78. Chapter 78
“We should’ve been riding back here the whole time.”
They opened all the windows in the Squire and Jase gave her the quick tour of his bedroom for the past two nights.
In the way back of the wagon, a pair of teal vinyl seats faced each other.
Lindsey settled into the seat on the passenger side of the car.
Jase sat on the opposite side and handed her a beer.
“No shit,” he said. “I bet it’s more comfortable than sleeping on the ground in your tent.”
“I’ll let you know in the morning,” Lindsey said. She flinched at her first sip of skunky beer. “This is disgusting.”
“They were free.”
“What kind of bar gives away free beer?”
Jase grabbed a bottle and tossed the cap into the middle seat where they had temporarily rehomed their bags. “They were about to turn.”
“Pretty sure they already did.”
“And the owner and I go way back.”
“You and the owner of a random bar in Lake Havasu City go way back?”
“It’s not my first time swinging down this way.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Lindsey muttered. “I bet it wasn’t your first time at this hotel either.”
“This place?” Jase wiped sweat from his nose with his T-shirt collar. “Too fancy. There’s a motel a couple blocks down that rents rooms by the hour.”
“Of course there is.”
“We could walk there if you’re interested.”
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of flirting. Lindsey leaned her head back and propped her feet up on the seat beside Jase.
“Didn’t think so,” he said, moving her feet to his lap.
“Aren’t you going to be too hot?” she asked. They’d be melted puddles on the vinyl by morning.
“Don’t care.”
He set his boots on the seat next to Lindsey’s hip and she leaned her elbow on them, sipping her awful beer.
“Did you sit back here when you were kids? In the Squire you had, I mean,” Lindsey said.
“I did, sometimes. Graham was still in a car seat. If we took it to town, they’d let me. Not on long trips.”
“I bet little Jase thought this was so cool.”
He grinned. “Big Jase does too.”
She tried imagining four-year-old Jase having a blast with the back all to himself, a kid with two parents and a little brother, without a furrowed brow and decades away from a solitary life on the road.
“Tell me something no one else knows,” she said to distract herself from the stirring desire to rescue the little boy from the pain of his future.
“You first,” adult Jase said.
“What do you want to know?”
“How about, why do you have such lousy taste in men?”
“Present company included?” Lindsey stared past Jase out the window to the parking lot where her hopes for a cross breeze withered in the stagnant summer air. “It’s not a secret.”
He raised his eyebrows for more.
“I’m unlucky, I guess.” She sighed. “Or…lonely.”
“Really? You’re lonely?”
She eyed him across the small space. Jase was relaxed, one arm along the seat back, the other in his lap holding his bottle on his thigh.
Perspiration beaded around his hairline and on his upper lip.
They could be naked by morning from sweating through their clothes and probably still remain respectfully on their own sides of the car.
A couple of days ago, it wouldn’t have been so disappointing.
“Kind of,” she admitted.
He licked his lips. It was hard not to stare at them. They twitched as if with a question he didn’t know if he should ask.
“In Austin,” he said. “Were you lonely then?”
“Desperately.”
He nodded, sipping from his bottle. His mouth would taste like terrible beer and another woman’s lipstick, but she didn’t care.
“What about you?” Lindsey asked. “Are you lonely?”
“I know why you’d think I am, but I wasn’t. Until recently.”
She paused. “Your dad.”
His eyes were cloaked behind heavy lids she suspected were accustomed to hiding his pain. “You want to know something no one else knows? My dad, he—ah—he was my best friend.” Jase cleared his throat. “I guess when it comes down to it, he was my only real friend.”
“That can’t be true,” she said quietly.
“True enough,” he said. Jase stretched his back. “You know, this thing is almost over. Afterwards, there won’t be anything left of him. And I really will be alone.”
“You’ll have Graham—” She reconsidered. Would he have his brother? “Is that why you wanted me to stay?”
He chewed on his perfect bottom lip for a moment, then nodded.
Friends, okay? It wasn’t so bad, especially if it eased some of the loss etched like fine lines around his eyes, and the tension bracketing his shoulders.
He was little Jase again, lost and vulnerable.
There was nothing sexual in the way he took his arm off the seat and set his hand on her ankle, gently massaging it.
Nothing but friendliness and relief in his voice when he said, “Thank you.”
She nodded and resisted the urge to cross over to his seat.
The longer they watched each other, caught in a moment that stretched in silence, the harder it was to keep to her side.
It was definitely adult Jase she was picturing leaning forward and crawling over her.
Her legs trembled at the imagined touch.
His mouth opened and he squeezed her ankle as if he was about to do it.
He’d lower his body onto hers, his hand would push her shirt over her breasts, his hips would settle between her legs, pinning her to the seat.
“Jase.”
Her breathy plea snapped the tension. Jase inhaled, drank his beer, and released her ankle, because friends didn’t fuck each other in hot cars.
“Try to get some sleep, Sundress,” he said.
As if sleep would be possible.