Chapter 50 Honey
HONEY
I’m standing in the vestibule by the office at school, staring at my house.
Me: There’s a black limo parked out front.
Cyn: It’s been here for the last hour.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s there for me. Ian and my father really thought of everything, didn’t they?
Cyn: Your brothers just got here. They said they’re going with you.
My eyes sting, and I blink it away. I love that they have my back, but I’m not sure what kind of plane we’re flying on. Maybe I should check on that. So I text Ian.
Me: How many people does your plane seat?
Ian: Six, but I’m also transporting supplies, so it’ll just fit two, you and the pilot. Why?
Damn it.
Me: I thought you had a jet.
Ian: It’s in New York with my team. They’re negotiating a deal. You’re getting the Cessna.
I can’t fucking win with this guy. Maybe I need to tell my brothers not to come to the airstrip with me. I don’t want Trig causing a scene and getting arrested.
That sense of dread overwhelms me, and I want to collapse on the floor and curl into a corner. How did it come to this?
My phone buzzes in my hand, startling me.
Cyn: I need to talk to you. Tonight, before you go. It’s important.
I’ll do anything to postpone this trip.
Will the limo guy kidnap me if I don’t go willingly?
Because I don’t think I can do this. What if my father pressures me to marry that asshole at some Vegas chapel?
I love Beau. We might have issues, but if I go to Vegas now, I feel like I’ll lose him forever.
I can’t get on that plane. I won’t get on that plane.
If I head through the backyard, will the limo driver see me? With my heart in my throat, I open the glass door in the vestibule, ready to put that theory to the test, when Adrian rushes past me.
I get a brilliant idea. “Adrian, hey.”
He stops in his tracks and looks back at me. “Yeah?”
“Where are you going?”
His brow furrows. “To get the newspaper kids some dinner. I was thinking Chinese.” He heads for his truck, and like a lunatic, I run after him.
“Can I come with you? I’ll help you carry everything.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy.
Maybe I am.
I’m not sure how long I can avoid going home, but this excuse is as good as any. I’ll get some dinner first. Ian can’t expect me to fly across the country in a Cessna on an empty stomach. At least, that’s what I’ll tell him while I plan how to get out of this situation.
Relief that I’m not going to Vegas hits me hard. I don’t know how this is going to work out, but it doesn’t involve my father twisting my arm to do something I don’t want to. That’s not love. That’s him treating me like a business transaction.
And if that’s all I am to him, why would I trade my entire life for bad decisions he made?
“Um. Yeah, you can come with me,” Adrian says slowly, unlocking his old truck.
After he unlocks the passenger door, I drop my bag in the footwell and slide onto the bench seat.
I click the belt and smile at him when he joins me.
“Thanks for letting me tag along.” I’m buzzing with relief.
With anticipation of seeing Beau. With glee that I’m not going to marry some asshole who thinks he can snap his fingers to get me to do his bidding.
Adrian coughs. “No problem. Listen, I need to stop by my place first. It’s not far from the restaurant.”
“That’s fine. Where did you order? I’ll call in something for myself.”
“Um.” He nods slowly as he wipes his forehead. “Chopsticks.”
“Great. I love that place.” I dial. When the lady answers, she puts me on hold. There’s some traffic, but Adrian takes a few quick turns down some side roads, and a minute later pulls up in front of his apartment. “Be right back.”
As I wait for him, I glance around his small truck. It’s an ancient Ford.
Something catches my eye on the floor, and I lean forward. Is that a hole in the footwell? I nudge it with my shoe, and it widens. Holy crap. His truck is so rusted it’s falling apart. I can literally see the pavement below. Yikes.
When the lady finally returns, I give her my order. “I’ll take a sweet and sour chicken with a side of egg rolls. And can you pack it with Adrian Rogers’ order?”
“Who?”
I repeat his name. “He works for the high school.”
“Sorry. I don’t know who that is, but I’m new here.”
“Maybe it’s under the name of the newspaper, the Ledger?”
“I don’t have an order like that.”
I watch Adrian jog out of the house with a duffle bag. “Really? I’m guessing it’s a big order.” Probably enough for a dozen students.
“No, sorry.”
Huh. “Okay, well, I still want the sweet and sour chicken.” Maybe Adrian misremembered which restaurant he called. I still need dinner, though. I finally got my period today, and I’m ravenous since I barely ate this week.
Adrian joins me and starts the truck. I explain what the lady told me, that she didn’t have his order.
“Weird.”
“Did you call Golden Wok over on Mesquite Street by mistake?” They make fantastic egg rolls. My stomach growls in approval.
“I don’t think so.” He makes a U-turn and his tires squeal. “Sorry.”
“You’ve probably had a rough day. I can’t believe the sheriff thinks one of your kids might be the arsonist.”
His jaw tightens. “It’s bullshit. My students are innocent.”
“I believe you. I can’t see any of them being deranged enough to go around lighting fires like that.
I wonder if that means Reynolds also thinks one of your students is the Mad Crapper.
” As he drives, I glance around his truck again.
There’s a cupholder attachment with a compartment underneath that’s attached between his seat and mine.
It’s overflowing with papers and old soda containers.
Not that unusual for a guy. “It’s funny that your car is messy when your desk is so organized.
Not that I’m judging. I have messy days too. You should see my closet right now.”
For some reason, I can’t stop talking. It must be the stress of the last few days. He listens as I tell him about my ink explosion this week.
After a few minutes, though, I realize we should be at the restaurant by now. I glance around. It’s getting dark. Why are we headed toward the river? “Did you have another errand to run? Because Chopsticks is in the other direction.”
That’s when he slows down, and several papers slide off the seat. I glance down, and my eyes land on a pack of cigarettes wedged into one of the cupholders. That’s odd. Adrian never smells like cigarette smoke.
His phone buzzes with a text, and he pulls it out, nearly driving off the road to read it. He curses under his breath.
“Adrian. Careful.”
“Sorry.” He tosses his phone on the dash.
Is he sick? He doesn’t seem like himself right now. “Are you feeling okay? I can drive if you want.”
He shakes his head, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “This was a mistake.”
“The Chinese food?” Is there a third restaurant I don’t know about?
“It just got out of hand. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.” Sweat beads on his forehead. I hope he doesn’t have the flu.
“Of course not.” I have no idea what he’s talking about.
My phone buzzes with several texts, and I pull it out of my pocket. The one from Beau catches my eye.
Beau: Babe, where are you? I need to talk to you ASAP!
I’m so relieved to hear from him. Maybe he can meet me at my house. I’d love to see him one last time before that limo driver tries to kidnap me.
Me: I’m getting food with Adrian.
I’ve just pressed send when out of nowhere, Adrian slaps my phone out of my hand.
“What the hell?” I glare at him.
“Don’t fucking make any calls.” He wipes his sweaty forehead and turns to me, which makes us swerve across the road again. “I’m sorry about this. I’m just out of options.”
When he glances at me, the wild look in his eyes makes all the hair on my arms stand on end.
I look down at the cigarettes. Then back at him.
That first fire at the school, the one in the bathroom, was caused by a cigarette.
Like dominos, the dots connect. “It’s you.”
He’s the one who’s always around after school.
He’s the one who wants juicy news stories.
He’s the one who has the most motive.
The newspaper kids aren’t responsible for the fires.
Adrian is.
“That’s why you have the cigarettes.” I yank the pack out from between the console and throw it at him. “You could have burned down my house, asshole.”
He cringes and hits the gas as we squeal around a bend in the road. I slam my hand against the window to stop myself from hitting it with my head.
“Like I said, it got out of control. You don’t understand the pressure I’m under to find good stories.
You don’t understand what it felt like growing up in my father’s shadow.
Him and all his damn journalism awards. If we didn’t have those fires, what were my kids going to write about?
How Bessie the cow got loose? How some mule destroyed a flower garden?
How some stupid firefighter rescued kittens? ”
“Listen to yourself. You almost burned down the school on Halloween. What if you’d killed some kids?
Would that have been worth a dumb news article or journalism award?
” When I think about all the crap that happened this semester, I shake my head.
“Did you really poop around the school? What about that snake? Did you dump it in our office?”
Laughing maniacally, he grips the steering wheel with both hands, his knuckles bone white.
“It’s this fucking town. There’s never anything interesting going on.
Taking a dump in the hallway was better than lighting the building on fire, right?
And that snake was supposed to stay in a box on the bookshelf.
It was just supposed to rattle around and scare people, not trap us in the office. ”
“Stop the car. Let me out and you can go on your merry way.”
Just then, a police siren flashes behind us, and Adrian curses. “Sorry, Honey. I can’t stop.” Son of a bitch. I reach down to grab my phone, and he slams his hand on the dash. “Don’t do that!”
I flinch. “I used to think you were a really good guy.”
He wipes his face. “Not after this.”
No. Not after this.
As we reach the Eden River bridge, I start to panic. “Don’t do anything stupid. We can figure something out. At the end of the day, you didn’t hurt anyone.”
“My career is over. Don’t you see that? I’m gonna go to jail.” He hits the gas, and I scream as we barely miss another car merging with our lane.
He jerks the wheel to avoid it.
But the sharp motion flips Adrian’s truck.
The ground shifting around us as a terrible metal crunch engulfs us.
As those few seconds stretch out before me, the regret hits me.
I never told Beau how much I love him.
Now I might never get that chance.