Chapter Thirty

Juniper

S itting in my Jeep, staring at the front of the 7-11, I sighed.

This was a bad idea.

Using the rearview mirror, I looked in the back seat at my wet clothes draped all over my crap. Not that there was a lot of it because I didn’t have anything besides my clothes, some shoes, toiletries, my laptop, my purse, and some stupid camping gear I wished I’d never spent money on.

Who the hell needs a sleeping bag in South Florida?

Or a blanket and quilt?

I should’ve stopped at the pillows I’d stolen from one of the shitty motels I’d stayed at over the years and called it good. But in my ill-informed, ill-fated trip of hell through Walmart a year and a half ago, I’d regretfully wasted money on a small camping stove, a lantern that needed batteries that cost more than what I spent on food, and a stupid blow-up bed.

My Cherokee was big, but it wasn’t stomp on an inflater thing for an hour to fill up an air mattress big.

The stupid bed was longer than my cargo area, even with all the seats folded down.

And nothing screamed I live out of my car faster than folded-down seats, an air mattress, and camping equipment. One night in that same Walmart parking lot taught me that. After the third guy had approached my vehicle like I was parked at some leisure campground for hookups, I’d gotten back in the driver’s seat and taken off.

Now I wouldn’t go back to that particular Walmart ever again, which sucked because it was the closest to my favorite coffee shop, and the chain store was one of the few places you could park overnight for free. Or just park and loiter in general.

And stupid parking was what got me here in the first place.

That, and a sinking feeling I hadn’t been able to shake since the guy in the laundromat.

Something had been off, but I didn’t know what.

I’d checked my cell over and over while the washer was running, but I couldn’t find anything suspicious—not that I knew what to look for, but a quick Google search on bugging cell phones had given me some ideas. Except nothing weird had shown up, then the battery died, and I’d had to wait to get back to my car to plug it in.

But I kept thinking about his hands as they’d danced across the screen.

Maybe he’d simply been keeping the phone awake while he’d hit on me. Except he hadn’t really hit on me. I knew when guys were on the make. They looked at my tits, they said stupid shit, they close-talked. This guy hadn’t really done any of that, and I knew what I looked like this morning, what I smelled like, and none of it was good.

In fact, it was depressing as hell.

Which was why I was here, parked in front of a convenience store, my stomach growling as I was about to make some more really poor life choices.

“Screw it.” Shouldering my purse, I got out of the Jeep and locked her up.

Seconds later, I was in heavenly air conditioning, pretending to wander the aisles just to cool off the back of my sweatshirt and swamp ass. I probably looked like a robber.

Or a cranker.

Actually, my ass was too big for me to be a crack addict.

I had a different kind of addiction.

One I was now standing in front of, one that I even passed the coffee section for.

Chips.

Salty, greasy, crispy, fried deliciousness.

Not even french fries came close.

My mouth watered, and I bit my tongue, telling myself not to do it. I even shoved my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie and told my Ugg-booted feet to keep moving because I was insane.

This was insane.

Not the hoodie and Uggs in ninety-degree muggy Miami heat—those I had valid reasons for. The sweatshirt covered my tits, the fleece-lined half boots covered my chipped toenail polish, and the baseball cap I’d thrown on after the laundromat served two purposes.

What was insane was buying a full-size bag of Lay’s before noon from a 7-11 that charged double the price of a grocery store. Or Walmart. But I didn’t want to go there and buy responsible peanut butter and bread.

I didn’t want to go anywhere.

Rooted in place, I wanted instant gratification. I wanted stupid chips because of my stupid life, and because I had a stupid lack of control.

Fuck it.

Grabbing the bag that looked like it’d been fondled by a gorilla, I strutted to the cashier.

“Hi.” The guy behind the counter looked up, but I didn’t.

“Hey.” Head down, I tossed a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

Four dollars and sixty-six cents in change later, I was out the door.

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