my starving self to contemplate,” I explained.

“And what is a box of instant mashed potatoes going to do?” She rolled her eyes like the typical teenager that she was.

“Oh, Kemo Sabe,” I drawled. “You think you’re so smart. But you don’t know everything.”

Eight

You’re an idiot.

—Things I didn’t think I’d be saying on a daily basis

POSY

The drive to Gunner’s house from the bar we’d just been given our last call at was short.

I hadn’t drank much, just a couple of beers, but the same couldn’t be said for Gunner and Jasper.

They’d been pounding whiskey all night and had the turns from the bar to the neighborhood in which Gunner lived not been a hop and a skip away down a back alley, I’d have forced them to give me their keys.

As it was, we were moving so damn slow that we might as well be walking the damn bikes.

I was having to ride with my feet down to keep the bike upright, we were going that slow.

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