Chapter 30
“This had better not be one of those stupid only-one-room-left scenarios,” Lauren snapped as they approached the motel’s interior
service window. She inhaled, filling her lungs with the nicotine from a lifetime supply of smoked cigarettes.
“There are only two cars out front.”
“That’s not making me feel better.” She couldn’t believe Tammy had done this. It had to have been on purpose. She certainly
wouldn’t put it past the woman. And maybe Jonah had been culpable, too, despite what he’d claimed. After all, he’d lied to
her before. Sure, by omission, but whatever.
“Two rooms, please,” she said to the bleached-blonde woman behind the glass, whose black roots were half grown out.
Deedee (according to her name tag), who was probably approaching forty, eyed Jonah with a lecherous smile. “Sure thing, honey.
I’ll need a credit card.”
He reached for his wallet. “I’ve got this.”
“Better believe it,” Lauren mumbled. She sure wasn’t paying for this debacle. Her gaze skittered around the lobby, afraid
to stare too closely. Please, God, no bedbugs. And would a Keurig be too much to ask? “Is there coffee in the room?”
“Just in the lobby.”
Her gaze stopped on a half-filled pot of ink-black coffee that had likely been sitting since this morning. Hard pass.
Three minutes, four lingering gazes, and two sultry smiles later, the transaction was complete.
“Thanks, Deedee,” Jonah said.
“You’re welcome, hon.” The gust of wind from Deedee’s fluttering lashes nearly knocked Lauren over.
“Is there a place nearby where we can grab a bite to eat?” he asked.
“Nice of you to ask, but I don’t get off till morning.” Deedee winked as she handed him the keys. “Just kidding. There’s the
corner bar down the street on the right.”
“Thank you.” Lauren would definitely be looking that up first. “What’s it called?”
“The Corner Bar.” Deedee said the words extra slow while bestowing a condescending expression on Lauren.
“Right,” Jonah said. “Well, thank you so much for your help.”
“I’ll be here all night if you need anything.” She pinned Jonah with her gaze. “Anything at all.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “We get it—you’re single and available. Thank you.” She and Jonah exited the building.
“Somebody’s a little jealous,” Jonah singsonged as soon as the lobby door closed behind them.
“ So jealous. Thank God for fresh air. That lobby reeked of smoke and desperation.”
“You hungry?” He flashed his phone screen. “The bar doesn’t look too bad. They have wings.”
Lauren glanced at the screen, then toward the motel rooms, where God only knew what awaited her. “I need proper fortification
before I go in there.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Two and a half hours later—because service had been just that slow—Lauren and Jonah stood in front of their respective hotel room doors.
“Here goes nothing.” She slid the old-fashioned key into the slot and twisted.
“May the odds be ever in your favor.”
She opened the door and flipped the switch, lighting a sole lamp beside a double bed covered with a hideous floral blanket.
Jonah peeked into his own room. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“A gallon of hand sanitizer and a hazmat suit would be just swell.”
Instead he gave her a wry grin. “Lock your door behind you.”
“As if I’d forget.”
“Good night.”
“Very optimistic of you,” she muttered as she stepped onto the olive-green sculptured carpet. Once inside she shut the door
and twisted the lock. She was definitely keeping her shoes on. She moved to the air-conditioning unit and flipped it on, not
because it was hot but because of the weird odor she didn’t care to identify.
She hung her purse from a hook by the door. Inside it was a bag from the local drugstore that contained a toothbrush, toothpaste,
and deodorant. At least she didn’t have to worry about anything crawling into a suitcase.
Timidly, she walked past the bed and dresser to the speckled Formica countertop, circa 1974. She peeked into the bathroom,
complete with a stained toilet, a tub with a plastic shower curtain, and the distinct odor of mold. She zeroed in on a squiggly
black hair near the tub drain and grimaced. So no morning shower then. After closing the door she returned to the living area.
A text buzzed in from Jonah. Whatever you do, don’t turn on the bright overhead light.
She thumbed out a response. My tub has a hair in it.
Only one? Lucky. The sheets seem clean at least.
She peered at the polyester spread. Who knew when that thing had last been washed. You’re very brave.
Get it off there, quick.
He had a point. She pinched the cover and gave a tug, sending the thing into a heap at the foot of the bed. The sheets were
Pepto-Bismol pink but seemed clean enough, and not a hair in sight.
The sound of a TV came through the wall on Jonah’s side of the room. She stilled and listened as he flipped channels for a
while, then settled on a news channel. It was only eight o’clock—too early to settle in. And she wasn’t quite ready to submit
to whatever might be in that bed. Her head itched at the thought.
She took the lone chair at the table for two by the window. Might as well read—nothing too scary, given her current situation.
She opened the reading app on her phone. She preferred physical books, but these were desperate times. She shopped online
and treated herself to a new women’s fiction novel she’d been wanting to read—it was her birthday after all.
Several minutes into the book her nose began to itch. Because she was allergic to mold and it was clearly on a first-name
basis with this place. A sneeze built and escaped.
Her phone buzzed with a text. Bless you.
Lauren awakened, her bladder begging for relief. So much for avoiding that bathroom. A glance at her phone showed it was only
10:21. She’d gone to bed out of boredom at nine. She flipped on the lamp, then slipped from the bed, straight into her shoes,
and went to the bathroom. She was just returning when something scuttled across the floor.
“Aaaahhhh!” She jumped onto the bed and screamed again because, mouse ! It had to be. It had been too big to be anything else and it had gone behind the dresser. Ick! The bed trembled as she did
a little heebie-jeebie dance.
What now? It would come out eventually—it couldn’t stay there forever. She could never sleep in here now. What if it crawled over her? A full-body shudder passed over her. Her gaze toggled from one end of the dresser to the other, waiting for the rodent to make its escape.
Someone pounded on the door. “Lauren! You okay?”
Jonah. “It’s a mouse! There’s a mouse in here!”
“Oh, for crying out... I thought you were being murdered in your sleep.”
“Did you not hear me? I am trapped in this room with a mouse!”
“You’re not trapped. Just open the door and come out.”
“ Just open the door ,” she mocked. “I can’t get off the bed!”
“Why not?”
“Because of the mouse !”
“Well, you can’t stay there all night.”
She was not stepping one foot on that floor. She took in the layout. There was that chair not too far from the bed. She could
jump to that, maybe, then step onto the table, and from there she could reach the lock. Maybe.
She moved across the bed to the other side, watching for the mouse. Then she eyed the distance to the chair.
“Lauren?”
“I’m coming!”
She made the leap and caught her balance, just barely, on the rickety chair. She stepped up onto the center of the table,
which wobbled precariously. Then she braced her weight on the window frame and stretched for the lock.
The second it twisted, Jonah pushed through. “Where is it?”
With a grateful squeak she fell onto him, wrapping arms and legs around him. “Who cares? Get me outta here!”
Ten minutes later Lauren sat on Jonah’s bed. Because, yes, Jonah had offered to take the floor. He was currently fetching a tarp from the truck. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep at all the way her pulse still raced. Also, this whole place was probably infested with mice. There was still no guarantee one wouldn’t come crawling over her in the middle of the night.
The door opened and Jonah returned, tarp in hand, and pinned her with a look. “Stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t help it. It almost got me.”
His lips twitched as he spread the tarp on the floor beside the bed. “They don’t eat people. Not live ones, at least.”
She scowled at him. Then she remembered the way he’d held on to her when she clung to him like a monkey. The way he whisked
her from that room in two seconds flat. She went soft inside. “Thank you for the rescue. And for the bed. Here’s a pillow.”
He took it and tossed it onto the tarp. “Want me to turn off the lamp?”
Were rodents nocturnal? She wasn’t taking any chances. “Can we leave it on?”
“Sure.” He paused, shifted his weight, seeming to have something else to say.
“What’s wrong? Do you want your bed back? Because if you do, I’m gonna sleep in the truck. I’m wide awake and probably won’t
sleep anyway.”
“It’s not that. I just—I have something for you. I wasn’t sure if I should give it to you.”
A birthday gift? Though not a fan of birthdays, she welcomed the distraction. “If it’s a respirator, what took you so long?”
“No such luck.” He reached under the tarp and retrieved a poorly wrapped box, topped with a red bow. “Happy birthday.”
The package was the size and shape of a shoebox. Quelling the soft feelings already stirring inside, she hiked a brow. “You
got me shoes?”
He shrugged, cheeks flushing.
This uncertain side of him was kind of adorable. She tore into the paper, shooting him a wry grin. “Please, God, black suede Louboutins.”
“If that’s the kind with the red soles, you’re fresh out of luck.”
“Darn. They’d go so great with my new—” Her hands stilled as the paper she’d ripped away revealed part of the box. The part
with the logo.
Heelys . He’d bought her Heelys.
And just like that her thoughts flashed back to her seventh birthday when all she’d requested from her foster parents were
a pair of Heelys. She needed new tennis shoes anyway. Her old ones squeezed her toes. Their two sons had Heelys and all the
neighborhood kids did too. Once when Brandon had left his lying in the foyer, she’d slipped them on and tried to skate around
the driveway. But they were much too big.
She’d been so excited about getting her own, about being able to skate to the bus stop and back again like the other kids.
But when she’d opened her present on the morning of her birthday, she found a pair of regular tennis shoes instead.
Now, as her gaze homed in on the logo, her heart swelled two sizes. She pushed back the emotions and forced herself to tear
away the rest of the paper. She’d relayed the story to Jonah—she’d never told anyone else—and he’d bought her the shoes.
She didn’t even know Heelys still existed, much less in adult sizes. But he’d hunted them down for her. She couldn’t seem
to catch her breath or tear her stinging eyes from the package.
“Lauren?”
He was being so nice to her after she’d given him the silent treatment for weeks. What was wrong with her? Why did she push
away everyone who cared about her? Her throat ached with unshed tears.
The bed sank as he sat. “I hope I didn’t—I hope you don’t mind me giving them to you. I got them back in August and figured
you might as well have them.”
She swallowed the boulder in her throat. “It was very thoughtful. Thank you.” It wasn’t the shoes. The Heelys craze had come and gone. The disappointment had faded. But these shoes represented everything she’d never received as a child: real parents, family, stability. And maybe Jonah wasn’t perfect, but she knew in her gut, if he could give her all those things, he would.
“Really, Jonah. This was very sweet.”
“You should’ve gotten them when you were seven. You were as deserving as anyone else.”
That was true. Every child was deserving of love and consideration. She was still working on believing that she was too. Jonah
made her believe it when he gazed at her like this—like he adored her. When he made her feel safe. He seemed to be an expert
at that.
She zeroed in on the picture of the little girl on the box, her face lit with a smile as she skated in her Heelys. Lauren’s
own lips lifted as she popped off the lid, grabbed a shoe, and put it on.