Chapter 4
“W hat do we have the rest of the day?” Crue asks while driving, his left hand gripping the top of the steering wheel, his right elbow on the center console as he plays with his bottom lip.
He’s obsessed with it, always fidgeting with it.
“ I have hair, nails, and makeup,” I rattle off even though I don’t. It’s what he expects.
“Do we have enough time to drop my stuff off at your house before your appointments?”
“They come to me.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Stylists, designers.”
He frowns. “They can do that?”
“For the right amount, you can get anyone to do anything you want.”
“Not anyone.”
“You.” Obviously.
“I’m not like that.”
“If you say so.” I divert my attention out the passenger window because I’m obsessed with that lip, too, and staring at it isn’t doing me any good.
Sucking on it probably would though.
“I meant don’t they need special equipment?”
“We have it all.”
“Must be nice.”
“It must,” I whisper. My mom…suffered. I’m sure there was a diagnosis for what exactly was wrong—it just wasn’t shared with me—but to me, it seemed like depression. When she had her good moments, she was amazing. Really fun. They just never lasted that long. And in between those, when she refused to leave the manor, my father still expected her to look good. Even in her own home, around her own family. So, he put a salon in our house and called in professionals.
Presentation, presentation, presentation.
Blue and red lights appear in the mirror a second before the siren sounds.
I fight to keep my expression neutral as I glance at Crue.
He lifts his hand to look at his speed. “What the fuck? I’m not even speeding.”
“Maybe your tags are expired.”
That earns me a scathing side-eye.
“They’re not.”
As he’s pulling over, he tells me to open the glove box.
“Is that where you keep your gun?”
“I don’t carry a gun.”
“Why? Isn’t that what bodyguards do? Carry weapons?”
“I don’t know. Just grab my registration and insurance.”
How doesn’t he know that? It’s his job.
I slide the contents around. “They’re not in here.”
He rips his gaze off his rearview. “What do you mean? That’s where they always are.”
I shrug. “It’s your car. You can look for yourself.”
He does, only to get the same results.
Where could they possibly be?
“Did you take them?”
I half-scoff, half-laugh. “And do what with them?”
“Wipe your ass with them.”
“I would’ve given them back to you if I had.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You’re poor.”
“Come up with better insults.”
“You’re ugly.”
Crue doesn’t respond at all. He just lowers his head so that the bill of his hat casts shadows over his face.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I clamp a hand over my mouth to keep the projectile apology vomit in. I didn’t mean it, and if I could, I’d take it back. He’s never going to take his hat off now.
“We can’t change what we’re born, only what we become.”
Crue’s words play on a loop in my head, searing themselves into my memory.
Just as the cop’s approaching, I rush out, “Good luck keeping up that optimism when you’re someone’s prison bitch.”
“What?”
Crue twists his head to look at me wide-eyed, but the knock on the driver’s window saves me from having to explain myself. In a few more minutes, I won’t need to anyway.
As soon as the window lowers, I hear, “Crue Brantley…no shit? I thought that was you.”
The cop knows Crue?
“Ronny Veen,” Crue greets. “What’s up, man? What’ve you been up to?”
Crue knows the cop?
“Oh, you know.” Ronny takes a step back to let us marvel at his uniform. “Stopping crime.”
“Just like your old man, huh?”
“Much to his relief.” With a chuckle, Ronny’s posture relaxes a fraction and he grips the door with both hands. “Remember that time in high school when we found those forged hundred-dollar bills and tried using them in the school’s vending machine?”
“We didn’t try. We did use ’em.”
“That’s right. I was on my fifth bag of chips when the principal came into my classroom to pull me out, my dad already out in the hall waiting for me.”
“If it wasn’t for him, we would’ve got in a lot more trouble than we did.”
“That’s for sure. What about you? Where are you working these days?”
“Uh, all over really, but I just started working for Munreaux Motorcycles.”
“Munreaux?” Ronny whistles and ducks his head, catching sight of me in the passenger seat. “And your friend here… She’s…”
At the same time Crue says, “Not my friend,” I stretch my arm out, my hand in front of his face as I shake Ronny’s with more friendliness than I’ve given Crue all day.
“Ever Munreaux. You’ve probably heard of my father, Arthur Munreaux, founder of Munreaux Motorcycles and Crue’s new employer.” Make sure to put that in the paper. It’ll embarrass my father as much as he’s embarrassed me by repeatedly forcing “guards” down my throat.
Ronny doesn’t take his gaze from mine as he asks Crue, “So…your boss’s daughter?”
The corners of Crue’s eyes tighten but he only nods in response.
“You always did like mixing business with pleasure, didn’t ya?”
“It’s not like that. She’s just a kid.”
Ronny releases my hand instantly.
“I’m nineteen.”
“Nineteen.” Ronny grins, and so do I. “And very pretty.”
“I didn’t notice.”
Crue doesn’t even look my way, just squints at passing traffic. He is so over me.
He really thought he could last three years with me.
Maybe he would’ve. Like I said, for the right amount, you can get anyone, including Crue Brantley, to do anything.
My smile widens. “He noticed.”
This gets Crue to look over at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. We hold a heated stare-off with one another, neither of us willing to blink first.
Eventually, Ronny clears his throat, gaining Crue’s full attention again.
“I am gonna need to see your license, insurance, and registration.”
“What for?” Crue asks without moving. “I thought—”
“That this was a social call? Afraid not. We received an anonymous report of reckless driving. The vehicle described was a Bronco, freshly painted, with your license plate number. Seemed someone was concerned the driver…well, you…were intoxicated, which I guess you’d have to be to paint your car like that.” Ronny gestures to the hood, then to Crue. Shifting on his feet suddenly, his features scrunch like he’s in pain. “That’s not to say—”
“All I have is my license.” Crue leans to the side and reaches into his back pocket. “I don’t know where my insurance and registration are.”
“Did you look in here?” I drum the center console with my fingertips, my lips stretching ever so slightly.
Crue freezes. “I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“They’re not in there.”
“But how do you know unless you check?”
“Ever.” Those canines of his flash as he bites out the last syllable of my name, his bottom lip popped.
I only lift my eyebrows at him. I warned him. He had an opportunity—two to be exact—to get out. He chose not to.
“Hey, Crue? It’ll make things a lot easier if I can get all the information from ya now, so if you don’t mind going ahead and checking real quick, I’d appreciate it. I already know you’re not drunk.”
Ronny’s chuckle is strained and has the corners of my smile faltering. How does he know that?
After handing his ID to Ronny, Crue opens the center console, his face losing all its color at what he finds.
His eyes close briefly as air pours from his nose.
Is he an alcoholic?
I didn’t even consider that when I asked my father’s tech to buy the rum for me earlier.
I don’t want to ruin Crue’s life. I just don’t want him to have a hand in ruining mine.
My heart pounds inside my chest, the sound like a train scaling up my neck into my ears.
“Crue,” I vaguely hear myself say. “I’m—”
“Man, I hate when people make me a liar,” Ronny says, his gaze locked on the half-empty bottle. I didn’t drink any, just poured out enough to be believable. “I thought you gave up drinking senior year.”
Senior year? Crue was already drinking enough by then to have to give it up?
“Unless…is it hers?” Eyes relocating to me, Ronny pulls out a small notepad and flips it open to a blank page.
“Yes,” I say at the same time Crue gives a firm, “No.”
I grab his bicep, but he yanks his arm out of my grasp, twisting in his seat to face Ronny and telling him, “It’s mine. I relapsed. But not today. It was a while ago.”
He’s taking the blame? For me?
“But…you admit you were drinking and driving recently?”
“No.” Crue shakes his head. “Never.”
Ronny looks from Crue to me, then back, I swear his eyes are locked on Crue’s scar though.
“I didn’t think you would. Not after what happened to Yasmin.”
Nothing on Crue moves.
Who’s Yasmin and what happened to her?
“But…I didn’t think you’d ever pick up the bottle again either. I’m sorry to do this, I really am, but I need you to step out of the vehicle.”
“It’s all a misunderstanding,” Crue says while stepping out.
“You have an open container in the front seat.”
“But I didn’t touch it today.”
“Someone called you in, Crue. Speeding, swerving, generally erratic behavior.”
They go around to the front of Crue’s Bronco. Thanks to the open driver’s window, I can still hear them.
“Who?”
“It was anonymous.”
“Okay, well, when did it come in? I wasn’t driving my car earlier.”
“Who was?”
Crue looks directly at me and Ronny follows his gaze. Shaking his head, he mumbles something to Crue I can’t make out.
Then he calls out, “Miss Munreaux?” A hand beckons me forward. “Why don’t you join us out here?”
Crue steps in front of his old friend, his hands up between them.
“No, it was me. Just leave her out of it. She’s innocent.”
That’s twice now he could’ve thrown me under the bus but only threw himself under instead.
Ronny studies Crue long and hard before asking, “Are you drunk right now?”
“I take full responsibility for being distracted while driving. You can write me a ticket for that, but I’m not drunk. I told you I haven’t had a single sip, not today, not…today.”
“Hmm, yeah, I guess I can see what had you so distracted,” Ronny says as he eyes me through the windshield. Turning to Crue, he points at him. “All right. Okay. But you gotta pass the sobriety test.”
Crue gives a stiff nod. “Whatever you need.”
For the next several minutes, Crue performs various tests from eye tracking to standing on one leg while counting. I keep my phone up in front of me, acting like I’m watching the screen but in reality I’m glued to Crue’s every move. Just like in the corn maze, he’s impossible to look away from.
By the time he gets back in the Bronco, I’ve shaken off the momentary regret for planting the rum. I don’t want Crue gone from my life, I need him gone.
I do, however, still feel bad about the ugly comment.
There’s nothing I can do about it now though.
“So no jail time?” I ask.
He ignores me to start up his car, then waits for Ronny to pass.
After a wave to his friend, he says, “The flames, the liquor…” He gives me an unimpressed look. “That shit was pathetic. What else you got?”
“Guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”
“ We will,” he says before pulling back out on to the road.
The rest of the drive I have to bite my lips together, trying my hardest not to ask Crue any personal questions because there are so many just waiting to break the tense silence.
Don’t ask.
Don’t ask.
Don’t ask.
“Who’s Yasmin?” tumbles from my mouth.
I sit on my hands while I await his answer.
Crue’s fist clenches the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. I don’t think he’s going to, but then finally he does, saying, “My ex.”
A scalding pain slices through me.
“When did you guys break up?”
“We didn’t.”
“How is she your ex then?”
“She died.”
“Oh.” My voice low, I tell him, “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“How long?”
“Eight years.”
“My mother died five years ago. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”
Crue glances over at me, but my gaze is set straight ahead.
“Your dad said that’s why you’re…” He lifts his fingers off the steering wheel. “This. Because you’re having a hard time with her death.”
This. My father is the reason why I’m this . Not my mother. And not her…death.
“My father’s a liar.”
“So the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
I wish I did. I wish I fell far from both my mother’s and father’s trees. Or branches. Or… What does that saying mean exactly?
“I’ve been upfront all along with what I want.”
“And what is it exactly that you want, Ever?”
To see if you kiss as good in the light as you do in the dark.
“For you to quit.”
“Not happening.”
“If this is about the money, I can pay you. Not as much as my father, but I can pull out some cash to give you.”
“You’re surrendering already? I was kinda hoping you had a little more fight than that.”
“I’m not surrendering. I just…” Don’t want things to get uglier. What tops trying to send someone to jail? “Have a lot going on and don’t want to deal with you.”
“I don’t know what it was like with your other guards but I can keep up. You don’t gotta worry about me. Just live your life, and I’ll be right here alongside you, making sure you’re not doing anything to put it, or your future, in jeopardy.”
“My future?” I can’t hold back my laugh. “You mean my father’s legacy.”
“That’s his concern.”
“It’s not yours?”
“No.”
“What is your concern?”
“I told you. You.”
Another laugh, one much sadder, bubbles up because as much as I don’t want to believe him, I think I already do.
Why does it have to be Crue?
And why, if I’m so spoiled, doesn’t anything ever go my way?