Page 95 of His Surrender
“The sky.”
“Fuck you.”
I laughed. “I like how you changed it togorgeouseyes.”
“Well, they are gorgeous.”
I shook my head and focused back on the road.
Instead of flying back home, Jay had decided to ride with me. I was glad. You learned more about a person when stuck with them in a small space for hours on end, and I learned a lot about Jay. Like how he drummed his fingers on the dashboard to the beat of his favorite songs and how he had a sweet tooth. We’d stopped several times so he could get a bag of M&Ms or an iced coffee from Starbucks.
“Sorry again for last night,” Jay said. “I won’t drink like that again. It was just a lot for me to process with… Andrew… being there.”
“It’s okay,” I told him for the third time. He’d apologized that morning after getting out the shower and once more when we were checking out of the hotel. “No harm was done.”
“Except to my pride.”
“Eh.” I shrugged. “Your pride can afford being knocked down a few pegs.”
Jay snorted a laugh and reached for his iced coffee in the cupholder between our seats. Five hours into the trip and he hadn’t mentioned saying he loved me the night before. He probably didn’t even remember. Or maybe he did and was just too embarrassed to say anything.
We reached the Arkansas border around four that afternoon. Jay was snoozing in the passenger seat, wearing his sunglasses, but his little puffs of air told me he was asleep. I drove to his house and pulled into the driveway.
“Hey, sleepyhead.” I touched his arm, and he inhaled and sat up straighter, looking around. “You’re home.”
“Oh.” His voice was hoarse. He must’ve been sleeping hard. “Thanks for driving the whole way. Sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“Hangovers will do that to you.”
“True.” A laugh rumbled in his chest, and he took off his seat belt and opened the door before getting his suitcase out of the trunk. He walked around to my window and rested a hand on the roof of the car as he bent down to smile at me. “I’d invite you in, but I have to go pick up Sput from my parents’ house, and he’s going to be one angry kitty.”
“Give him head scratches for me.”
Jay’s smirk turned softer. “I will. See you later.”
I waited until he went inside the house before I drove home. I checked my mailbox and sorted through the stack of junk mail and bills as I went up the stairs and into my apartment, lugging my bag over my shoulder and tossing it to the floor once inside. The apartment had a stuffy feel and smelled like stale air, so I opened the windows before plopping down on the couch.
My phone dinged with a text.
Jay sent a picture of him holding a very mad-looking orange Persian cat with a caption that read,Think he’ll murder me in my sleep tonight?
I laughed and sent a reply.Want me to sleep over and keep you safe?
I’ll cook you dinner as paymentwas his response.
He wasn’t shutting me out like part of me had feared he would… so that was a good sign. I held the phone to my chest and smiled after he sent a picture of him winking.
Falling in love with him had been scary at first, like trying to stop a train going full speed toward a break in the tracks. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew the lever would put on the brakes and stop me from crashing and burning.
Chapter 21
Jay
“Lindsey Wilson is not a murderer,” Emery said to the jury that Wednesday afternoon. All evidence had been shown, and every witness had testified. Now it was time for closing arguments, one last attempt to convince the jury. “She is a mother of two beautiful little girls, a charitable woman who gives back to her community, and she is a victim of years of abuse from a husband who believed himself to be above the law.”
Emery clicked the remote in his hand and brought up a family photo of the defendant standing beside Terry Wilson and their children. He touched on her kindness again as he went through the slideshow of photos.
“This is what people saw when they looked at this family. A couple who looked to be in love. Happy.” And then he got to one Lindsey had taken herself. Bruises in the shape of fingerprints covered her neck, and her eyes were puffy and red. “But this was Lindsey Wilson’s true reality. Behind closed doors, the perfect family didn’t exist. She lived in constant terror. On the night of November fifteenth, Terry Wilson got drunk, went upstairs to his sleeping wife, drug her out of bed by her hair, and proceeded to hit her.”
