Page 70 of No Saint
“Yeah.” She turned her gaze out the window. “Just a shitty shift at work.”
“Crappy tips?”
“Something like that.” She pulled in a heavy breath, then glanced my way. “I need to tell you something. I don’t even know if you’ll care, but you deserve to know?—”
“Just tell me, Jade.” If she told me they had bought more rats…
Another deep breath. “You were right. It was Brent who fucked with your number in my phone.”
I gripped the steering wheel, trying to tamp down the anger bleeding through me. I wished I had knocked that little shit unconscious.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
Of course she hadn’t known. If she’d only listened to me when I told her he wasn’t her friend. I’d seen the way he looked at her. The way he looked at me with her. I’d also seen how he treated other girls. Nice to their face but took every opportunity to flirt with anything that would give him attention when they weren’t around. But Jade wanted to believe the best in everybody.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“It’s not your fault.” I turned up the radio, and the harsh beat of rap drifted through the speakers. I needed a minute to process all that bullshit. Along with the what-ifs and regrets.
A few minutes later, the neon sign of Codzilla’s bar flashed up ahead. Just before I passed the crowded parking lot, a tractor pulled out in front of me, and I slammed on my brakes. “Just pull the fuck out; why don’t you?” I swerved into the left lane and floored it past the farm equipment.
“Is he holding a beer?”
I glanced in the rearview just in time to see the streetlight reflect off the can clutched in his hand. “Yep.” Sweet home Alabama…
“How did we somehow manage to choose a college that’s basically the redneck version of Dayton?”
She had chosen the college. I had just followed. Then fuckface had blocked my number…
“Maybe you should steal tractors. Be just like old times, but…hillbilly.”
She was joking, but tractors didn’t have titles or registrations, which would make it easy as hell to sell. Hot-wiring was hot-wiring. And I knew where a farm was, one where the guys had gone a few times to collect mushrooms. Not in a wholesome, cooking kind of way. They were making shroom-aid.
“Although,” Jade said. “I can’t see you outrunning the cops.”
“They have to notice it’s gone to call the cops. A farmer isn’t going to be out drilling fields at midnight.” Unless he was like Billy-Bob back there and driving it to the bar…
“Wait, you’re serious?”
“Why not?”
“Because, well…” Jade sputtered. “I can’t steal a tractor!”
I turned onto a two-lane highway that led into the countryside. “All you’ll have to do is drive my truck.” I glanced across the console.
Her eyes were closed. And I was pretty sure she was doing some kind of breathing exercise.
“You can do that, right?” I asked.
Another breath in, then out. “I can do that.”
The fact that she was already freaking out didn’t bode well.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled onto the weed-covered shoulder, cut the engine, and stared through the dusty windshield at the hand-painted sign hung on the fence: BEWEAR! BULL IN FELD. God bless Alabama education…
“Why are you stopping here?”
“It’s a farm. There’s probably a tractor.”
