Maxwell

 

The drive was longer than I had anticipated. Most of that was because I couldn’t risk the Lions following us. I hadn’t been careful enough when we’d left Nevada and, as a result, they’d managed to catch up to us. Maybe if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in marrying Nicole—and then determined to consummate that marriage, which we most definitely did—maybe I wouldn’t have been so stupid. Maybe not. Either way, I wasn’t prepared to leave them another easy trail to follow.

 

Which meant we were driving all over the place. Other than stopping for gas, we basically kept going through the desert. We’d stopped at a couple of places—roach motels, for all their charm—and allowed ourselves some rest here and there, but I couldn’t let us linger too long. Clearly the Lions weren’t just going to leave us be.

 

It would have been nice if I could have switched off some of the driving responsibilities. Splitting any kind of work like that, just so I could catch a few moments of a cat nap here and there, would have gone a long way towards making the drive easier. And to put me in a better mood.

 

But I couldn’t trust Nicole to shoulder some of that burden.

 

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her to drive. I was sure she had a license and was perfectly capable of driving a car. Especially out here where the roads, though a little bumpy and rough, were all but empty. I hadn’t seen a passing car in the last hundred miles and so much of the area was like that. Instead, I had to worry about whether or not she would drive where I wanted her to drive. Up to this point we’d more or less been in agreement that she needed to get out of town as much as I did. But I was beginning to think the little shootout at the hotel had made her shy away from trusting what was happening.

 

Not that I could really blame her. Being shot at wasn’t fun for anyone and when it had never happened to you before, you were much more likely to freak out.

 

She was definitely taking it better than most people would.

 

That being said, I didn’t think she was taking it so well that I wanted to ask her to take on some of the driving responsibilities. I’d rather pull over to some hole in the wall motel and sleep a couple of hours with the keys shoved down my pants so she’d be a little more hesitant to try to find them than give her free rein of the car.

 

Especially since then I’d have to give her more of a definitive answer as to where we were going. Which I didn’t want to do in case she decided to do something stupid like talk to the cops.

 

Which was exactly what she’d just threatened me with. I didn’t think she would really do it—she seemed about as mistrustful of them as I was—but it was hard to say that for sure and I didn’t trust easy. Not anyone. Apparently, not even my wife.

 

I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to laugh at the idiocy of being married or grin at the pleasure of it. I had had a lot of fun driving into her before. Fun I hoped we’d experience again, regardless of whether or not I trusted her.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen now. She seemed pretty pissed.

 

The fight with Nicole had riled me up. It wasn’t that most of what she said was wrong—though some of it decidedly was—it was the sense that she and I weren’t looking at things the same way. Yes, I was being cranky with her and I knew it, but she was pushing all the wrong buttons. What did she expect from me?

 

On some level, I understood, regardless of what a legal piece of paper said, we weren’t in the kind of married relationship that meant we were much of anything to one another. Maybe under other circumstances, that might be different, but who was to say? After all, there was definitely attraction between us and, whatever Nicole might say, I knew she didn’t completely resist my interest and affections. After all, she’d only slapped me after one kiss, and we’d certainly had more than that. The insinuation that this was all my fault stung, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

 

If I’d let her be, she would probably have been fine. Well, at least safe from the Lions, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that constituted fine.

 

After all, there was still Ben.

 

I squeezed the steering wheel in irritation at the thought of him. What a prick. I had the feeling that if I hadn’t inserted myself into her life, as she’d put it, he would probably have continued to stalk her until things escalated to extremely dangerous.

 

Which was why it pissed me off so badly to know he was still sending her text messages—and she wasn’t doing anything about it. I knew there were some touchy logistics here about blocking Ben’s number, but I couldn’t imagine them being worse than letting him continue to speak to her. He wasn’t going to become less of an asshole just because she stopped letting him text her phone. Especially since she didn’t respond to him anyway, so what did it matter? More to the point, he wasn’t going to stop visiting her if she didn’t block his number. He wouldn’t stop popping in at her apartment, wouldn’t stop trailing her to bars or to work or to wherever else. One of these days he was going to catch her off guard. And when she didn’t give him what he wanted, what then? Did she think he was just going to say, “Oh, okay. Sure. I was just really unclear about your obvious fear and disdain for me! Glad we got that all cleared up.”

 

Um, no. I was thinking not.

 

Which made it all the more frustrating that she was being so stubborn about taking further steps to eradicate him from her life. We’d left her apartment and the general area, so at least Ben couldn’t stalk her; plus, I was here, so I’d pulverize the little weasel if I caught him anywhere near her, so why not go the extra mile? Why not just become a ghost he couldn’t reach, that way he had no sway over her?

 

It wasn’t that I was really concerned that she might decide to go back to him. Whatever she thought of me, she had to know she was safer at my side than with him. And even if I weren’t part of the picture, I highly doubted she was going to go crawling back to that piece of shit.

 

I glanced to my right, examining Nicole. She was pointedly looking anywhere but at me, her arms folded across her large breasts, and her cheeks flushed in anger and other things. I knew she was aware of me, no matter how much she tried to act like she wasn’t, and I took some small pleasure in knowing I’d riled her up.

 

Of course, it wasn’t exactly doing a lot for me at the moment, but I’d enjoyed making her uncomfortable, I had to admit.

 

Following the curving line of her body down to her full hips, I noticed something square and flat sitting on the seat next to her. Her phone. It wasn’t going off—thank god, because I was pretty sure I would lose my mind if Ben chose now to text her—but it wasn’t put up, either. She hadn’t remembered to do so after our argument and now that she was trying her hardest to not look at me, she wouldn’t be looking at her phone either.

 

A thought flickered through my head, What if she didn’t have her phone?

 

I thought about just grabbing it while she wasn’t looking it and heaving it out the window, left to the heat and whatever car came behind us to run it over and crash it into a thousand tiny pieces. It was sorely tempting, but I resisted the urge. If she caught me—and that would be pretty hard not to notice—there would be hell to pay.

 

Still, it might be worth it, I thought.

 

Of course, I didn’t, but the idea of getting rid of her phone stayed with me the rest of the drive. Finally, we were running low on gas and I had to accept that we were going to have to stop again to get some. And the longer I put it off, the more likely we’d end up stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, in a desert without much water, along a highway that barely got any traffic.

 

So when I saw the next exit listing several gas stations, I pulled off. I saw Nicole glance at me out of the corner of her eye, but she still didn’t say anything.

 

“If you need to pee or get something to drink or whatever, now’s the time to do it. I don’t know when we’ll stop again,” I told her as I pulled up next to one of the pumps.

 

She scowled at me, but as soon as we were stopped, she jerked the door open and stomped out angrily. She headed to the little store, Merkyles, some off brand station that I’d never heard of before. I watched her stomp the whole way there, my gaze lingering on her ass as she inadvertently sashayed her way to the door. When she jerked it open and went inside, I finally moved.

 

Before I could second guess myself—or she could walk back out and see me—I snatched her phone off the seat and popped my own door open. I went to the trash can nearest the car. There was a moment where I hesitated, glancing towards the little store with a frown. She wouldn’t be happy. In fact, she’d probably be downright pissed. And more to the point, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. This phone was her only means of communication without going through me somehow. Whether that was asking to stop to use a payphone—assuming we could find one that worked out here—or asking to use my phone, she’d be in a real spot.

 

But at least Ben won’t have access to her.

 

That thought was enough to convince me and I let the phone slip from my hands as soon as it did. It went off as it fell and I just barely caught a glimpse of the screen. New Message. And it was from Ben.

 

Cool satisfaction raced through my body and that was all it took. I couldn’t regret my decision even a little bit now, knowing Ben would continue to text her and Nicole wouldn’t get any of them. Oh, yes, definitely the right choice.

 

I went over to the pump after that and started to fill up. Nicole came out a moment later holding a small bag with what looked like several snacks inside. She was carrying a bottle of cola in her other hand, already half drank.

 

“That bathroom was disgusting,” she told me, sounding pissed. I knew it wasn’t about the bathroom, not really, but about how angry with me she still was. I didn’t care. I was still feeling pretty pleased with myself about the whole phone thing and almost grinned at her as she slid back into the car.

 

“Sorry to hear that,” I told her, not sounding sorry at all.

 

She scowled at me. “Yeah, you look real sorry.”

 

I shrugged.

 

“Ugh, you probably don’t even care, do you? I’ll bet your place is a total wreck.”

 

I thought about that. My little place was definitely a bachelor pad, no extra place for a toothbrush and definitely no room for tampons or pads or whatever other crap that women needed to have around. There were no empty drawers for a girl to bring some of her stuff over and leave here. There wasn’t much in the fridge beyond beer and a frozen pizza, maybe some leftovers from that Chinese place down on Oak I liked.

 

That being said, it was pretty clean. Not spotless by any means, after all, I did have a bunch of bikers as friends. You couldn’t keep a place that clean with those types of friends. Even so, I managed to air out most of the cigarette smoke that they brought in with them, and kept most of my carpet stain free. Even the little couch was in pretty good condition, if a little worn through. And my bedroom was pretty damn clean. I didn’t let anyone in there besides me, so it stayed in good shape even if the rest of the place got trashed. It also meant the little bathroom that was attached there wasn’t awful either.

 

After a moment, I said, “It’s better than a gas station bathroom.”

 

She rolled her eyes at me and I was pretty sure the only reason she hadn’t slammed the door in my face yet was because she wanted to enjoy a little more of the fresh air. It was hot, but at least we weren’t stuck in a car together with the windows rolled up and the car working hard to try to give us mediocre air conditioning.

 

The car was solid, but it wasn’t very fancy.

 

“Did you get me something?” I asked her cheekily with a wink.

 

She rolled her eyes at me. “No,” she said, but I saw she’d already taken another cola out of the bag and put it in the drink holder on my side.

 

I grinned at her.

 

At this, she actually did slam the door and I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

 

When I finished filling up the tank, I put the cap back on and headed around to the driver’s side. I slid into the seat and glanced over at Nicole. She didn’t necessarily look friendly, but she looked like she was starting to get into a better mood. I looked at the cola on my side. Raising my eyebrows at her, I asked, “Thought you said you didn’t get me anything?”

 

She shrugged her shoulders, her breasts rising slightly with the movement. Her cheeks were slightly tinged in red and I couldn’t say if it was from the heat or other things. “I didn’t want you to pass out behind the wheel. No sense in killing us both, is there?”

 

I laughed at her a little, softly, and said, “Thank you.”

 

She didn’t answer me, but I thought I saw her muscles relax slightly and her expression soften. I turned on the car and we pulled out of the gas station, heading back onto the highway.

 

For a while longer, we drove in silence. There wasn’t much in the way of radio stations out here, unfortunately, so we couldn’t put on much music to help with the quiet. And since it seemed like Nicole, though not really mad at me anymore I didn’t think, didn’t want to have another conversation like earlier, we were mostly left with the quiet and the stillness as we traveled.

 

I was pretty okay with that, since I had deemed it better than fighting—at least for now—but I wouldn’t have minded talking with her either. She had a pretty voice and I wouldn’t have minded getting to know more about her. Other than her shitty taste in men—before me, of course—and her dislike of public bathrooms, I didn’t know a lot about her. I knew she was a hairdresser and that she was determined to stay away from the “bad boy” type of guy, though she was apparently drawn to them, but otherwise she was a bit of a mystery. She seemed too strong, too independent for a guy like Ben, and it was a wonder to me that she’d gotten saddled with him for so long.

 

Why stay with him? Surely she must have known he was an asshole long before she broke up with him. I knew he was the moment I laid eyes on the jerk.

 

I wondered if there was more to the story, though there was no way in hell I was going to ask that particular question. After all, the last fight had started over Ben and the damn text messages. Who knew what sort of argument would happen if I brought him up again and demanded a more concrete answer this time?

 

As soon as I thought of her ex-boyfriend, I thought of her phone, sitting in that grimy trash can at that little hole in the wall gas station while people tossed their half-eaten crap in after it. By now it was probably covered in Twinkie cream, diet soda, and stale Cheetos. It brought a sincere sense of pleasure in me and I couldn’t help but smirk a little bit.

 

“Have you seen my phone?” Nicole asked suddenly, and my smile dropped slightly.

 

“What?”

 

“My phone,” Nicole repeated. She was searching the seat around her and her bag. When she didn’t find it there, she tried her pockets, though they were the girl pockets that were more for looks than anything else. They were so small they only fit half her hand, and her hands were tiny. “I can’t find it. Have you seen it?”

 

I shook my head, my eyes trained on the road. “No, it’s your phone remember? I know where mine is.”

 

She sent me a dirty look, but she didn’t seem to suspect me of taking it, so I figured my answer was the right one. I may not have really felt bad for disposing of her phone, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to know about it. She was finally starting to thaw again after our earlier argument and I didn’t want to fuck with that. The trip was remarkably less fun with her pissed at me.

 

“Did you check between the seats?” I asked casually, trying to sound both disinterested and mildly helpful.

 

“Yeah,” she said, but she checked again anyway. Her hand and half her arm disappeared down between the seats, but she didn’t find anything. Her brow was furrowed, a tiny delicate line pulled together between her dark eyebrows. “Damnit.”

 

I risked a full glance at her. She looked frustrated and annoyed, but not necessarily pissed. I was beginning to think more and more that taking the phone from her had been the best idea I’d had all day. I worked hard not to grin and said, “What’s the big deal? Find it when we stop for the night.”

 

She continued to look, ignoring my suggestion. “It was right here, wasn’t it?”

 

“Seriously,” I said, lowering my voice so I sounded half offended. “What do you need it for? You weren’t serious about calling the cops, were you?”

 

Nicole stopped looking and turned her big green eyes up to look at me. She pursed her lips together, staring at me thoughtfully, but she didn’t immediately say, “Yes,” or “Obviously,” and I took that as a small victory. Finally, she said, “No. I…I’m sorry about earlier. I was being a real bitch.”

 

I didn’t confirm it, though I thought she was being a bit high strung. Still, she’d been shot at and whether I did it deliberately or directly, it was my fault. I couldn’t honestly fault her for freaking out a little about that.

 

“I shouldn’t have said those things,” she continued, sitting back more comfortably in her seat. It looked like she’d given up her search altogether. “You’re trying to do right by me and I appreciate it—I just wish things weren’t so messed up right now. But no, I wasn’t serious about calling the police. Really.”

 

“Then don’t worry about the phone,” I told her softly, gently, not wanting to mess up this tentative truce between us. “It’ll turn up when we stop and have a chance to really look through things. And if it’s not, we’ll get you a new one.”

 

Nicole thought about it for a long moment, then she finally nodded. “You’re right. Who was I gonna call anyway?”

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

The rest of the drive went pleasantly. I was right in my assumption that the conversation went a lot better now that we weren’t both on edge—once again, I felt pleased that I’d gotten rid of her damn phone. She talked on and on about her job and I asked her whether or not she wanted to do it for the rest of her life. She told me no, that she wasn’t passionate about being a hairdresser, necessarily. I had figured as much, just off the cuff. She seemed too smart and too wily to be tied down to something so fashion oriented. It just wasn’t really her thing, it seemed like.

 

She spent the next hour or so telling me about why the job was important to her. Why it meant so much.

 

“Ben insisted I quit my last job,” she explained, and I felt a twinge of anger towards him yet again. Everything I learned about this guy told me he was a piece of shit. I still couldn’t figure out how she’d landed herself with someone like that. “I was only a receptionist, so it wasn’t a huge loss or anything. I answered phones and took notes and memos. I had to wear a pantsuit.” She grinned at me, like this had been a big pain in the butt, but I imagined she looked like one hell of a sexy, naughty secretary in that pantsuit.

 

I was sorry I’d missed it and wondered if maybe I couldn’t get her into one—and then out of one—sometime soon. She seemed open to maybe some playfulness in the bedroom.

 

“It wasn’t my life’s work or anything, but it was mine, you know?” she told me, looking wistful and a little bitter. “I worked hard at it, and I’ll bet I’d have gotten somewhere. Maybe not at that company, but the next one or the one after. I just needed some time and experience…but Ben wouldn’t let me have that.” She scowled as she said his name, confirming my thought that she wouldn’t go back to him regardless of whether or not I was in the picture.

 

“That’s because he was scared you’d realize you were wasting your time with an asshat like him,” I told her seriously, doing my best to keep the growl from my voice. I don’t know how successful I really was, but I tried for her. “You’ve always been made for better. I’ve only known you about a week or so and I know that. Chances are, he’s known that for a long time, too.”

 

Nicole blushed then and looked away shyly, like she wasn’t used to compliments or something. She’s probably not, I thought grimly.

 

I really wanted to kick Ben’s ass.

 

“Thank you,” she told me quietly.

 

I shrugged. “Don’t need to thank me for telling the truth.”

 

We were silently for a while, a silence that was thick with some kind of tension, but not the angry tension of earlier. Nicole seemed more at ease with my presence, less resentful of it, and if I had to guess, I would say the tension was a pleasant variety of desire. Her body was responding to the closeness of mine and I had the feeling that we’d have been having silences like this more often if it hadn’t been for our run-in with the Lions.

 

After several minutes, Nicole continued with her story. “I got the job at the salon after breaking up with Ben. I needed the money, so I would’ve taken anything that would’ve hired me right away, but I’m glad I got that job.”

 

“You enjoy it?” I asked, my voice a little thick now that I’d identified the desire weighing on the air.

 

She nodded her head. “I’m pretty good at it and it’s fun without being the whole ‘starving artist’ thing. Still, it’s not a long-term thing for me. I’d like to work up to manager—since there’s an opening—but I don’t want to be there forever. A management position just looks really good on a résumé, and if I can hack it there for a few years, I’ll bet I’ve got a good shot at other jobs, you know?”

 

“Makes sense to me,” I told her.

 

She bit her lip, looking like she wanted to ask me something but torn as to whether or not she should. Finally, she did. “What do you do?”

 

I tensed. What did I do? Well, technically, I was part of a motorcycle club called the Lions whose leader was on the wrong side of the law and currently behind bars. I didn’t always run the guns for them, but I’d done it before. Usually, I worked with the cars. And not in a dealership kind of way. We worked a chop shop late into the night and there wasn’t any confusion on our part as to whether or not it was strictly legal.

 

We all knew it wasn’t.

 

Normally, I wasn’t ashamed of my job. I was good with cars, more or less, and I was excellent at boosting them. Sure, it wasn’t legal, but sometimes life wasn’t fair and you had to make do with the hand you’d been dealt. That being said, I decided whether or not it was smart to tell Nicole any of that. She was on the straight and narrow with so much of this and right now she seemed to think I was the good guy. Did I want to give her reason to suddenly think otherwise?

 

No, I thought quickly, but I also thought it was probably better to be honest.

 

Torn between the truth and what would keep me on her good side, I offered a half-truth instead. “I work for an auto shop,” I told her smoothly, keeping my voice calm even as I felt my heartbeat increase quickly.

 

“An auto shop? Like a garage or something. I didn’t realize you were a mechanic.” She seemed impressed by this particular revelation and it made me feel a little guilty.

 

I shoved that guilt aside, however, and said, “Yeah, sort of. I don’t work a lot on the guts, though I can. Mostly I do body work.” There, mostly the truth. I did do a lot of body work. Mostly striping it down and then putting it on a new car, but she didn’t need to know all of that.

 

She smiled at me and it was a beautiful, sexy smile. “Do you like it?”

 

“I have to admit I love my job most days.” I frowned a little. It was true, I did like my job most days, though there were more and more like these where I felt a little guilty about it. “Some days I feel like we’re just cheating people, though, you know?”

 

She nodded, though she couldn’t possibly know what I really meant. “Yeah, I do. Taking your car to get worked on is so expensive, but I get it. Between parts and labor, you’ve got to charge a lot. After all, you can’t work for free, and cars are complicated things.”

 

I felt good that she was still on my side, that she was still smiling at me and talking to me in soft, breathy tones that said she wasn’t disgusted with me. But there was the lingering voice in my head that reminded me it was because she didn’t really understand what I was talking about. How could she?

 

It’s not like she doesn’t know I’m in a motorcycle club, I thought, trying to convince myself she had to know I wasn’t completely on the up and up. Still, I could taste the lie of omission on my tongue. She didn’t know what I really did because I didn’t tell her. Knowing I was in the Lions didn’t mean she’d also know I made my living on the illegal side of the line. And if I made it sound like I was completely legitimate, then she believed that because she was taking my words at face value.

 

I’m a real piece of shit, I thought, but it wasn’t enough to make me tell her the truth. There was the chance she might take it well, that she would be okay with it and even appreciate my honesty, but I doubted it. I’d been burned by enough foster homes, would-be lovers, and even friends to think anyone would be okay with the shady side of my life. In my experience, if you weren’t completely straight about things, you didn’t deserve to be a part of “good” people’s lives. And I was pretty sure Nicole was about as good as good people got.