Page 89 of Falling Madly
“Fucking hell!” Trevor’s jaw muscle worked overtime, his knuckles popping as he squeezed the steering wheel. “If I ever get my hands on that guy?—”
“You’ll remember me telling you they have great lawyers. I already tried vigilante justice, and I paid the price. That’s not how you get these guys.”
To my relief, his hand relaxed, and he nodded. “You’re right. We want to take him down, for good. Peony could still come forward. She and anyone else he might have hurt.”
“I think it’s past the statute of limitations now.”
“It needs to be public knowledge, for everyone’s protection. That guy got away, and I bet anything that he’s still doing what he did. You can’t let him rule your life and tell you where you can and can’t live.”
I shrugged. “I never wanted to live in Cozy Creek, so it was never an issue.”
“And now?”
“Now… it’s complicated.”
I turned on the radio, channel surfing until I found a familiar song. I didn’t have the bandwidth to discuss the future. Rehashing the past was so exhausting I was still fighting to shake the lingering nausea brought on by those memories. He probably understood, since he held back any further questions, humming along to the 90s tunes on the radio.
It was getting dark, and the city lights were flicking on, glowing in the distance. We were nearly back home.
“So, what did you think of the office space we went to see?” he asked in a lighter tone when we reached the first traffic light in Denver, crawling to a stop.
A tried to smile. “You mean the one you said we’d quickly check out in one afternoon?”
He grinned back. “That’s the one. Did it have enough power points?”
“More than any other campsite I’ve ever used.” I hoisted my elbow onto the edge of the cool window and leaned on my arm.
“Thinking of this Julian… I didn’t cross any boundaries with you, right?”
I almost smiled at the concern in his voice. “You’d still be feeling it if you had.”
“Oh, right. Elbow to the nuts. Got it.”
I turned to him, wishing I could lose the weird, shaky mood and slip back into that connection we’d shared back in his cabin. It had felt so effortless, almost like we’d been bouncing on a diving board, ready to fall. But that was before all my baggage had been dragged into daylight. “Thank you for the distraction,” I finally said. “I needed it, and I loved your cabin. I love the couch.”
“So, you’ll be back to visit?” he asked. “Don’t forget your passport.”
I heard the neediness in his voice, cloaked in light humor. I couldn’t blame him. I was giving him nothing, no matter how much I wanted to close this chasm between us and make it all okay. I laughed a little. “I won’t.”
We turned onto my street. I could almost smell my own bed. My clothes. My shower. The familiar coffee made with my own coffeemaker. I needed those things to regulate my nervous system. To feel I was back on the ground and no longer on a roller coaster. Maybe I was too set in my own ways.
Trevor pulled over in front of my house and turned to me, about to ask something, but I cut him off.
“I can’t wait to take a shower and get changed.”
“Of course.”
I still felt my heartbeat in my throat, like an echo of the events that had unfolded. I had to get home, out of these dirty clothes and back to my normal life. I had to get my head straight and figure out what it all meant. I needed some perspective.
Chapter Thirty
Trevor
Harry Styles crooned on the radio as I peered over Teresa’s shoulder at her home. It was one of the new complexes—six units crammed onto a lot that previously might have accommodated one medium-sized house. The units were so narrow I wondered how they’d managed to fit stairs in them. The windows faced a busy road which led to a large intersection, the one with the corner deli I knew she liked.
I’d never been invited here, but I knew the approximate location. My latest rental was close by—not totally by accident—and I’d walked past many times, trying to imagine which ones of the identical three-paneled windows belonged to her. I’d only been able to narrow it down by a process of elimination, concluding that her tiny strip of lawn was the one that didn’t have kids’ toys lying around. It was cute in that factory-made way that always made me think of Lego.
“Handy location,” I commented.
